Rose Medicine

The best way to understand a plant’s gift is to experience it with all your senses. Rose Medicine was a gentle, immersive gathering inspired by the self-love and mindfulness that wild roses so generously offer.

To invite guests, I tied pink ribbons with invitations printed on them to fresh-cut roses and left them in bustling public places—college campuses during finals week, downtown business corridors—beneath a sign that read: “Feeling stressed? Take time to smell a rose.” Other guests were selected through heartfelt reflections on why they needed a pause from the pace of everyday life.

We gathered in a quiet glade blooming with wild roses and anchored by towering, hand-sculpted roses I had created—larger-than-life blossoms that blurred the line between reality and fairy tale. Each guest was served on a porcelain plate I had sculpted to resemble rose petals, their pinks and peaches gently marbled in the clay itself, their soft satin finish inviting touch as much as taste.

Through a carefully-created ceremonial event, guests were able to do a rose petal tea tasting and talk about their first impressions of rose medicine. Then, we did a tasting of 5 rose-filled treats (both sweet and savory) to further explore the range of roses in culinary applications. Guests were then invited to forage wild rose petals and make their own rose salt and rose sugar to take home as mementos of the occasion, grounding the beauty of the experience in their everyday lives. We ended in stillness, with a meditation on the rose’s teachings—its softness and strength, its fragrance and thorns. My hope was that each guest would carry that quiet joy with them long after the petals had fallen.