On Sunday, Rev. Mary Grigolia shared a bit about active hope, an idea central to Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects. We shared an image of the “active hope spiral” based on the life cycle of a dandelion. The image was created by artist Dori Midnight.

It’s interesting that Dori Midnight chose a dandelion, given that so many people in our area have a frustrating experience with these weeds. For some of us, a dandelion isn’t a symbol of hope or spiritual nourishment, but an emblem of exasperation.

It’s no mystery why Dori chose this plant as a central image. The artist herself tells us: 

The dandelion belongs to everyone—its nature is to be a plant of the people; every single part of its body is edible, medicinal, and deeply nutritious. It breaks up concrete, aerates soil, and laughs in bursts of sunshine in the face of pesticides and the attempt to eradicate it. May this bright medicine of joy and resilience and resistance and indeed, active hope, continue to thrive in service to this work.

Dandelions are food for bees and other pollinators, and they can be nourishment for people, too. Maybe we don’t experience them that way because of the relationship we choose to have with them. Some people see their invasiveness and their tendency to take over a landscape, and in response define themselves as eradicators. Maybe we place ourselves in adversarial relationships with a lot of things. 

But the dandelion’s tenacity could also be a spiritual talisman we carry with us. Just as the dandelion breaks up stony barriers, brings life and breath to soil, and embodies resilience, so might we envision our spiritual practices. 

If we engage only sparingly with those things that nourish our spirits and connect us with our life-affirming values, maybe we don’t experience that dandelion nature in our own lives. And yet, consistent and habitual practices that connect us with our inner wisdom or the Divine have the potential to bring about those results in our own lives. To break up the concrete that divides us from others or from our own selves. To aerate the soil in which our lives are rooted. To blossom with tenacious hope and integrity to our life-affirming values, even if the midst of painful experiences in our lives or in the world around us.     

However we might choose to tend our external landscape when it comes to dandelions, there is wisdom available to us in the image of this particular plant. Even the way that dandelions might rob other plants of nutrients is a sort of truth. When we commit to nourishing those practices that most deeply invite connection, we might find that our desire for protection and disconnection diminishes. We can nourish connection, or we can nourish fear. We cannot nourish everything. Something in our internal landscape will wither if we choose not to nourish it. We get to choose what that is. 

May your spiritual practices spread through your life with such tenacity that you laugh in bursts of sunshine in the face of Empire, and may you be bright medicine of joy and resilience and active hope with a whole community of dandelions, rooted in the rich soil of our life-affirming values. 

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