A vibrant orb of brilliant, vivid yellow. A thousand small suns dotting the green expanse of lawn.
As if the vibrancy of the yellow wasn’t impressive enough, it then transforms into fractal geometry awesomeness and a work-of-art when in seed.
It literally “blows its fate to the wind”, and yet, has been remarkably efficient at this. A dandelion has admiral strength and resilience and is able to grow almost anywhere. By any stretch of human measure, dandelions would be labelled as successful.
Dandelions are healthy edibles and even medicinal. All parts of the plant are edible, and full of a host of vitamins and nutrients. The bitter elements are excellent at simulating digestion and the activity of the stomach.
Yet despite all these admirable traits, how do most of us feel about dandelions?
They are everywhere , so we take them for granted.
We’ve been told it is undesirable, not as good as a uniform green monotonous lawn, so we judge it. We resent it for how hard it is to eradicate. We resent that we can’t control it and win – but it’s all about perspective.
How gorgeous would this be if you were from the Antarctic and had never seen this before? Didn’t KNOW to judge it as bad? Didn’t know the dandelion was so common and so powerful that no one appreciated it anymore? You’d be spellbound with the eternal glory of summer, of color, of resilience, and persistence.
I’m sure we all have memories of picking up these whimsical globes and blowing on them to make a wish; when’s the last time you lost yourself in this fantasy? Me?… a long time. Now all I think about is the amount of extra weeding I’d need to do thereafter to make up for all those seeds I just intentionally spread! And we wonder why we’re more miserable as adults…
Why is it, that just because something is abundant, that we then take it for granted? And when we take it for granted, our ‘value’ in it intrinsically goes down. In some cases, it drops so low that it goes negative – where instead of simply not appreciating its surplus, we instead grow to RESENT its PRESENCE? And instead of seeing anything that is good about the thing, all your focus is on all the times it is a nuisance, or wrong. And you put so much focus on what is wrong with it and justifying your feelings towards it, that you no longer can even see the good attributes? Good attributes, that have always been there just as much as they were the very first time, but have long since faded from your ability to view them.
What is so abundant in your life, that you take it for granted, and no longer value it?
Could you “forget” all you know about it, and see it through a fresh perspective? What can you appreciate about it?
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I love dandelions, wild violets and all the other pretty little flowers (I call them 🧚♂️ flowers) that bless me with their seasonal beauty! I talk to them and thank them for bringing me joy. I do not treat my yard because I love looking out at a sea of yellow or a blanket of purple. You are right about it being easy to take it for granted. Besides being nutrient rich, wonderful for pollinators, finch food, it also adds nutrients to soil by mulching the leaves in the soil.
Dandelions have lent themselves to many uses in magic and folklore over the centuries in areas of divination,wishes, good luck, communicating with spirits and dreams.
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I didn’t know about the magic and folklore part 🙂 Very cool – I guess that explains where our “blow to make a wish” comes from. It is unfortunate the dandelion has fallen from such glory 😉 maybe it will make a comeback!
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