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.