Defiant Wisdom

Category: Chronicle

A timeline of truth. Every entry, in date order—dreams, memories, moments, and meaning. Track the unfolding, the patterns, the pivots. This is the whole thread, stitched one day at a time.

  • Dandelion Tears | Reclaiming Resilience in Ruins

    Dandelion Tears | Reclaiming Resilience in Ruins

    Dandelion and I go way back.
    As a council kid in the Liverpool suburbs, I knew that if the juice from her stem touched your skin, you’d wet the bed.

    Too bad for me—and much to my mum’s despair—I was already a well-established piss artist, so couldn’t put her magic to the test.
    (Though I would’ve. Absolutely.)

    Dandelions were everywhere, making their disobedience known like graffiti on a pebble-dashed wall.
    They rooted between paving slabs and piles of white dog shit, barged into playgrounds, loitered in the back alleys I wasn’t meant to be playing in.

    And when their heads exploded, we didn’t need persuasion.
    Cheeks puffed out, we told the time.
    “Should we go home?”
    “Nah, not yet.”

    Back then I didn’t realise she was following me.
    Or was she waiting?

    By the time I truly met her—eye to eye, forty years later—I was on a herbalist’s path not by choice, but by breakdown.
    My body was sulking, my brain a blue screen.

    I’d arrived on the island of Arran, just off the coast of Glasgow.
    It was a three-week immersion, part of a year-long herbal apprenticeship.
    We were tasked with studying a single herb during our stay.

    I chose Dandelion.
    No brainer.
    I wanted to learn why she was a piss-the-bed—
    and maybe why I had been too.

    By now, Taraxacum officinale is the queen of herbs to me.
    She’s transcended her reputation as the annoying gatecrasher at my manicured garden party.
    Now I see her for what she was: a relentless invitation, blooming in every cracked corner of the grey city I grew up in.
    Her persistent presence, a perpetual inconvenience.

    After ignoring and persecuting her for most of my life, we were finally introduced properly—through tea, made from her fresh roots.

    Despite it being spring—when now I know you’d expect the roots to be bitter—her tea was sweet.
    Sweeter than I expected. Especially when I didn’t know what to expect.
    It made me pause.

    My notes from this meeting are raw.
    Her voice was loud as she started the conversation:

    —

    You underestimate me.
    I am here.
    Persistent.
    Resilient.
    Protector, companion.
    Adaptable.

    Suncatcher.

    Let me blow the cobwebs away.
    I bring life. I bring vitality.
    I’ll grant your wishes.
    I embrace.

    I hold you.

    I nourish.
    I am the magic of intentional and practical transformation.
    I sit at the boundary of water and fire.
    I move.
    I am Brigid.
    I am the May Queen.

    —

    Her taste: oats, milk, and honey.
    Her song: A Sky of Honey by Kate Bush.
    (Of course. Who else sings about the day in forty minutes?)

    As I learned, Dandelion rids the body of toxicity—mostly via the liver.
    Her bitterness reminds us of the sweetness life can hold if we allow it.
    She helps us let go of physical and emotional waste—through tears, urine, faeces.

    She was my first guide.
    Her real name? Defiant wisdom.

    She came to me in the form of Temperance—a tarot card.
    In this deck, she was Brigid at her cauldron, transforming fire and water into spiritual elixir.

    Alchemy.

    Temperance is a card of balance. It urges us to merge our opposing forces, to practice moderation, patience, healing, and growth.
    Brigid is a natural fit—goddess of fire and water, a bridge between darkness and light.

    I was being asked to do the same.
    To reconcile the warring elements in me.
    Fire and water.
    Passion and sensitivity.
    Impulsivity and connection.

    I’d always been a feral child—an emotionally virulent one.
    They used to call me Miss Electric.
    The feral child got locked away, but the emotions?
    Still joyriding.
    Still burning through my guts for fun.

    My meeting with Dandelion was profound.
    Her tincture: bitter.
    I took her home, and she took me on a journey.

    Dandelion didn’t just purge the shit from my body—
    she purged my life.

    —

    Within twelve months, everything had changed.
    I’d set up as a freelancer to make space for herbal study.
    Started volunteering—first as an apiarist, then as a mental health peer supporter.

    But the herbal school?
    The wrong lighthouse.

    The misalignment showed up almost right away.
    I raised concerns.
    I got dismissals.

    By Christmas, my body had started speaking.
    First a cough that gripped me for a month.
    Then my gut joined in—old pain, old patterns.

    And then? A bombshell.
    The school announced it was “going independent.”

    I sat blinking.
    Some cheered.
    I side-eyed.

    I’d chosen this school for its affiliations. That benchmark was gone.
    I felt a culture of compliance around me.
    I walked out—an outlier.
    Confused, but clear.

