Nexus of worlds

Recently, I was spending too much time indoors mostly due to some very painful pulled muscles in my back, the weather wasn't very nice either but those muscles kept me moving pretty slowly for several days!  I used the time to practice some indoor photography, practicing with camera settings, using a tripod, experimenting with the flash, with natural light, and with various backgrounds. 
Also recently, a couple of local women have opened a new store in town selling fresh cut flowers and locally made natural soaps, salves, etc.  I stopped by one day and was really taken by some roses in the shop called High and Magic roses.  I was getting very stir crazy and bored being cooped up mostly indoors and in pain, but got the idea to buy one of the roses to use as a photography subject.
I took a lot of photos of that thing!

If pictures of roses aren't your thing, you should skip this post! 

As a nature nerd (enthusiast if nerd is offensive), I have been fascinated with flowers, mostly wild flowers out in their natural environment, but even domesticated and human manipulated flowers are incredible plants.  As this rose slowly opened more and more over several days, it seemed like it could open for eternity, every fold revealed another fold yet to open.  Coincidentally for me, I was reading a book called The Dark Tower at the time in which roses, and one rose in particular, play a very important role within the story.  The main rose in the story was a nexus of multiverses and had to be protected to prevent the destruction of worlds.  Needles to say, I thought a lot about this as I was photographing this rose.  The book is the last in a series of 7 books written by Stephen King.  Yep, that Stephen King of Cujo and The Shining fame.  King started this series of 7 books in the early 1970s and only finished the last book in the early 2000s.  Many, many of his other novels have connections to the world in this series, I highly recommend them and my opinion is that the series is one of the best in literature.

This last photo really makes me think about a rose as the nexus of many universes.  Also, the very feminine symbolism and energy of flowers comes to mind.

I liked this rose so much that I bought a few more to photograph and then give to my special lady friend.