A special room called “The Rose Room” serves as my study, music room and creative space. As I was setting up the room I found an old book called “Mayflowers and Roses – a treasure really and so fitting. It brought it all together with words of love.
There is a room in my house that I have named ” The Rose Room”. It is a study, a music room and my creative space. On the walls are all of the rose paintings that my husband, Mark, has painted for me through the years. While I was setting this room up I came across an old book, written by Ena Constance Barrett in 1946 called “Mayflowers and Roses”. It’s pages are no longer crisp and new but it’s words are timeless.
On the dedication page this is written:
Mayflowers for the new land
Roses for the old
Each in fragrance blooming
As their buds unfold.
Wide the grey Atlantic
spreads its strength between
Yet the good Lord giveth
Each its rest of green.
Dear friends of the new land
Dear Friends of the old
Hid within these pages
my love for you is told.
I have culled a bouquet
from my heart for you
of roses for the old land
and mayflowers for the new.
As I read these words I heard, not her voice, but that of the universe, holy mystery, speaking words to my heart of love and light. Drawn to the imagery of old and new I knew a truth that lies at the centre of who we are. We continually live in that space of what was and what is and both call to us, shaping and molding our existence. They cannot be separated but are woven together in a bouquet of possibility and promise. Each of us is given our own fragrance and our own space for blooming, held always in the arms of divine love. The pages that tell of this love for us are found in creation and in the story of daily living.
Blessings
Valerie