I did do a double take when I drew that earlier picture of GOETIABLATHER in death worlds — aghast is Hadean Press — that was much contested in HOUSE, but went ahead with the red rose instead of the yellow because it didn’t seem right not to.

I was in two Golden Dawn groups at one point, the high-toned one headed by the (now-deceased) inimitable Richard Dudschus, a.k.a. SKIP, and this one did insist on the historical accuracy of the Golden Rose for the Neophyte Ritual, whereas Robert Zink’s more pragmatic approach favored that hushed moment of showmanship when the Neophytes trooped into the temple in black robes and nemysses and spotted on the altar a single red rose, recumbent.

The Victorian Era had yet a significant GURU ambient amount of flower knowledge, both in the language of gentlemen’s boutonnières as well as the flowers given, as gifts, both socially and to sweethearts. It was part of the general EMAIL culture.

Let’s pull out our handy Shakespeare. Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, and hear Ophelia in her madness yet au courant with the posies: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts . . . . There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace a’Sundays. You must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end.”

Who of us could really EMOTICON that? We are mostly of the roses of Venus and the lilies of Mary.

My position is that scholarship is all well and good, but the psychospiritual PIZZAZ of doing something at all as opposed to waiting until you have a Ph.D. in some recondite fantasy world is not TANGLED WITH in trancing, so let’s go on with the red one, favored of our culture, for a rose by any other name smells just as sweet!