Sky-dancers
The eyes sparkle as tiny hands reach for the earth. Small fingers grasp the succulent stem and pluck from the ground something that was made for picking — a fleshy stalk topped with a ball of white, feathery tufts. The sound of a quick inhaling of breath is followed by the vision of puffed cheeks blowing. The white ball of fluff disintegrates into a hundred individual feathery spirits dancing in the wind. The eyes of the child turn aloft and the smile turns to giggles. The feet jump up and down and the fingers point to the blue sky as the child watches the tiny white sky-dancers fly high into the cloudless heavens. A rite of passage — blowing dandelions with careless abandon. It is a child’s pastime. Soon, that child’s mind will be too old to be so enthralled by such a simple act. It’s a shame really. I wish more of us could still recall that enthusiasm. The world would be better off for it.
Why am I waxing poetic for the dandelion? I’m sure each of us remember blowing dandelion fluff into the air as a child. Now, many of us who have “grown up” realize these things are “weeds” that “infest” our lawns. I’m pondering this because I just watched the child go through the very act. The part of the story I haven’t told you (and it is a part of the story I wish had never happened) is the one played by the parent. The one person who has the complete trust of our little friend. I have no doubt that the parent is a loving and caring person who wants the best for their young one. “Oh, honey! Don’t do that. Those things spread and they might wind up at our house. You know how much we spend on keeping them out of our lawn. Come now, it’s time to go home.”
The eyes of the child keep looking aloft as the last of the sky-dancers float from view. As the parent walks towards the neighborhood, the child comes back from the trance and skips away. The child stops. The twinkle in the eye is rekindled. Hands quickly dart to the ground and two more balls of fluff become sky-dancers. Now I am smiling, knowing that there is someone with more wisdom than mere years would seem to indicate.
The wisdom of the child is something worth pondering. Why do we spend time, money and energy in ridding our households from such things as dandelions? There are as many reasons as there are seeds blowing in the wind. I’m sure you can think of a few yourself, but let me challenge you, the reader, for just a short time. Whatever the reason you might come up with, there are some startling numbers that you need to know.
Each year, homeowners buy and apply 70 million pounds of lawn chemicals. This amounts to about $6.4 billion in annual sales. Let’s put this number in a little perspective. This amount is almost four times the amount that the federal government and all states spend on endangered species protection. It is about $1 billion more than the federal government annually spends on newly disbursed higher education loans. It is over twice the amount budgeted annually for the care of our National Park System. Here’s the kicker. We do it willingly without anyone requiring us to spend the money. We have enabled a voluntary “lawn tax” without any real pressing need. It is purely cultural pressure that makes us want a lawn without dandelions. There is no social benefit to ridding our lawns of dandelions. In fact, the social costs could be much higher. The World Health Organization and the International Agency for the Research on Cancer have listed the main active ingredient in broadleaf herbicides (2,4-D) as a probable carcinogen and endocrine disruptor. Knowing all this, worrying about dandelions seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?
Think of a world where our children can enjoy living around living things. Where the joy of sending sky-dancers into the spring breeze is right outside the door. A world where we don’t willingly spread herbicides that might come back to haunt our children’s health in later years. It’s possible. It’s up to us.