Dandelion
An introduction to gardens
Many a plants enumerated in this short survey will justly be considered as weeds; for the most insignificant […] have the true weed’s proclivity for a dust heap as if it were the optimum of a plant’s desire. […]
The Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, Weber, was until quite lately , included in the B.P. [British Pharmacopoeia] for use in atonic dyspepsia, the fresh root being used as a ‘bitter’. The smaller roots are employed to make dandelion coffee. Leaf as well as root contains the bitter substance taraxacin with insulin; the leaves are often palatable in salads and should not be bleached. The plant was cultivated in Germany before the war, and the imported root was often the size of a parsnip.
Edith Grey Wheelwright: The Physick Garden: Medicinal Plants and their History (1935)
Maria loved dandelions. Several years ago, her father was diagnosed with severe hepatitis and was told that he would most probably die of it. He decided to give up on life, on treatment, on everything. Not so his daughter. Maria looked up hepatitis and treatments everywhere she could think of, including a popular herbal book that recommends dandelions for liver disease. She got her father to eat dandelion leaves, stems, and flowers in salads and drink cups of dandelion tea every day, all day. Her father is still alive. She stopped weeding dandelions out of her garden altogether and now enjoys dandelion salads daily when they grow, with a dash of tomato sauce to cut through the bitterness.
A relational view of the world means seeing it through the relations among beings, things, and everything. It means paying attention to how everything relates and interacts with each other, shaping each other as they go. It means interconnections, entanglements, constructions, co-creations, enactments, processes of becoming, assemblages, networks, meshworks, and webs. Pick your vocabulary and your favourite thinker. Some can make it sound pretty convoluted, but it is quite simple: a garden and a human body are both co-created through dandelions and daughters… and an infinite number of other things and beings.
We and others take shape from these connections. And because everything keeps moving and doing, what exactly is taking shape is constantly changing. Everything is continuously made and remade through the movements and interactions of everything: plants, rocks, animals, microbes, petrol, silver, people, mountains, spirits, gods; you name it: those we know of, those we don’t, and everything in-between. It is a messy movement of connections that we are probably only partially aware of, yet we are still very much part of it.
When I think about it, well, it makes me dizzy.
It is a weird thing to talk about individuals as separate, distinct entities. Whilst we might like to call ourselves I, me, and myself – and obviously, there is a place and time for experiencing ourselves as individuals – there is not much within or around us that could exist without others. Each of us is a co-creation of many beings, and, in our turn, we are co-creators of many beings and worlds. Gardens are prime examples of such co-creations. Whether manicured lawns or spaces for dandelions, gardens themselves co-create worlds. They can feed birds, pollinating insects, and humans, maintain social status, keep us moving, and provide healing. Co-creation, however, is not omnipotence. It is a negotiation between dandelions kept out of vegetable beds and dandelions pushing through cracks in concrete pavements.
Want to geek out? Read up on Bruno Latour, Annemarie Mol, Tim Ingold, Lynn Margulis, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway