Milkweed pods – Photo: L. Weikel

Wishes   

A favorite memory of mine from my childhood is catching a floating milkweed seed, cupping it in my little girl hands, making a wish – and then **POOF** – blowing it into the breeze.

I would make a point of watching to make sure the seed floated away, which was not always a given. At least half the time, my hands would’ve squished the fluffy part attached to the seed, and maybe even dampened and matted it a bit, making it harder for it to stay aloft.

I always took those wishes very seriously. Just like the wishes made on the candles of one’s birthday cake. This was not stuff to be trifled with – I was never one to squander a wish on something simple like extra cookies for dessert or something. No.

Responsibility

I’m sort of surprised at how genuinely seriously I took the wish-making responsibility. I wonder where that sense of being aware of the consequences of what I asked for came from.

It was probably my next older sister, Edith, who schooled me in the gravity of wish-making. Or rather, the gravity of screwing things up if I wasted my wish or wished for something less than high-minded. There always seemed to be a cautionary tale emanating from her side of the room, reminding me of how everything could easily go south if I wasn’t careful.

Present Wishes

I’m grateful that I was schooled so early in being aware of what I ‘put out’ into the Universe. Certainly, she didn’t express it in those terms, but that’s what it was. And it quite obviously had an impact on me. I’ve been known to just blow milkweeds past because I don’t want to stand there trying to figure out what to wish.

I’ve also been accused of letting the candles burn down too far on my birthday cake as I hemmed and hawed on what to wish for before I blew them out.

The milkweed pods we found the other day, pictured above, remained untouched. I know I thought about Monarch butterflies when I took the photo. And that made me think of Mother Nature in a grander sense.

I know I’m wishing every day – with our without a milkweed seeds in my hands – that somehow we will all start looking around and realizing just how precious Nature and Mother Earth are. I wish everything didn’t end up having to be couched in selfishness and self-interest, as in the way most wishes go: ‘I hope we humans can start to appreciate nature because we can’t live without it.’

I wish for once we could wish for the preservation of nature and all that surrounds us simply because it is beautiful. Simply because it (whatever it is) is unique and precious and amazing in its own right.

Almost every single thing we look at – if we look at it closely enough – is exquisitely beautiful. From sand to grass to the molecules of steel. It makes me sad sometimes that we lose sight of so much that’s truly important by getting distracted or being selfish or acting unconsciously.

Veering Off

I could take a hard turn right now and speak of wishing that people in power would stop for one moment in their self-centered machinations and realize the terrible destruction their impulsive decisions (wishes for more power? More money? More adulation?) may be raining down upon people far away. Faceless, nameless people who’ve had the rug pulled out from under them just a few days ago; who didn’t see it coming, who had no inkling everything in their world was about to be destroyed.

And for what?

I guess I wish the wishes of others might be launched upon the winds with greater care, compassion, and wisdom than seems evident. I wish the wishes of others were wishes that carried hope upon the winds instead of greed.

My wish tonight is that all of us be just a little more mindful of the wishes we make.

Wishing you a peaceful head and heart – and maybe a moment in which you See something of exquisite beauty today that’s been right in front of you, every single day.

(T-780)