As I pick the flower heads off of these dandelions, it becomes a bit of a meditation. The snapping sound of the head releasing from the stem, the birds chirping away and a dog bark in the distance. My brain shifts frequencies and while my body is in the prairies, my head is thousands of miles away. 

I am thinking about how I want to leave Canada, especially as the rest of the world opens up from lockdowns, we keep getting further restrictions and freedoms taken away. I am smack dab in the middle of North America where the energy is dense and solid. I fantasize about moving to Central America or somewhere where there is more flow, and I could live a simple life off the land, grow my own food and herbs year round, help Mama’s through birth and postpartum, and sit beside an ocean on a regular basis. I think about all the flora I would not be familiar with, but it would be oh so exotic and fragrant and foreign, and not damn dandelions!

I nibble away at the baby leaves, bitter like the truth, but nourishing, and they help to cool some of the fire in me and bring me back to reality. These dandelions aren’t so bad, I think to myself.  Exotic doesn’t necessarily mean better anyway. This plant is humble, abundant, persistent, resilient, versatile, and has a very strong will. All solid qualities. And like me, they aren’t going anywhere as we are both deeply rooted.

I marvel at how much I can learn and work things out through these seemingly mundane and monotonous tasks. But here I find myself on my knees harvesting in a field of gold, blowing puffball seed prayers into the wind, while in service to the greater health of humanity. That’s some good medicine. What other plant will have me doing that?