The Rose of Venus
The Rose of Venus
On the Metasequoia’s message, Emily Dickinson’s two worlds, and the perpetual blooming of Earth
Published: June 6, 2024
7 MINUTE READ
The Metasequoia was first found fossilized, pressed between layers of sedimentary rock.
Its ancient remains revealed that once upon a time, the frozen arctic tundra was a warm, humid forest. Fifty million years ago, it was covered in trees, and every fall, the Metasequoia’s needles would turn to gold. They’d fall to the ground, coating the crown of the earth before slowly descending into the dirt and disappearing completely.
For decades, scientists believed these arctic giants were a thing of the past, but eighty years ago, they were discovered — still breathing through their needles — in the Hubei Province of China.
A living fossil! Scientists exclaimed before rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
They gathered seeds from the last surviving species of Metasequoia — the dawn redwood — and sent them to Europe and America. The tree soon spread through parks and arboretums, gaining the nickname “gold rush” because even though it no longer lived in a latitude of lightless winter, its needles still turned to gold every autumn.
They grazed my skin one November as I walked in the woods. The gentle tickling caused me to turn my head, and there it was — a tree once believed to be extinct, thriving at the river’s edge.
At the time, I knew nothing of its history or its name. I only knew that it was glorious, inviting, seemed to chuckle through the mycorrhizal network as I collected a fallen sprig and ran its golden needles across my palm.
When I returned home, I pulled a maroon book from the shelf, cracked open its spine, and pressed the sprig inside.
Nineteen months passed, and I forgot all about the tree in the woods and the sprig in the book. Outside, the days were getting longer. Pink rose petals covered the garden dirt. A baby bunny nibbled at them every night, yet I was in a mood, frustrated by a society that seemed to be hurdling towards hopelessness.
I collapsed on the couch and pulled a blanket over my body. My eyes drifted to the shelves on the wall, and that’s when…the maroon book winked at me.
Its golden title flashed across its spine — Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson — and I wondered if I was imagining things. But the book seemed to be staring me down, calling me close, and so, at the book’s behest, I picked it up.
Knowing what I do about dear Emily, I fully expected to just read some poems and soothe my sorrow with hers, but instead, I saw a small gap where something was wedged between the pages.
I turned to the opening, not remembering what I’d slipped inside, and as my eyes met the dried sprig — its golden needles laid atop page 123 — my memory returned to me. I could see the rare redwood in Ohio and the horses on the bridle trail. I could taste the cider sipped from the thermos as I sat by the river, and I remembered opening to this page then.
The words felt more important now, like a message.
The title “Two Worlds” stood strong between the needles, but the rest of the poem was covered by the sprig. Carefully, I lifted it so I could read:
Two Worlds
It makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.
Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
The brooks brag all the day;
No blackbird bates his jargoning
For passing Calvary.
Auto-da-fé and judgment
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.
— Emily Dickinson
I reread the last stanza:
“Auto-da-fé and judgment
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.”
And I knew she saw then what I was seeing now: people fighting, people forgetting, everyone buzzing around like bees who’ve lost the ability to see the ultraviolet iridescence surrounding a blooming rose.
It radiates, leading us away from misery, singing a verse in the cosmic symphony, and calling us towards the world that matters most.
☆
All around the earth, an invisible rose is blooming, unfurling its petals in the sky.
The rose is wild, framed by five petals, and while we can’t see it with our eyes, we can trace it with our mind.
We’ve been doing just that, it’s believed, for millennia. Ever since someone somewhere looked to the morning sky — before the sun had yet to rise — and spotted a bright white star.
They observed it every morning for eight months, and then, one morning, it was nowhere to be found. And just like that — poof! — it was gone.
Months passed, and the star didn’t return. Then, one night, the same person looked up at the sky and saw a bright white star. They didn’t remember it being there the night before or the night before that, but now, there it was.
It looked identical to the star they’d seen every morning all those months ago, and they proceeded to watch this new star every night for another eight months until…the same thing happened again. It disappeared!
They waited — this time, for just a few days — before the star reappeared, bursting back in the morning sky where it had been when it first was seen.
They continued observing the star for months and years, noting that it moved from morning star to evening star — disappearing always for a time in between — every nineteen months. And while they ultimately believed they must be seeing the same star, they gave it two separate names: morgensteorra (morning star) and æfensteorra (evening star).
They mapped its movement carefully, and based on their calculations, they could see that the star was moving around the earth in such a way that it formed the shape of a five-petaled rose.
They told many stories about the star that moved from day to night. The star that bloomed like a rose.
It was associated with Inanna in Ancient Sumeria, Ishtar in Ancient Babylon, and Venus in Ancient Rome. And while it was connected to just one deity at a time, the star continued to be identified by two separate names (morning and evening) until the thirteenth century when it was finally given the name we know it by today: Venus.
The star, you see, was actually a planet, and its regular disappearing act was because of its close proximity to the sun.
Today, the rose of Venus continues to be observed by modern scientists, and while they see no inherent meaning in its pattern, they agree — the pattern is there:
This perpetual cycle of Venus is the result of its synodic period, which takes Venus from new to full to new every nineteen months.
During every synodic period, Venus forms a complete “petal,” and at the end of five periods, it has drawn a five-petaled rose in the sky, thus producing a new rose every eight years.
However, it’s not as simple as that.
The reality is that every time Venus is new, a new rose begins. This means that a new eight-year cycle begins…every nineteen months.
If this has you scratching your head, maybe this will help:
Venus was new in 2012. Eight years later, in 2020, Venus was new yet again as she returned to the same place in the sky where she was in 2012. This 2020 return marked the end of the eight-year cycle that started in 2012. One complete rose.
However, Venus was also new in 2014, and eight years later (in 2022), she was new again at the same place where she was in 2014. That 2022 return marked the end of yet another eight-year cycle (the one that started in 2014). Yet another rose.
Of course, because the time periods of these two roses overlapped, the roses themselves overlapped. They shared petals. For every rose is connected to a rose in the past and a rose in the future. They are intrinsically bound — together.
In other words, the rose of Venus is not a five-petaled rose that starts and stops — one after the next — every eight years. Rather, it is a shape that is constantly being created, forming an ever-unfolding perpetual rose around our planet Earth.
And like the Rose of Venus, life is not formed by clearly delineated starts and stops, nor is it ruled by the rigid judgements of humanity. Rather, it is a perpetually unfolding gift, connected to all that’s come before and all that’s yet to come.
We are blooming — always blooming — in an unending series of loops that are full of treasures we’ve forgotten and others we’ve wrongly assumed were lost forever. And while it’s easy to get sucked into the world of whatever seems hard and solid and certain, there is another world that beckons.
To enter, listen closely to the seemingly inaudible sounds, watch for the seemingly invisible winks, stay curious about all that exists on and around this diverse, mysterious Earth, and remember, whether she’s rising in the morning or the evening, Venus is Venus all the same.
