Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. — Buddha


My favourite colour combo is forget-me-not blue and dandelion yellow.   And Nature has of course conjured these two beauties side by side in my garden.  How perfect is that?  They nod at each other in wind and rain. They light up my day.  

It really doesn’t take much.  Noticing.  That is all.  It need not be roses that we stop to smell (but roses will do nicely).  Just a pause in the dailyness.  Pause and be present with what is there.   Otherwise we bluster through our day, sucked up by the whims of the moment and the winds of discontent.

But I digress.  I want to talk to you about dandelion — bane of lawn perfectionists, pride of herbalists. Its bitter taste stimulates mind, body, and spirit.  Clip the young leaves to toss into a fresh salad.  Roast the roots for a deep rich tea.  Use the flowers to brighten any ordinary meal.

Dandelion is high in both vitamin A and C, both of which boost the immune system and   encourage healthy cell growth.  It also helps our eyesight and reduces signs of premature aging.  And dandelions are brightened with vitamin K which helps bone health and blood clotting.  Add to this magnesium, potassium and calcium, throw in tons of anti-oxidents, and you have a nutritionist’s dream tea.

It has become my tea of choice.  Very coffee-like in colour, texture and taste and a great morning wake-up.

You wild, yellow sun-of-the-grass, the French know you as dent-de-lion, lion’s tooth.   We call you windblow or parachute.  But never would I call you ‘weed’.

 Dandelion is one of the ‘endangered words’ that has been removed from the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, widely used in schools around the world. 

Approximately forty words - nature words -  have been de-listed.  Among the words replacing them were: attachment,  blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail.

You see what is happening here.  The outdoor and natural is being replaced by the indoor and virtual.  The ‘lost words’ include bluebell (even now growing in my garden), heather, also in my garden, fern (I have a dedicated fern garden), adder, heron, kingfisher, newt, acorn, otter, and willow.  

I worry about this generation, and the expanding gulf between their childhood and the natural world,  it is a dangerous direction in which to turn the human race.  And we have not even discussed the sadness at losing the magic of kingfisher, otter, and newt.

So, in response to this dilemma,  Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris determined to make a ‘spell book’ to conjure back 20 of these lost words and the beautiful beings they name.  With their lyrical words and breathtaking paintings, they aim to return to us the grace and grandeur,  wonder and importance of everyday nature.  They have done it in verse and in landscape.  Each page a masterpiece.  I am holding that book in my hands and it has cast its spell over me, along with throngs of readers across North America, Britain and Europe where a grassroots movement has sprung to re-wild childhood.

The Lost Words was a gift from my children who understand and appreciate how I am charmed by the irresistible magic of words and of nature.  It actually feels like a ‘spell’ is being conjured, as I read, search and find the words among the letters and open each exuberant poem. 

It begins —

“Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children. They disappeared so quietly that at first almost no one noticed — fading away like water on stone.  The words were those that children used to name the natural world around them: acorn, adder, bluebell, bramble, conker — gone!  Fern, heather, kingfisher, otter, raven, willow, wren — all of them gone!  The words were becoming lost: no longer vivid in children’s voices, no longer alive in their stories . . . “

And now I will skip to the last page and the invitation to teachers, offered here::

A free “explorer’s Guide to The  Lost Words”, written by Eva John and intended especially (but not only) for use by teachers and educators, can be downloaded from:

www.johnmuirtrust.org/initiative/the-lost-words

                Teaching children about nature should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.  — Thomas Berry