Consider the Dandelion

Looks like good supply of wishes to me!

In my yard just now, I see hundreds and hundreds of white-headed dandelions, and nearly as many yellow flowers. I just mowed that thing last Thursday, and with all the yellow and white sticking up into the air, it makes me feel like I didn't do a darn thing. 

And yet, I don't resent those dandelions.  When I walk outside with the dog, I can hear the buzz of bees.  Bees like dandelions.  We should do more for bees of the honey and bumble variety.  (Not so much with the jerkface bees like wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets.  Those bitches are on their own!)

Here's another thing about dandelions.  Some people see them as weeds.  I see the dandelions in my yard as a garden of wishes.  Did you ever pick a diaphanous white dandelion and blow the fluffy white seeds into the air, make a wish, and watch them float away on the breeze?

There you go.  I have acres of wishes.

And I know what you're thinking.  When you blow those seeds, you're letting them go and plant new dandelions, and oh, my gawd, now we're going to have more of those things to deal with!!!

Exactly.

I could go after a woman-versus-nature battle royale, digging and spraying and eradicating these super-resilient yellow flowers.  A lot of people do.  They break up the rolling green of a lush lawn like nobody's business.  Maybe if I owned a golf course or the like, I wouldn't want dandelions there.  My yard, though?  Let 'em be.  I like the dandelions in my yard.  I've decided they're wishing-flowers. 

Here's the thing about wishes.  I make a wish with the dandelion, and blow the seeds, and dozens more seeds go out into the air and land in the dirt and can grow into more dandelions.  More wishing flowers.  And the pattern repeats.  I can follow up my first wish with dozens of other wishes, down other paths and rabbit holes.  I can go as far into the wishing as I want.

Wishes aren't anything, though, without action.  They're just wishes.  If I shift the meaning of "wish" to "intention," and I pull a white fluffy dandelion and give it a puff of air with that wish or intention in my mind, I like to think of it that I've planted the seeds of something big that could happen.  If I then go and start taking action on that wish.  Then I can go out in a few days and pick another dandelion, and whisper a follow up wish for what I want to make happen next.  I give the flower a breath of air, the seeds and my intentions take flight, and I go and take another action.
The pattern repeats. 

Before I know it, I've gotten my Wish.  I've dreamed it, I've spoken about it, I've taken action, I've followed up, dreamed more dreams around that Wish, planted more seeds.  And just like that, Wish Granted.  Dream Come True.

All I needed was a lawn full of dandelion wishing-flowers and a lot of work and persistence.  No magic wands or knights in shining armor or fairy godmothers needed, because I can be all those things to myself.  And so can you, Friends.  Look at those dandelions and how you act around a wish a little differently, and the world starts looking a lot more hopeful.