The Rosebush in the Desert — Part 2: After the Withering.
The Rosebush in the Desert — Part 2: After the Withering
This morning didn’t begin with intention. It began with awareness and recognition.
The day before, a message was left quietly beneath my writing. Someone who understood the terrain without needing it explained. The kind of voice that doesn’t reach for language because it already knows the shape of what you’re walking. And as I read it, something moved through me with a kind of certainty that felt both simple and exact. The truth often arrives too early. Not dramatically. Not as a revelation. Just as something that has always been there, waiting to be met at the right time.
Earlier, I had posted a line from James Baldwin. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. I had placed the quote with an image of a horse, its eye turned toward the horizon. Still. Watchful. Seeing further than the immediate field in front of it. I didn’t think much of it at the time; it simply felt like the right pairing. But the day began to organise itself around that seeing. Not the kind that forces change. The kind that simply refuses to look away.
I was getting ready to go for a walk. It was raining. Soft, steady. The kind that settles everything down rather than interrupts it. I put something pink on. Comfortable. Slightly careless. Not how I would usually present myself. And I noticed that. That even in something as simple as stepping outside, there was still a quiet awareness of how I appear. As though some part of me is still orienting toward being seen, even when I no longer have the same desire to perform.
I almost didn’t go. I felt tired. Not the kind that sleep resolves. Something deeper. Tired of trying. Tired of holding. Tired of caring in a way that doesn’t seem to move anything forward. Not broken. Just less animated than I once was.
Before I left, I opened my book without thinking. No intention. Just habit. It opened to a story of expansion. Of manifestation. Of possibility that persists regardless of current conditions. And I stood there reading it, feeling something very clear. Not inspiration. Contrast. Because there is another version of that story — the one that isn’t often written—the part where time passes. Where the inner knowing remains intact, but the external world does not reorganise around it in the way you expected. Where the vision holds, but the structure does not yet meet it.
And that is where the rose returns.
The rosebush does not remain untouched by the desert. It adapts. It survives. But over time, something else begins to happen. It doesn’t lose its structure. It doesn’t forget what it is. But its expression changes. The fragrance softens. The bloom becomes less frequent. The colour shifts subtly, but noticeably. Not because it failed. Because it endured. And endurance is not neutral. It asks something of you. And if what you give is not replenished, the way you give will eventually change.
You start to conserve. Not just energy. Essence. What once flowed easily becomes measured. What once opened fully now opens carefully, if at all. And from the outside, it can begin to look like something else. Still recognisable. But altered. Still a rose. But not in the way it once was.
There is a moment where that becomes difficult to reconcile. Because the knowing hasn’t left you. But the expression of it no longer meets the same response. You begin to feel like something has been stripped back. Not entirely. But enough. Like a feather in the wind with no place to land. Moving, but not anchored. Present, but not placed.
And this is where the story complicates. Because leaving the desert is not simple. Transplanting carries risk. A rosebush that has lived too long in harsh conditions does not immediately return to full expression when placed in fertile ground. It hesitates. It waits. It senses. Is the soil real this time? Will the water continue? Will this hold? And until something in the system recognises that it is safe, it remains partially closed. Not broken. Protective.
After a certain amount of time in the desert, the rose no longer assumes it will be met. It has learned otherwise. So even when conditions begin to change, the response is not immediate openness. It is caution. And this can look like a loss — as though the essence has gone. But it hasn’t. It has been held back. Because continuing to offer fully in an environment that cannot sustain you is not resilience, it is depletion. So something wiser takes over. It preserves what matters, even if that means becoming quieter. Less visible. Less fragrant.
Most systems are not built to handle something that requires time to reopen. They want an immediate response. Immediate output. Immediate confirmation of value. But this kind of rose does not respond to that. It responds to continuity. To be met consistently, without withdrawal, without demand. And if that holds, something begins to return. Quietly. The fragrance comes back. The colour deepens. The bloom opens again. But not as it was. As something that has known both fullness and absence. There is depth in that. A different kind of beauty. One that does not announce itself.
Earlier, in the shower, there was a small spider in the corner. Unexpected. Still. Just watching. I didn’t move it. I didn’t interfere. I just acknowledged it. And something about that felt aligned with everything else. Not forcing. Not fixing. Not needing to act. Just seeing what is there and letting it be. Which is, in its own way, the same as Baldwin’s line. Seeing does not always change the moment. But nothing changes without it.
