"The City of the Damask Rose"

            Rosa Damascena ‘Trigintipetala’ is also known as the Rose of Damask, or Rose of Damascus. This original name alludes to the ancient origin of the rose as coming from the small Mediterranean country of Syria and specifically the oldest continuous city in the world, Damascus. It is very difficult to find traceable factual and historically sound information regarding the actual origins, hybridization and scientific significance of this small but powerful little rose bush. However, if we trace it’s path through historical, legendary and accepted religious writings we can see that it traveled with the expansion of the Islamic society from Persia and the Middle East into Spain and Europe and then by following Mystic Catholicism’s Account of The Lady of Guadeloupe we can even make a connection between Spain and Mexico, albeit a purely spiritual and miraculous connection. Most specifically this connection shows a relationship between this lovely ancient Rose and the Saints from at least two of the Abrahamic traditions, Islam and Christianity. Read about the Miracle of Roses.

2012  Our beloved city of Damascus has entered what I term, 'Deep Winter.' It was with such a heavy sadness that we had to leave our adopted home. We are Americans but we came to love and cherish the people and the land known in the prophets tradition as Sham Sahreef. We pray everyday for a solution to the conflict and for the end of the reign of terror which threatens so many that we love. May Allah be with you all and may the house of Taha rise up and be victorious over the darkness of tyranny!

"By the glorious morning light

and by the night when it is still

Know that they guardian Lord has not forsaken thee

Nor is he displeased..." The Holy Koran Sura 93

Our hearts are with you!

A story from my heart...     "The City of the Damask Rose"  Written in 2010

Damascus Syria is said to be the oldest continuous city on the planet today. It has been continually inhabited for at least 7000 years. Some people believe it to be the original site of the Garden of Eden and indeed it has a reputation throughout history, legend and religious writings to be a city of such fragrant and heavenly gardens that the Prophet Muhammad, may the peace of Allah be with him, turned back and did not enter upon his cresting of the Mountain Quassum, because he stated that he did not wish to experience a taste of paradise other than paradise itself. The true reason for his reluctance to enter Damascus is undocumented but it is generally understood by all Muslims that while the city has been traversed by almost all other prophets and saints to have walked this earth, including Christ, may blessings and peace be with all of them, Prophet Muhammad came within viewing distance but never entered into the ancient city.

As an American Ex patriot my world view had been greatly broadened by the years spent living within a true melting pot of cultures and peoples. The faces of the Damascene streets are not the carbon copies one of the other that we expect from a country that seems less integrated. For, although she seems to be staunchly pure bred, if you look into her history over thousands of years you will find blended into her pedigree the faces of Armenian, Hittites, Mongols, Turks, Algerians, Arabs, Bedouins and a trailing of her last occupiers, the French. So, while America has claimed to be the melting pot of the world, the pot in America is still so undercooked that melting has not occurred, while here in this ancient city the blending of ancient peoples has become so complete that a new and pure pedigree has emerged. As a white American mutt of Irish and Native American decent, I am a mongrel among purebreds in this land which has survived the rise and fall of nations and the progression of religions and has gracefully continued to extend her hospitality to the human race from all corners of the globe.

As the sun rises over the city the sounds of the workers coming in from the surrounding villages rise in a swell of voices chattering and sellers calling, buses and motorbikes and cars with no exhaust regulators and trucks sending black plumes of pollution over the crowds. The dense smog thickens as the day wears on and the din of noise is a steady hum as the people of Syria do what they need to do in order to feed their families. My maid, who I pay $150/mo, taps lightly on the door and my teenage son allows her to enter. She begins her work in the kitchen and I am still sleeping. My son puts on the coffee and this stirs my senses. Um Kalid throws open the veranda doors to bring in the fresh smell of air mixed with the stench of mazote oil burning off the diesel run public busses and from the hundreds of oil burners used in high rise apartment buildings for heating oil. That sets me into motion as I get out of bed to close the veranda doors, only to have Um Kalid open them again after I have left the room. This opening and closing continues throughout the house until all three veranda doors have been opened and closed an efficient number of times to have at least changed out the stale air for fresh and to have given us all a headache from the polluted air taken in from the public buses and mazote heaters. The fresh coffee boiled with a taste of cardomon eases the headache and a breakfast of fresh farm yogurt cheese and bread with olives and zatar, a mixture of thyme and seeds, counteracts the pollution with earthy health and bodily satisfaction and the balance is complete enough to say the day has begun.

The call to prayer begins in the old city at the Ummayad Mosque where seven callers call together and within seconds the call is coming from hundreds of minarets around the city. It is Duhur, or the prayer called at high noon. We are just finishing our breakfast and getting ready to go out shopping and the workers of the city are turning in for an afternoon rest. Um Kalid is pulling her veil down over her face and telling me “Salaams” and I have only just began to look around the house to see if she has actually done her job. She is running down the stairs as I look inside the kitchen only to find that she has again left me with at least one thing to be annoyed about, but when I walk in my bare feet over the floors and feel only the coolness of freshly washed marble a bit of annoyance gives way to gratefulness. I clean the dishes in the sink and throw my black silk robe over my P.J.’s and cover my head with a cotton scarf and taking my son’s arm head out into the souk.

