A weed.

The bane of the perfect lawn's existence, wantonly flinging its seeds wherever the wind will take them.  Eternal survivor, oblivious to weed killer, lawn mower, calloused hands attempting to uproot it from the crack in the concrete.  Never as beloved as the luscious rose nor the frail beauty of the orchid, yet worthy of its own song--a song praising its bounty, a song of healing and grounding.

This weed is more than a weed, kicked about and neglected, but such medicine under the right touch.  The hands that would rip this flower from the ground, happy to banish it from her plot of earth, instead tenderly collect the leaves, the stems, the roots, the flowers--dries them, preserves them.

For she knows the potent magic of the dandelion, detoxing the seat of the soul, the liver.  Flushing out stagnation and poison from the body, rooting the spirit once again to the earth, the ground, the seed that makes the dandelion.  You steep your treasure in hot water and drink the healing potion, reveling in how the dandelion spreads through your body like its seeds spread through the city, finding each nook, each empty space and filling it up with its light.

But it does more.  Once inside the body, it makes its way through the liver, to the heart, to the mind, to that soft space between and above your eyes.  It opens you up, casting aside the glamours of this world in order to see beyond the trappings of the mundane and into life beyond the veil--past, present, future swirl at the bottom of a cup of dandelion tea.

And yet this healing collection of seeds, roots, and leaves, lives relegated to the role of weed--only revealing its magic to those who are willing to see past the limited glory of its finer looking cousins, only sharing its bounty with those ready to be nourished, to be healed.