A few weeks ago, during a particularly cold snap in the weather, I was headed up the steps to my studio as usual. Nearing the top, I notice a strange site. Tucked into the narrow space where the wall meets the concrete was a single dandelion head in full bloom. It looked like a tiny drop of a summer had been deposited by my doorway right here in the biting chill of an early winter morning. It was out of season but right on time. Of course, I marvel at things like this. Things that defy the status quo and provide proof that life goes beyond the laws of our limiting expectations and logic.
I stood there for a minute or so studying it the way I study anything that sparks my curiosity. This small resilient blossom had endured weather that left a layer of ice on everything. By any practical measure, it should not have survived or even bloomed. Yet there it was, bright and unapologetic in full color. I’m going to take a little creative license and call it my burning bush. Just as Moses said in the story, “Let me turn aside to see this strange sight, why the bush is not burned” Why because it was out of the ordinary. It defied logic. Well, so did my fully alive dandelion in the dead chill of winter. And no, I’m not about to deliver to you ten stone tablets of commands. Nor did I hear a voice in stereo calling my name. But I did take the time to pause and pay attention. This was a lesson on resilience and inner power beyond circumstances. And this is what I’m sharing with you on this journey.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” + Ralph Waldo Emerson
Resilience doesn’t always announce itself with fanfare. Sometimes it shows up quietly in the cracks we almost overlook. It lives in the parts of us that push toward the light even when logic and accumulated beliefs try to take us in a different direction. We get to the light through the darkness. That little burst of yellow engulfed in the bitter cold, reminded me that we’re built with a wonderful inner architecture; a divine blueprint bent toward life and creativity. We all, every single one of us, have a beautifully brilliant resilience that doesn’t depend on circumstance to shine. We have been gifted the capacity to withstand more than we imagine…and come out as gold. Trusting the process gives us the resolve to believe that challenges are for us rather than against us.
And then when we need it most, something arrives. The reminders I call them. The burning bushes. The dandelions in the dead of winter. The unexpected phone call or that lucid dream. Please don’t ignore them. They are the little signs with the big meanings. We can also call it grace, intuition, or a nudge from the unseen to remind us of what’s already inside us. Not merely to break the laws of nature, but to show us that we, too, are part of something larger, something capable of lifting us up to where we belong. May we slow it down here and there to listen, to see the dandelions blossoming in the winters of our lives. To bear witness to the burning bushes. And in doing so, may we come to recognize the language that speaks to us and directs us in our our mission on this planet.
Notes of A Native Son 