And maybe that is where I am. Not in resolution. Not yet in placement. But in a kind of seeing that no longer tries to look away. Even from the parts that don’t yet make sense. Even from the fatigue. Even from the question of where this is all going.
As I finished writing, something else arrived. An email. Unprompted. A series of lines gathered from different voices, different times, different traditions — all circling the same truth I had been writing into.
A wise man hears one word and understands two. — Yiddish proverb
Danger and delight grow on one stalk. — Scottish proverb
The reverse side also has a reverse side. — Japanese proverb
What a difference there is between what we say and what we think. — Jean Racine
All promise outruns performance. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality. — Harold S. Geneen
We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. — Abraham Lincoln
What’s important is promising something to the people, not actually keeping those promises. The people have always lived on hope alone. — Hermann Broch
Never promise more than you can perform. — Publilius Syrus
I read them slowly. Not as inspiration. As confirmation. Because this is what this entire body of work has been circling. The gap between what is said and what is lived. Between what is seen and what is recognised. Between what is true and what can be held.
I have written about this before. In the first Rosebush piece, I wrote from the inside of the experience of being placed in conditions that could not sustain what I am, and of the slow, quiet endurance that followed. In When the Truth Arrives Too Early, I wrote from the perspective of recognising the structural reality in which perception precedes collective readiness. And in Field Whispers, through the Libra Full Moon, I spoke to the same tension — the pressure between what is being revealed and what is still being maintained.
This is not theoretical for me. It is lived.
Chiron is transiting my Moon at 29 degrees Aries, in direct opposition to my Libra Ascendant at 28. A lived axis. A long accumulation. As if Pluto on my 4th house Sun, followed by a Chiron-Saturn return together, wasn’t enough. At times, I suspect I’m in a parallel apprenticeship with Joan of Arc — of like heart, it would seem, the same Capricorn Sun structure, the same Aries Moon instinct. Strong signal, questionable timing. I would prefer this version to conclude with coherence rather than combustion.
Ten years of loss — of health, of stability, of what once held. Followed by six years of grief and recalibration, mirrored by a world currently dismantling. This is not a concept. It has been a daily reality.
Over this time, I have watched myself change. I remember who I was. Animated. Spontaneous. Expressive without hesitation. And I can see, just as clearly, who I have become. Quieter. More still. More precise in what I allow to move outward. I have watched my writing change, too.
There was a time I poured everything onto the page without filtration. And then I learned, through experience, that not everything could be received as it was given. So I reshaped it. Refined it. Adjusted it to meet what the world could hold. And in doing so, I can see now that I participated in the very pattern I am naming. When the truth arrives early, we begin to reshape ourselves to fit the moment. Not because we are wrong, but because we are not met.
I did this in my work. I did this in my voice. I did this in how I allowed myself to be seen.
Even my YouTube channel, now called The Rose Garden, reflects this arc. For years, I spoke openly. Weekly reflections. Astrology as it moved through me in real time. But I was still in the process then — still moving through grief, through exposure, through change. And eventually, I could no longer stand behind what remained visible. So I removed it. Deleted every video. Left it empty. Active but silent. Not out of regret. Out of accuracy. Because I am no longer who I was then.
What I understand now is that astrology itself is not simply a system of symbols. It is a psychology. A language of pattern. A way of reading pressure, timing, and internal movement — not just in the sky, but in the body, in behaviour, in lived experience. I have not just studied that. I have lived it. And in living it, something has been stripped back. Not lost. Refined.
This morning, on Easter Sunday — a day that speaks symbolically of death and return, of what falls away and what re-emerges — I found myself considering whether to return to that space. To speak. To be seen. But differently. Not as performance. Not as instruction. More like a quiet transmission. A voice that reflects rather than directs. Something closer to how I actually think, actually see.
I have a podcast space here on Substack, Sunday’s Reading Room, an extension of The Rose Garden, sitting unused. I imagine it not as production but as something more like an old radio recording. Late at night. Slightly unpolished. A crackle in the background. A voice thinking out loud. Not presenting. Not refining. Just speaking from where I am.
