Lion’s Tooth Tenacity.
A few dandelions have popped up in my front yard and have inspired me to take a moment to celebrate this early spring healer. Dandelions (from ‘dent de lion’ or ‘lion’s tooth’) are old and important medicine. Early to arrive in the spring, they bring up much needed vitamins and minerals from deep in the earth through their strong taproots. Calcium, iron, potassium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, etc. This naturalized plant (a plant that is not native, however, has found a friendly-enough place in the local community) offers a much needed early spring boost of warm colour and potent resources for humans, creatures, and soil as we all begin a new cycle.
Their taproots are ‘front-line workers’ in distressed soils: they break up compacted, dry, and under resourced earth so air, water, and earthworms can move in and begin to also revitalize. Their blooms and complete edibility offer resources for pollinators, animals, and humans. And when these plants decompose, they offer minerals and nourishment to the soil’s surface.
When I see dandelions, I feel a glow in my chest and belly. When dandelions arrive in yards, concrete cracks, and fields dry and tired from intensive agriculture, I see vibrant little signs that disrupted ecosystems are moving towards reclamation and repair.
To shift this conversation to the erotic and the body - no matter our causes & conditions, we all have patches, fields, lawns, or continents of landscape that may similarly feel compacted, neglected, or overworked. At times It might feel complex to survey the reality of ‘what is’ in our landscapes - to sit on the ground holding a handful of soil and wonder what in the world it is that we’re ‘supposed to do’.
Perhaps imagine for a moment that there are dandelions budding and rising up in the soil of your body. That there are revitalizing glimmers of pleasure, of sensuality, of eroticism. Maybe there’s sweet patches of dandelions. Maybe there’s one poetic loner in a sidewalk crack. Maybe there’s a radiant meadow. What would happen if you welcomed these moments of pleasure, sensuality, and eroticism? If you allowed their roots to pull nourishment up from deep within? If you tasted their nectar and nutrients? If you smiled at their plump sweet rays of sunshine? If you let them spread?
What would happen if you offered the dandelions in your soil the gift of your encouragement and protection? They’re tough and hardy - they don’t need fussing. But they do need to be saved from weeding, and to be understood as allies on a healing path.
The same can be said of your pleasure. No matter how it shows up - no matter if you think your pleasure and eroticism is supposed to be more like a rose or a tulip or a peony - it is exactly what it is. Your pleasure is unique and wild natural medicine. It arrives with the healing properties and lion’s tooth tenacity of the dandelion. What would happen if you stepped back and watched your dandelions as they grew, bloomed, and went to seed? How would it feel to watch seeds of repair and growth spread like little clouds across your skin and soul?