Dandelion

“I take my camera into the garden to photograph a dandelion with its blooms inside out, like a windswept umbrella.  It caught my eye because I love dandelions.  They make me feel like sunshine itself, and you will always see some creature resting on an open bloom, if you have a little patience to wait.  This vital life source for all emerging pollinators is a blast of uplifting yellow to brighten even the greyest of days.  It stands tall and proud, unlike all the others opening and swaying in the breeze.  The odd one out.

The cuckoo flowers are now plentiful, too, and the first common orchid has burst above ground.  I wonder if we’ll have more than last year; thirteen magnificent orchids.  All of a sudden, raindrops fall from the few clouds above and plonk on all the other open topped dandelions.  The only one to escape unscathed is the one that caught my eye.

Dandelions remind me of the way I close myself off from so much of the world, either because its too painful to see or feel, or because when I am open to people the ridicule comes.  The bullying.  The foul mouthed insults directed at the intense joy I feel, directed at my excitement, at my passion.  For years I kept it to myself, but now these words are leaking into the world.

I lift my face to the rain and let cloud particles fall on my tongue."

Dara McAnulty - Diary of a Young Naturalist

Photography by Nina Martindale