The Wisdom Of The Rosehip
I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on the wisdom of the rosehip and what these beautiful little fruits might teach us about the changing seasons of our own lives.
We often celebrate our flowering seasons—those moments when we’re growing, creating, achieving, expressing ourselves and sharing our gifts out to the world around us. But what about the seasons that follow? When something has ended. When the excitement has faded. When life becomes quieter.
We tend to assume that the best part of our lives is now over, yet the wisdom of rosehip tells us another story—The flower may have disappeared, but its gifts certainly haven’t. Something has been developing quietly, beyond the beauty of the rose petals. Something that carries the seeds of what is preparing to come next into our lives.
As I walked through the park yesterday with my dog, I kept noticing the beautiful bushes of rosehips everywhere. Little red jewels hanging amongst the branches of the wild dog roses—Rosa canina—some bright scarlet, some deeper red, some dark orange, all glowing against the changing colours of autumn.
Whenever I walk past these bushes, I just have to stop to admire them. They make me remember the roses that were there earlier in the year. Their beauty. Their delicate petals. Their fragrance. Although those roses have long since disappeared, the little red rosehips have quietly developed in their place.
As I looked at the rosehips, a thought came to me…that these little red fruits have something tender and nurturing to teach us about our own changing seasons—We are not only the flowers we’ve been, we are also the wisdom that we’ve gathered along the way.
When We Think Beauty Means Flowering
Yes, we tend to celebrate the flowering seasons of our lives. Those times when we’re full of energy and enthusiasm. Those moments when life feels expansive and so full of possibility. Yet what happens when…
🌸 those flowers begin to fade?
🌸 our energy changes?
🌸 life asks something different of us?
🌸 we find ourselves in a quieter season, maybe one we didn’t expect or choose?
Sometimes we look back at an earlier version of ourselves and wonder where on earth she went. The woman who seemed more confident. More energetic. More certain. The woman who could do so much.
We find ourselves comparing who we are today with who we once were and without realising it, we begin measuring our self-worth against an earlier season of our lives. But the rosehip invites us to look again. What if our value doesn’t disappear when our way of expressing it changes?
What Remains After the Flower
For me, there’s something fascinating about the life of the Rosa canina (the wild dog rose). After the petals have fallen, the plant continues developing the fruit that contains its seeds. What was once a flower BEcomes something different. Not another flower. Not a lesser version of what it was before, but something with its own purpose in life. And there’s a gentle metaphor here for our own lives.
We spend so much time thinking about what we’ve lost, what has changed or what we can no longer do in quite the same way. But what about the things that remained within us? What about the things that developed over the years?
🌸 The understanding we didn’t have years ago.
🌸 The boundaries we’ve learned to recognise over the years.
🌸 The compassion that has gradually softened our relationship with ourselves.
🌸 The ability to pause before REacting.
🌸 The courage to acknowledge what we are feeling.
🌸 The growing awareness that we don’t have to prove our worth through constant activity.
These things may not be particularly visible to the outside world. They may not come with certificates, celebrations or applause, but they matter to us. They really do matter. So often the most meaningful changes in ourselves are the ones nobody else can see.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change.” — Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person
The Wisdom We Gather Through Living
I sometimes think about the different versions of ourselves that we’ve been throughout our lives.
🌸 The younger woman who tried so hard to get things right and keep everyone happy.
🌸 The woman who said yes too often when something inside of her was screaming NO.
🌸 The woman who didn’t know how to stop, to listen and take care of herself.
🌸 The woman who believed she needed to be stronger, better, more capable or more deserving.
Maybe you recognise some of these versions of yourself. Maybe you REmember moments when you wish you’d known what you know now. It’s so easy to look back on ourselves with harsh criticism, isn’t it?
🥀Why didn’t I see it?
🥀Why did I allow it to happen?
🥀Why didn’t I do something differently?
But maybe now we can meet those earlier versions of ourselves with more compassion and understanding. Back then we were living with the awareness, the resources and the circumstances available to us at the time. We didn’t know everything we know now. And we couldn’t always see the possibilities that we can recognise today.
That doesn’t mean every choice we made was right or wrong, or that every experience we had was necessary. It simply means we were human. We are human. Back then we were…
🌸Learning.
🌸Responding.
🌸Struggling.
🌸Doing the best we could with what we knew and what we understood back then.
But part of the wisdom we have gathered along the way is being able to look back without turning against the person we once were. We can recognise what we would do differently today without condemning who we were yesterday.
Not Every Experience Has to Become a Gift
When we talk about wisdom growing through experience, it can be tempting to suggest that…
🌸 everything happens for a reason.
🌸 every difficulty is a lesson.
🌸 every painful experience must eventually turn into something beautiful.
Often, all of this puts a lot of expectations on ourselves, because some experiences are deeply painful, some losses remain losses, some things we would never have chosen to happen, and certainly don’t want to experience again.
But with support, self-love and self-compassion we can discover over time that our relationship with ourselves has changed. We’ve…
🌸 become more aware of our needs.
🌸 learned to recognise when something isn’t right for us.
