Dandelion parable

plump bees twirling on small and humble blossoms like hippopotami pirouetting on lily pads.

We have so many dandelions in our lawn that our neighbours’ fret and beg us to mow our lawn before we contaminate their lawns with the weeds. And who can blame them for their weed angst? We have more dandelions than grass. If there can be a “pride of lions,” then we must have a “prairie of dandelions,” a fact that has not gone unnoticed by our local bees who flock to our plentiful weeds.

“May I have this dance?” asks a hopeful bee.

“Why yes,” is the dandelion’s reply as its tall and slender stem then bends under the ungainly weight of the bee as the the two dance a bumbling pas de deux. The bee rides the dandelion in a graceful arc — Doooown — until dandelion’s head nearly touches the ground and then springs back — UP — as the bee hops off to find its next dancing partner. Waltzing dandelion-bee couples can be seen by the dozens all across my lawn each summer day: plump bees twirling on small and humble blossoms like hippopotami pirouetting on lily pads.

One summer the wasps were numerous and nasty. We erected a 10 foot square tent (nylon roof, 4 screen sides, and no floor) so we could picnic outside without harassment from those striped snipers. At the end of the summer, when we folded up our tent, we discovered a perfect square of grass in the middle of our dandelion prairie. Every dandelion had disappeared inside our tent footprint! Ruling out differences in rainfall and sun exposure, we determined the difference between the thriving outside and the disappearance of dandelions inside our tent was that we had inadvertently screened out visiting bees along with the annoying wasps. Without the bees, the dandelions simply vanished — dramatic evidence of the interdependent web of life.

We humans say “dandelion” to name a plant that knows its Secret Spirit name is really “Dances-with-Bees.” Well, I have some questions for you, my friend. Could it be like that for us humans and the Divine? In an attempt to screen out wasp-like problems, do we prevent the Honey-Breathed Beloved from approaching and asking us for a dance? What if our Secret Spirit name is really “Dances-with-God” and our failure to accept sweet invitations to that Holy Pas de Deux means we slowly but surely vanish?

Every child has known God.
Not the God of names,
not the God of don’ts,
not the God who ever does anything weird.
But the God who only knows 4 words
and keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come, dance with Me”.
Come dance.

— Hafiz

May you always dance your Divine Dance. Whoo-hoo and Amen!

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Photo credits: Photos by jamm at brightheartsinging.wordpress.com.

Poem credit: Hafiz in The Gift,  translation by Daniel Ladinsky. I cut and pasted a copy of this poem from: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=125906576&blogId=379274722

bright heart singing, copyright 2009 – jamm. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) https://brightheartsinging.wordpress.com