    Fury bubbled up.
    I fermented like unburped kimchi preparing to explode.

    —

    I continued south to Cornwall.
    A family holiday.
    It should’ve been restful.
    Instead, my body did what my mouth hadn’t.

    I dragged myself through the days.
    Body cold. Face on fire.
    Ears weeping.
    Skin tearing under fingernails at night.
    Mouth full of ulcers.
    Every bite hurt.

    Go see a GP, the herbs said, recoiling at the mess.

    So I made my move.
    Interviewed at a new school.
    Got a place.
    Accepted.

    —

    As my last school days approached, I decided to make a Dandelion root percolation—
    a parting gift for my classmates.

    Percolating herbs is fiddly.
    You grind, soak, pack, then pour.

    Despite having done this many times, my percolation failed.
    I’d packed her too tight.
    She was as constipated as I was.

    I pierced the root with a skewer. Gently.
    Just enough to breathe.
    Not enough to stir up a shitstorm.

    Not everything has to be destroyed when it doesn’t work.
    Sometimes things just need to breathe.

    —

    I named the tincture Dandelion Tears.
    On the label, I inscribed:

    A failed percolation of Dandelion root. Born not of precision but of perseverance, much like the flower herself. Proof that even among ruins, something stubborn can still be reclaimed. Use whenever resilience must answer your call.

    Even in concrete, Dandelion always finds the smallest crack to escape from.
    She always gets through.

    —

    My last day at school arrived.
    The next chapter stared me dead in the eye.

    It wasn’t going to be easy.
    It was further away.
    More demanding.

    But stay where I was? No way.

    I was tempered to this new path.
    But what if I wasn’t ready?

    Then get ready.

    —

    I chose not to finish the school year or sit exams.
    My experience needed time to rest and repair before I walked the path again.

    I took nothing away but the lessons I’d learned—
    and the medicine I’d made in spite of it all.

    I didn’t owe loyalty to any institution.
    I owed it to my body.
    And the herbs.

    I said goodbye.
    Exited the group chat.
    Thanked my tutors.

    And I purged once more—with Dandelion by my side.

    Still bitter.
    Still sweet.
    Still defiant.

  • When Others Drive Over Your Feet Without Looking

    When Others Drive Over Your Feet Without Looking

    A gentle descent into emotional gridlock.

    I pulled in.
    Waited, patiently.

    The car park was small—
    cramped, and full.

    Drivers considered their options.
    Eyes: nervous,
    expectant.

    Time stretched
    like gum.

    I had no time to move
    as the truck reversed.

    Crunch.

    My poor little car recoiled.
    We exchanged details.
    They apologised.

    “It’s OK.
    Accidents happen,”
    I said.

    —

    Exactly three weeks later,
    the same thing happened again.

    She’d been panicked—
    spooked by a road rager
    on our tiny country road.

    “My God!
    You’re the second to do this,”
    I said.

    “I’m so sorry,”
    she said.

    As I pulled in, shaken,
    I damaged the other side of my car.

    And that’s when I lost it.

    Fuuuuuuck!

    “Do you need a hug?”
    she asked.

    And there we were—
    two strangers,
    just…
    holding on.

    —

    Later,
    we both texted each other.

    Are you OK?
    we both asked.

    I apologised for my behaviour—
    though I guess
    I’m just tired

    of people reversing into me
    whilst I try to get on—

    with my life.

    Marginalia

    At the time of the first accident, I’d made a mistake on a client job. The client had been understanding, and so I tried to respond similarly to those who had reversed into me. But the bigger picture was harder to ignore: I was just trying to get on with my life, and other people’s dramas kept crashing into me—literally.

    There aren’t many whispers louder than a car crash, and I had two, exactly three weeks apart. It felt like the universe wasn’t so much sending messages as it was driving them straight into me.

    As part of a bigger story, both crashes happened just before I found out my herbal school was going ‘independent.’ By the time I unpacked that word, I was already in emotional gridlock.  You can read more about that in Dandelion Tears.

  • Jimmy | Residual Current

    Jimmy | Residual Current

    I’m asthmatic, I declared.
    The GP raised a brow.
    He tested, then explained,
    “No. You’re having panic attacks.”

    I didn’t understand.
    They came at night,
    when I was relaxed—
    not when I was anxious.
    I was twenty-one when they started.
    They’ve never left.

    —

    Twenty years later,
    I explained to my therapist
    (because we all need therapy, right?).
    I panic after the event—
    shame for what I’ve said,
    what I’ve done.

    And it feels like an electric shock.
    Like being plugged into the mains.
    I gasp—
    just one breath of air.

    “Any family history of electric shock therapy?”
    she asked—casually, curiously.
    “I’m not sure,” I said.
    “I’ll find out.”

    —

    Jimmy was my father’s uncle.
    Twenty-one, just a boy.
    A sailor in the merchant navy,
    on his way home.

    His family wait at the docks.
    But Jimmy doesn’t appear.
    He’s been badly, badly beaten,
    and taken into police care.

    Jimmy never came home.
    He was traumatised by the event—
    admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
    They tried to rehabilitate him,
    but he would always require full care.
    My grandfather couldn’t take him.
    No one could.
    So Jimmy was never released.

    —

    Forty years later,
    my dad found him—
    institutionalised,
    lost in the system for years.

    Jimmy spoke very little,
    and only repeated:
    “You better watch yourself…
    the Newcastle lads,”
    he said when they met.

    —

    I knew little of Jimmy,
    but my sister knew more.
    I asked her:
    “Did Jimmy receive electrotherapy?”
    “Almost certainly,” she said.
    “His records were lost—
    but they said
    he’d had all the top treatment.”

    Then she paused.
    “I never knew what to make of that.”

    I thought long and hard about Jimmy.
    What had he seen?
    What had he done?
    “I think he may have been gay,”
    I said.

    The merchant navy—
    a decoy of the time.

    —

    My aunt,
    a medium,
    said the same
    when she channelled him—
    twenty years ago.

    Marginalia

    Jimmy was institutionalised at the same age I started having panic attacks: twenty-one. They’ve never fully left me, and now I wonder—are they mine, or his?

    When I began using AI in my ancestral research, I learned more about Jimmy through his natal chart. It helped me understand why he may have been institutionalised, and how he might have coped.

    I don’t take everything AI says as gospel, but it gave me a sense of him—and how his experience might echo in my own chart.

    Ancestral trauma wasn’t something I’d ever considered until my therapist asked about it. I never expected astrology or AI to help, but out of curiosity, I uploaded my chart to see if it might offer direction. At the time, I was just trying to make sense of it all.

  • We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat

    We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat

    What happens when the storm breaks before the spell does.

    We boarded.
    Turbulence grew —
    typhoon season.
    Nothing new.

    When the screaming
    started,
    I knew to be scared.
    I held back.
    I felt embarrassed
    to ask a stranger
    for his hand.

    What if we didn’t die
    today?

    When we landed,
    we waited
    for hours —
    on someone else’s
    runway.

    Pressure in the cabin.
    Raised, demanding voices.
    The door opened
    and closed.
    The white guy left.
    We remained.

    Finally,
    like refugees,
    we disembarked —
    200 km away.

    Inside
    people were frantic.
    Staff mauled.
    Like a drowning child
    sinking their saviour.

    Our bags,
    dumped
    onto a conveyor.

    The end.

    I didn’t speak
    Chinese.
    I was lost —
    I watched,
    on mute.

    I never lost sight
    of the man who’d sat
    next to me.

    “We’re catching a cab,”
    he said.

    Five perfect strangers —
    only him
    who understood.

    Our final destination:
    just me and him now.
    Flooded, knee-deep.
    Dark, foggy.
    Silence, inside
    and out.
    Only the low hum
    of the engine,
    and the water
    at our doors.

    From the shadows —
    of our haunted river road
    cruise —
    Neptune’s statue
    emerged from the mist.
    I blinked,
    I laughed,
    what the fuck-
    was I dreaming now?

    My hotel was underwater.
    I had no chance
    of getting there.

    Reception wouldn’t send
    a boat.

    We drove on.
    “That’s my apartment,”
    he pointed to the sky.

    “I would invite you,
    but it’s inappropriate.”
    I nodded silently.

    I didn’t feel unsafe.

    The taxi stopped.
    Like an island
    in the middle of
    the sea.
    The driver panicked,
    unfamiliar with the city
    and the terrain.
    Persuading —
    loudly,
    like only a negotiator
    knows how.
    We continued.

    A new hotel, located.
    Safe, dry —
    but not mine.

    “Here is my number,
    if you need anything.”

    I was thankful,
    deep gratitude.
    I had a bath
    to steady my soul.

    The next morning,
    I met
    to negotiate
    a few more cents
    on plastic toys.

    “I didn’t think you’d make it,”
    she said.
    She was hours late
    for the meeting.
    The floods still raged.

    I was on time.

    I was done.

    Marginalia

    This trip was the last negotiation trip I took in my corporate life. When I found out I was pregnant in the airport on the way home, I realised that anything could have happened to me that night and without a signal on my phone, no one would have known any different.

    At the time, I was only focused on my itinerary, which was to essentially haggle for pennies over toys that only cost pennies in the first place. It was only upon reflection did I think ‘what the fuck is this all about’ and decided this wasn’t it anymore.