🌸 discovered the importance of rest, boundaries and asking for help when we need it.
🌸 become more willing to treat ourselves gently in those moments when life is difficult.
That wisdom doesn’t make our painful experience a ‘good’ thing. It can’t erase what happened back then. But because we’ve continued living, listening and learning…that wisdom is now ours. And that’s something worth REcognising.
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The Rosehip and the Heart
In spiritual symbolism, roses have long been associated with love, beauty, and the heart, and the rosehip can offer us another way of reflecting on these qualities.
If the rosa canina reminds us of love in bloom, then the rosehip reminds us of love that has matured. A love that is no longer only about the beautiful moments. A love that can remain present through uncertainty, disappointment, change and imperfection. And this is especially meaningful when we think about the relationship we have with ourselves.
It’s one thing to feel loving towards ourselves when everything is going well—when we’re confident, when we’re productive, when we make choices we’re happy with. But what happens when we’re tired? When we make a mistake? When we fall back into an old pattern? When we feel afraid or uncertain?
Can we still remain on our own side? Can we acknowledge what happened back then without making ourselves wrong for being human? Can we listen to what we need rather than immediately demanding that we do better?
One of the quietest, deepest forms of self-love is simply…not just loving ourselves when we’re flowering but learning to remain loving towards ourselves through every season of our lives.
“No star is ever lost we once have seen” — Adelaide Anne Procter, A Legend of Provence (1859).
The Seeds We Carry
And then there are the seeds.
There’s no guarantee that every one of those seeds will become a beautiful new rose, but those little rosehips carry the possibility of future growth, future potential and future possibility—of life developing in ways that we’re not able to see yet.
I find this deeply comforting because sometimes we start believing that certain possibilities only belong to earlier seasons of our lives. That we’ve missed our chance. That we’re too old. That we aren’t experienced enough. That we don’t know enough. That it’s too late. Or that we’ve already become everything we’re ever going to be.
But who truly knows that? Who has decided that? Maybe there are still parts of ourselves just waiting to be discovered.
🌸 New ways of expressing what matters to us.
🌸 New relationships.
🌸 New understandings.
🌸 New choices.
🌸 New beginnings that don’t look anything like the beginnings we imagined years ago.
We don’t have to know exactly what these possibilities will become but we can simply remain open and see what happens. REmember this…our past has shaped us, but it doesn’t have to contain every possibility for our future.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do” — Mary Oliver, The Summer Day.
BEcoming Without Leaving Ourselves Behind
Sometimes personal growth is described as leaving our old selves behind, BEcoming a new person and transforming ourselves into someone different. And although change can be profound, I wonder whether there’s another way of understanding it.
What if BEcoming isn’t always about leaving ourselves behind? What if BEcoming is also about gathering ourselves and REcognising the experiences that have shaped us. Understanding the patterns we’ve developed. Acknowledging the choices we wish we’d made differently. Honouring the courage it has taken us to go forward in life. Allowing all of this to become part of a gentler and more compassionate relationship with ourselves.
We don’t have to reject every earlier version of ourselves in order to move forward. We can simply look back and say… “Ok, now that I understand a little more, now that I can see things differently, today I would make different choices.” And still have compassion for the person we were.
I believe that this is what it means to gather our wisdom. Not carrying every old belief or pattern forward, but allowing what we’ve learned so far, to help us choose how we want to live now. Today.
🌹 A Rosehip Moment of REmembrance
Find yourself a few quiet minutes and just sit with the following Reflections, or journal them.
🌹 The flower
Think of an earlier season of your life. What did you love about the person you were back then? What qualities, strengths or dreams would you like to honour?
🍂 The fruit
What have you gathered over the years? Maybe greater self-awareness, compassion, courage, discernment or trust. What do you recognise in yourself today that wasn’t as developed back then?
🌱 The seeds
What possibilities might still be waiting within you? Is there something you’d love to explore, express or experience? Something that doesn’t need to happen immediately, but deserves a little space in your awareness?
You don’t have to answer everything, and you don’t have to turn your reflections into a plan. Just allow yourself to recognise how much living you’ve already done. How much you’ve noticed. How much you’ve learned. And how much of you is still BEcoming.
The Quiet Gifts of the Rosehip
Today as I walked through the park and saw those beautiful rosehips, I looked at them a little differently. Not simply as the fruits that follow the flowers, but as a REminder of the many forms that beauty can take. The beauty of…
🌸flowering.
🌸gathering.
🌸growing wiser.
🌸learning to meet ourselves with greater compassion.
🌸carrying possibilities that we can’t yet see.
Maybe we spend too much time longing for the flowers we’ve been, without recognising the gifts of who we are today. We are not less valuable because our lives have changed. We are not less worthy because our energy, circumstances or priorities are different. And we certainly haven’t finished becoming who we are just because a season has ended. There are still seeds quietly held within us just waiting for their season to come. We are not only the flowers we’ve been. We are also the wisdom that we’ve gathered along the way.
You might also be interested in this blogpost… The Wisdom of Autumn — Why Turning Inwards Is Part of Growing.
BIG Love🌹🍂🌳💞
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