"The RING — a serpent curled into a circle upon itself — Is a Hieroglyph denoting eternity. And the ROSE, born of a perishable body, Perishes on the same day on which it was born. Thus, because I consist of a mortal body, And an eternal soul: let this be my symbol."
“The rose is without why; it blooms because it blooms, It pays no attention to itself, asks not whether it is seen.” (Angelus Silesius, Cherubinischer Wandersmann)
“The rose had undoubted symbolic, alchemical associations with, for example, the alchemical Pleroma and with Christ; with the womb of the Virgin (wherein the Christ-Lapis=Stone is born) and above all with the lapis philosophorum, the philosopher's Stone itself29. Furthermore, there is the red-and-white rose, the “golden flower” of alchemy and birthplace of the filius philosophorum - the regenerated human-being - which appears in the English alchemical Ripley Scrowle of 158830. The “rose-garden of the philosophers” is one of the favourite images of alchemy, with a many-layered matrix of appropriate meanings. The Rose might have indicated an eloquent and simple password for those seeking the Stone - at whatever level (for the Stone is polyvalent) : including the Stone of political and religious unity.”
The Golden Builders Tobias Churton