Becoming Zera DeRose & Naming of the deck…

Warning…long post! Please ensure you have a tea, coffee or beverage of choice with you before proceeding.

Many of you will know me as Zera Derrig. For those of you that do, you may have wondered about my name change. Or perhaps, you don’t wonder at all! However, I will share my journey of becoming Zera DeRose and how I named the oracle deck.

I have always been a spiritual person, even as a young child. I would often ponder upon the universe and God. I think children tend to because as children we are very curious about our surroundings, but as I became a teenager I went through a stage of not really giving much thought to anything spiritual. In my twenties I would go through stages of becoming interested again, and pretty much the same in my thirties. Though, it was around the age of 37 that I became aware of “The Secret,” as many people did. I was also doing yoga morning and night, and meditating, which led me to think about spirituality more and how the Universe might work. But, once again that kind of waned. I stopped doing yoga and I stopped meditating. Homeschooling three kids was a big job and certainly not always easy. I was back to just doing life.

I am a lover of French and shabby chic decor, and anything to do with roses, especially the David Austen varieties. I am in love with their often heady scent and their beautiful peony like fullness. I actually have about 20 roses in my garden, which about 15 of them are David Austin varieties. Because of this love of roses I would spend hours on Pinterest looking at items with roses. This is where I discovered an artist that was painting these beautiful roses, perfect for a shabby chic look! However, the way I am, I always want to do something myself. I see something I like and I think, “I can do that!’ So, I found myself a local art teacher and asked her if she could teach me to paint roses. Hence began a slow but meaningful journey with roses. Even though I didn’t know it at the time. That was about 6 years ago.

Along with that journey I also stumbled across a couple of surreal artists whose artwork I fell in love with. One in particular, Catrin Welz-Stein, used quite a few roses in her imagery. She had also created an oracle deck. That was the beginning of my journey into oracle decks. I have quite a few oracle decks now and also tarot decks. However, I was constantly looking for the perfect deck. Hence I decided to create my own, and so began a journey of creation and evolution, (artistically and spiritually) that has been nothing short of incredible and bizarre. Along with life lessons that needed to be learned, and oracle cards as a starter tool for helping me navigate these lessons, I was opened up to a whole new realm of spiritual guidance. I slowly started to notice repetitive numbers and other little synchronicities. I suddenly realised that someone, Spirit, was trying to get my attention. Spirit for me encompasses a whole team consisting of God, Jesus, Mother Mary, Mary, the Magdalene, angels, guides and loved ones, particularly my mom. Though this team was an evolving expansion as well. You can imagine, however, that asking all of them for their help was quite a mouthful. I knew of another medium that had a nickname for her spiritual guides, and I thought I should do the same. After debating within myself what a suitable name might be that “They” would all be happy with, I came up with the name A.C.E. So, to seek their approval I asked them to give me a sign. Well, as it should so happen, that very afternoon I got my first sign. I passed a car with ACE on it. Then I saw ‘ACE’ again a few times over the next several days. That was about 2 years ago.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a really difficult day. I hadn’t been using the name ACE for awhile now, instead working more individually with whoever I need to at the time. I was taking my daughter to her horse riding lesson. Normally she would hop out of the car to open the gates. She didn’t feel like doing it and made some lame excuse about why she was too busy to open them, so I rolled my eyes and jumped out to do it myself. When I had first pulled into the driveway I noticed a Coke can lying on the ground. I didn’t give it much thought. I opened the gate and started walking back towards the car and noticed the Coke can again. In big letters across the side of the can was the word “ACE!” I smiled and whispered “Thank you.”

This is just a fraction of the synchronicity I have experienced in the last 2-3 years. Some days the synchronicities and signs are off the chart, and other days it might be a simple feather. The point is that it does happen, especially when we become consciously aware of it. I have had signs that leave me standing there absolutely dumbfounded. I have had signs that make me burst into laughter. I have had signs come in at the most inappropriate time. To me it was hilarious because I understood the message, but the person I was trying to have a serious conversation with at the time would not have appreciated my laughter. The message was in the form of a song playing in the background. Later as I was driving alone in the car I told ACE how inappropriate their message was, even though it was quite funny. They had the last laugh by the way, because after I finished berating them, I put the radio on. Well, lo and behold, it was THAT song playing on the radio! What else could I do other than laugh?! They, Spirit, definitely have a great sense of humour.

Anyway, continuing on with the deck, I started to realise that maybe it needed to be a tool for connecting with ourselves, our higher self and of course God. It needed to be a tool for encouraging self love. In the process of creating this deck I had been having healing sessions. In those sessions I was told each time my sense of self worth was very low. This was from a couple of different healers, but they all said the same thing, and I knew this was true, because every time I heard how low my self worth was, I would cry. Each time it would trigger me. I then started seeing and hearing about self love and how important it is. But, self love is more than just pampering yourself or sitting down to read a book whilst having a cup of herbal tea. Yes, those little things are important too, but sometimes loving yourself means you have to face something deeper and darker. When you do that you can begin to get to the core of low self worth. You start to see that a lot of your fears link directly to your self worth. I will share a personal experience that triggered me only a couple of days ago.