Because that is what has always been true, I have never not been this. I simply learned, over time, how to shape it so it could be received. And now I can see clearly: the world did not recognise me. It recognised only what I made legible. There is a difference. And that difference changes how I move forward.
Fatima’s Alchemy was never written to succeed commercially. It was written to hold something real. It is long. It is unusual. It does not fit the format the market prefers. It was never designed to. The reality is simple. I make very little from it — four dollars a book, at most. Distribution and printing take the lion’s share. That is not a complaint. That is a fact. Because there is a difference between what is valuable and what is valued. And I am no longer interested in obscuring that difference.
I did not build my life inside structures that could carry me. I did not have a network to return to. No guidance. No continuity. No support remained consistent over the years when it was most needed. I walked this alone. Not partially. Literal alone. No family support. No sustained circle. Just my daughter and me.
I tried. I waited. I pushed. I shaped. And for a long time, nothing met me. No traction. No echo. Resources were drained in the attempt. And still, I remained. Not hardened. Not bitter. But clear. More capable alone than I have ever been. Honest about where I stand — and how I stand.
In that, I developed something I otherwise could not have accessed. The ability to see patterns. To hold complexity.
To recognise what does not want to be seen. To hear what does not want to be heard. There are moments I question whether that has cost me something, because to see clearly is not always to belong easily. But I also know this: I would not exchange that clarity for comfort.
I sometimes suspect I’ve found a unique niche on Instagram — reverse growth. It’s quite consistent. Followers disappear whether I post or not, which is efficient. When I do post, it’s usually something reflective, which appears to accelerate the process. I take it as confirmation that I’m not particularly aligned with what’s trending. That feels accurate enough. This seems to be my downhill skiing moment. I appear to be winning. I may take the Gold: Moguls and all.
What remains now is not performance. It is a position. I no longer need to reshape what I see to make it acceptable. I no longer need to present it in a way that secures agreement. I can let it stand as it is.
And from here, something else becomes possible. Not through force. Not through strategy. Through alignment. There is a possibility — not guaranteed, but real — that at some point, vision and structure meet. That collaboration emerges not as extraction, but as recognition.
That something built from integrity finds the conditions that can hold it. I do not wait for that. But I remain open to it. I do not hold my breath. I do hold faith. Because despite everything, it has not left me.
Truthfully, the reason I share my stories and write these essays is simple. I am guided to.
And I trust that.
What I walk through, what I see, and what I make sense of does not belong to me alone. At times, it meets someone else exactly where they are. It offers strength. Or it gives language to something they have felt but not yet been able to name.
That is enough. I do not tell people what to do. I do not tell them how to live. I hold a lantern. So that what is there can be seen more clearly.
There is something else I want to say directly.
When I speak about walking alone, I am not speaking from a place of lack. I am not asking to be met in that way. Companionship, partnership, anything that requires me to negotiate my clarity — that part of my life has been completed. Not from bitterness. From understanding.
I see too much now. Pattern recognition is not selective.
Once you can read it, you read it everywhere. Intention, inconsistency, opportunism — it becomes visible long before it is spoken. And with that comes a responsibility not to override what you see for the sake of comfort or connection.
Autonomy matters to me, not as defence, but as coherence.
Life, whether we want to admit it or not, is often mostly transactional, not always in obvious ways, but in subtle exchanges of energy, attention, access, and influence. It took me a long time to understand that, because I wanted to believe in something softer, something more inherently mutual.
My life did not teach me that version. It taught me how easily light can be absorbed, misread, redirected, or interfered with, how not everything that presents as goodwill holds that integrity beneath the surface.
That is not cynicism. It is lived awareness. And it does not close me. It clarifies me.
So when I say I stand alone, I mean self-held. I support myself fully. I ask nothing of anyone or anything, and I intend to remain that way. Collaboration is exactly that — collaboration. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I’m a Capricorn with a moon of fire. I have been a self-starter all my life, never carried. To be carried would feel unnatural to me. There is a difference between that and longing for something I have long since moved past.
For those who recognise this terrain, there is more in a piece I wrote called When Smiles Hide Snakes.
And perhaps that is the quietest truth underneath all of this.
Not that the rosebush survives the desert.
But that it still knows how to bloom.
Delahrose Roobie Myer
Confidante · Catalyst · Clarifier
Author, Fatima’s Alchemy: A Treasure to Behold
