Driving through Easton recently, I saw an elderly man walking along the sidewalk. He went at a brisk pace, as if in a hurry to get somewhere. The man was bent over and leaning forward, perhaps from age, but also suggesting that he was in a hurry. In one hand, he held bunch of dandelions like a bouquet. It seemed odd since most adults regard dandelions as a pesky weed that defiles homeowners’ manicured lawns.
Children love dandelions. They are lured by the dandelion’s vibrant yellow, and will often pick them and proudly present them to parents. In fact it’s only the dandelion that children can freely pick without being yelled at by neighbors who say, “Keep your kid out of my yard.”
The persistent dandelion is a symbol of nature’s abundance, free for all to take. This is not the case with roses and orchids. People are more territorial about such flowers. Aficionados coddle them shamelessly.
Familiarity breeds contempt especially where the dandelion is concerned. This is unfortunate. Dandelions are so ubiquitous in the spring landscape that except for fastidious lawn keepers, dandelions go largely unnoticed. In fact they are survivors, with roots in history going as far back as ancient Egypt.
Dandelions are thought to have come over to America on the Mayflower. There are Americans, like The Colonial Dames, who cherish a heritage dating back to the time of British America. The distinction of being from old families is coveted, and carries with it a certain status; the way, in England, bestowing nobility on a family creates an aristocracy. It seems unfair to me that as fellow passengers on the Mayflower, dandelions have garnered little distinction and even contempt compared to their traveling companions, the pilgrims and their ancestors, who enjoy great honor in our American story. Dandelions are popularly reckoned as weeds, not flowers, which, in my opinion, is a put down. No indeed; dandelions have lived an honorable past and have served a noble mission unrecognized by many.
No single passenger of the Mayflower disembarking in America did as much for so many generations as did the dandelion. “In olden times,” writes dandelion lover Anita Sanchez “Dandelions were prescribed for every ailment from warts to the plague. To this day, herbalists hail the dandelion as the perfect plant medicine . . . a gentle diuretic that provides nutrients and helps the digestive system function at peak efficiency.”
I know dandelion wine is popular, especially in the south. Dandelions have the unique distinction of being both the dog that bit you and the fur that heals the bite. Should you get drunk on dandelion wine, you can use other dandelion derivatives to cure the hangover. A friend of mine, a Methodist minister from North Carolina told me that the buzz dandelion wine produces is “fantastic,” and its derivatives for fixing hangovers, “unparalleled.” Since I was an Episcopal priest, he felt he could confide this delicate matter to me more than he could his colleagues who, as a matter of principle, forswore the use of alcohol, officially at least.
For many years I liked walking country roads in the St. Michaels area. One road had been recently tarred, interring everything alive under macadam. I walked for a while and began noticing small, saw-tooth shaped leaves, struggling through the tiniest cracks in the macadam and making it to daylight. In other places I saw the same kind of leaves only this time growing right through what seemed like an impervious black surface. “Dandelions,” writes Ms. Sanchez “are quite possibly, the most successful plants that exist, masters of survival worldwide.”
The dandelion has two missions in life that I can identify. Dandelions cast auras of grace around unpleasant surroundings, the way kindhearted people do. Dandelions grow heartily on construction sites, and empty lots filled with trash as if the ugliness of our world did not intimidate their mission to bring vibrant color to a drab world. They also give children the delight of blowing on the dandelions’ puffballs and watching as the dandelion’s gossamer seeds parachute away even in barely noticeable wafts of air that will, in some instances, keep the seeds airborne for up to five miles.
Human reproductive activity, while exciting by all reports, is rarely regarded as something aesthetic and except for a very few, it remains a hidden exercise. Not so for the dandelion. The puffball, into which dandelions turn to insure their progeny, is an exquisite sight especially as the sun shines through them in ways that make them glow as if illuminated from within.
Aging can be challenging as the delights of our youth fade, but having seen the dandelions in the old man’s hand, I wondered as aging folk often do, was he reliving again one of the innocent pleasures of his youth, picking dandelions for the sheer joy of it? But why was he hurrying so? To get them into water, of course, as quickly as possible so they wouldn’t whither and they could abide with him for a time.
Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.
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