With the release of my deck coming up and by exposing myself, my inner thoughts, and my channeled messages to people on the internet, my self worth button was triggered. All of my doubts came to the surface. I was so worried about how my posts would be received. Would anyone actually read it, or would it be of any benefit to anyone? Who the heck am I anyway to be giving advice? What if no one likes it or comments? With all of this running through my head, I started to feel anxious and unsure of myself. Even preparing this post filled me with doubt. So, I sat with it. I then realised that I was measuring my worth on how others might measure it. But, you really have to love Spirit. As signs go, a post came up on my feed and said something along the lines of, “What you are doing is important and of value. Do not worry about how many people like it. The people who need your messages are receiving it…” and yesterday another post appeared about becoming the leader you came here to be…the situation is calling you to speak your truth powerfully. There are others who need to hear your message and are waiting for you to show them a way…”

However, the best validation that I am on the path that I am meant to be on came from a lovely fellow artist friend who said, “This is so appropriate for me! Oh Zera, thanks for your love and dedication to bring forth beauty, healing and inspiration! I needed this…” I felt so honoured and humbled in that moment. If I have helped one person, then together, her and I, through raising our own vibration and bringing in healing for ourselves, there will be a flow on effect. If we can help one person each, what would that achieve on a greater scale? What can sending loving intentions to one achieve if we are all doing it? By the way, my friend went on to create a beautiful piece of artwork afterwards!

It made me realise that Spirit thought I was worthy enough to deliver their message, and that I should have enough belief and faith in my own worth too.

I am going to try and get back to the naming of the deck! With the above information in mind, I had originally intended to call the deck, “ Romancing the Soul.” I even bought the domain name. While I was still creating the deck, I started to feel like my name had to be something else. I messaged a friend of mine who is writing a book and asked her opinion on an alias name. Firstly, I love all things French. One of my dream destinations has been France for as long as I can remember. So, she joked around saying it would have to be a French name of course! She then proceeded to send me a link to a list of French names. As I was going through the names, DeRose jumped out at me. Zera DeRose! That was it. My friend loved it, I loved it and so it became.

Some little facts you should know…I wear rose coloured glasses. The deck is full of roses. I drink Rosé wine. I love rose pink and as you already know, I love roses, especially pink ones! I have had DeRose in place secretly for about three months. About one month ago my daughter and I were at a crystal and gem show. She had gone off with her friends to browse at the crystals. When she came back she had bought me an early birthday present. It was a carved white rose. It’s absolutely lovely. It had provision to wear it as a necklace, which I knew my daughter wanted me to wear it as such, but I kept it with my crystals and cards initially. Every time my daughter looked at it she kept saying that I could make it into a necklace. I kept saying maybe one day. One day came!

I was out one day and met someone I didn’t know. I wish I could say it was a pleasant meeting, but it most certainly wasn’t. I actually became very unsettled and agitated in this person’s company. I was in such a state of unease like I had never experienced before. I even ended up having bad dreams about that person that night. The next day I was looking at the rose my daughter had given me. I suddenly sensed that it somehow represented me. That night I placed the rose on my bedside table and surrounded it with protective crystals and rose quartz (for love), and a cherub. I also prayed for protection as I went to sleep. I had a very peaceful sleep, which was a relief! After that, I decided to wear that rose. I wear it every day now.

Now for the next rose petal in the puzzle…

Around the same time of deciding to wear the rose, I was on Facebook. One of those quizzes popped up in my feed. It was one to work out what type of priestess you are. I thought that sounded quite fun to do, so I did it. My result was that I was from the Magdalene lineage. Of course that didn’t mean much to me, but me being the ever so curious soul that I am, started researching it. I was absolutely amazed. The Magdalene journey is the journey of the Rose! It is following the path of the Rose. Suddenly all the rose petals started to connect. I had passed a car with ROSE on its plates, (by the way, you can get lots of signs from a license plate)! I ended up doing a tarot and oracle reading (not with my deck) to delve deeper into this revelation, and all these cards came out with roses in them…White Rose of Hope, Rose Garden and others with white, red and pink roses. My carved rose and DeRose! Did I choose the name, or had the name already been chosen for me? There were other signs linking it all too but they are personal so I won’t share them, sorry.

In many ways, the revelation of this has now left me with more questions than answers, but I trust that the Rose will unfurl its petals and reveal its secrets to me, in Divine timing.

So…finally to the deck! I woke up one morning shortly after realising all of the above, and suddenly “Oracle of the Rose” popped into my head. I knew then that the name of the deck was now revealed, and the delays in getting it out were all for a reason. Everything had to unfold as it had. There is so much to learn and I truly hope that if you feel drawn to the messages the Rose wishes to share with you via my deck, or readings/messages I post that you will find peace and healing, and self love. I don’t really consider the messages or readings I share as mine. I feel that I am merely one of the oracles blessed to be given such a sacred role. As I learn I will share what I have been taught or shown, with the intention that it will help heal, inspire, and bring unconditional love and beauty into the world.

I thank you if you have taken the time to read this essay! If you have had any experiences with the Rose or roses, I would love to know. In the meantime, follow the rose petals that may fall before you. They may lead you on a wondrous and magical journey like they have for me. Just beware of any thorns!

Love,