To get to the old souk, called Souk Hamadea we must first hail a taxi. As with any metropolitan sprawl as we get closer to the city center the traffic slows to a near stop. The pollution is thick so we roll up the windows of the taxi and hope the driver doesn’t light a cigarette. We exit the taxi at the opening of the ancient Street called Straight, also known to us in Arabic as “Medha Pasha.” This is one of my favorite streets as the spice souk is at the junction where we turn to get to the main souk. And before reaching the spice souk we must first pass through rows of tiny shops selling hand woven carpets and linens. It is usually a good idea to wave down a boy with a push cart because bags become heavier and heavier as we walk the many long blocks where tiny shops line the streets and hundreds of merchants call us to have chi or coffee and try their wares. As we pass through the spice market, loading down our cart as we go, we are entering the soap market where the scent of the Damascus Rose and Jasmine become more prominent than the sage and thyme. I have taken for granted these all natural body care products made of pure cold press olive oil and the essence of essential oils of the rose, jasmine and other native flowers distilled by the villagers and incorporated into these products without even considering the organic nature of things. This is the way soap is made and has been made for thousands of years. The rose called Rosa Damascena has been used to add romantic and relaxing scent to body care products for as long as these products have been produced here.

Used by both men and women the scent of roses reminds the inhabitants of this ancient city of her link to heaven and of the love which flows through her to the Earth’s inhabitants. There is a scent created from the blend of Roses and Jasmine. This traditional scent is called Al-Jennah, which means “heaven” and is an attempt to mimic the scent which emanates from the graves of the hundreds of saints buried in and around this amazing city. Sufi’s who have long been the spiritual keepers of this holy city, say the scent is escaping from heaven to earth through the maqams, or tombs, of these saints. Indeed, there is an amazing scent of roses and jasmine which at times is quite strong and seems to be coming from these holy shrines.

My son Yusef and I have completed our shopping trip and are having lunch at his favorite restaurant called Al Najmah, which translates as “The Star”. Yusef is sixteen and has lived in this city since age nine and is related by blood to the people of this country through his biological father who was from the city of Hama. My husband and I, who are both American, have brought him here because something in his nature told us that he belonged here. There is really no other explanation for our decision to raise him in the land of his ancestry. I look at him across the table enjoying the native food prepared in a much more authentic fashion than I have been able to master and we discuss the events of the day and our purchases, including the antique pocket watch he bought for Dad. Yusef calls my husband Dad because they are as close as any father and son, although they are not connected by blood they are bound eternally through their hearts.

Returning to our fourth floor flat after a late lunch and a long shopping trip, as we round the corner of the building I see roses growing and hanging from a veranda and barley noticed they whisper to me a destiny that I cannot quite comprehend. For a brief moment, as I have experienced before, I know that our lives will soon change forever and a glimpse of the future barely acknowledged causes me to hold more tightly to my son’s arm and gives me pause to ask him if there is anything else he wants to buy before going home that day. As usual, he is satisfied and asks for permission to go play games at the computer shop. He kisses my face and says “thanks mom” as he takes the money and runs off to play like the sixteen year old boy he is....

Just a few short months after that trip into the Hamadea souk to buy spices and rose scented soap and a wonderful lunch spent at the Al Najmah restaurant with my lovely son Yusef we returned to the United States under emergency circumstances. After a sudden and short illness our son Yusef left this world and joined the ranks of the saints and when we buried him in the desert mountains of Northern New Mexico the scent emanating from his still body was that of the heavenly flowers we experienced in Damascus, the scent of the Rosa Damascena and Jasmine blended to perfection in such an aroma that can only be called heaven scent. So saints come in all sizes and shapes and touch our lives so briefly. Just as the rose spoke to me that day of a change and the brief knowing that my young son was not long for this world blew into my consciousness as the breeze comes lightly through a window, Yusef said a few words that have taken awhile to really formulate for me. He said, “To keep love in your heart because it never dies but keeps on going forever” and that “if all people kept love in their hearts that war would no longer be in the equation.”

It has taken nearly four years for me to have the strength to remember that day and to reflect on it and what I hear upon reflection is his last wish was for me to convey love to humanity. It was not simply his love for me but the love of heaven for the inhabitants of Earth and the healing power that Divine Love can have in the heart of the human being. Love is truly all we need to be successful as a species to eradicate war and terror. In these four years of reflection I have finally understood the simplicity of my journey here and that my mission is to convey love. I now see the connection of why I was born in the West and my heart has always longed for the East. Of the destiny of such an amazing and wonderful soul becoming my only child and his magnetic attachment to the city of Damascus because of his own sainthood and connection to heaven.

The rose of Damascus has become one of the most valuable commodities of this modern world. Symbolically love has become a rare and sought after attribute of the human being. Just as the ancient city of Damascus reflected man’s connections with heaven and the many wars, defeats and triumphs she has experienced over thousands of years have been a reflection of the state of man on Earth. So the pollution and chaos of the modern city of Damascus reflects, yet again, the darkness which hovers over this planet as tyranny and war cover the globe and love is as rare and as precious as the old Damascene Rose in the old city streets, hanging from verandas and speaking to us of hope as long as there is love.

If you have a positive story about the City of Damascus and would like to share it please email it to me at info@brokenearthnaturals.com and I will post it here.