Dandelions color the landscapes with vibrant green leaves and bursts of gold blossoms. They are one of the first flowering plants to root in the earth and reach toward the sun, celebrating the awakening of spring. Dandelions beckon the pollinators out of their wintery retreats.
Dandelions offer nourishment to many, including humans. Blossoms, leaves, and stems are edible and can brewed into medicinal teas. Dandelion roots are a traditional remedy for detox and cleansing, to release what doesn’t belong in order to flourish and grow.
As Dandelions complete their life cycles, the brilliant gold blossoms become wispy white fibers. They are readying to be released, to let go into the winds, carrying seeds to plant the generations to come.
Dandelions embody an instinctive knowing of the creative unfolding of life on earth. Death is a passageway to birth, endings generate beginnings, completions of one cycle initiate the new, over and over and over again.
When perceived as a weed, Dandelions are not welcome. They are tossed away, not to be seen, not allowed space to move through natural cycles. Dandelions’ beauty, essential nature, and medicinal gifts are devalued and ignored.
Such is the story of Grief.
When grieving is perceived as problematic, we stuff it away out of sight. Render grief invisible. Numb it out. Shut it down. Grief is not welcome or deserving of space to be seen, felt, and expressed.
When grief is misunderstood and judged in these ways, we block healing, regeneration, and growth. We get stuck between endings and beginnings, resisting the passages of death and completions, fearing the unknowns in birthing something new.
Dandelion Medicine has something to show us
about grieving as essential and healing…
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