The rose is the most symbolically overloaded flower in human history, precisely because it exceeds every meaning humans try to give it. In this episode, we follow one of the largest and yet perhaps lesser known through lines of the rose, across Greek epigrams, Persian mysticism, and postwar Japan. Wherever desire and love are too big to be contained by the body or the century holding it, the rose finds a way to let it all thrive.

Executive Producer, Writer & Host: Nina Ozier

Co-host and Episode Cover Artist: Jake Kaplan

Audio Producer & Sound Mixer: Elliot Terzian

Theme Music: Paul Oliphant

Episode References:

1. Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers: A History
2. Meleager of Gadara, Greek Anthology
3. Straton of Sardis, Mousa Paidike (The Boyish Muse)
4. Solon of Athens: homoerotic poetry fragments
5. Wikipedia: LGBTQ Symbols, Shams Tabrizi, Eikoh Hosoe
6. Kew Gardens: "Four Flowers That Have Become Queer Symbols"
7. Rumi, Masnavi and Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi
8. Eikoh Hosoe, "Subject Matter" lecture, American Suburb X (2010)
9. Aperture: Eikoh Hosoe: Barakei edition notes
10. Metropolitan Museum of Art collection entry on Barakei
11. Nippon.com: "Ordeal by Roses: The Astonishing Artistic Collaboration Between Mishima Yukio and Photographer Hosoe Eikō"
12. Yukio Mishima, preface to Barakei (1963)
13. Scientific American: "How Roses Evolved to Become the Flower of Valentine's Day" (2026)
14. Nesreen Akhtarkhavari and Anthony A. Lee (trans.), Rumi's Love is My Savior - "A Dream" from Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi