Found sprouting through the gravel across the street, and painted through the quickest and most dramatic weather shifts I’ve ever experienced, wild milkweed is a microcosm reflecting our condition as we face a changing climate. Will the mysterious sap of our host plan(e)t keep protecting us, or will the shifting temperatures affect its complex and perfect recipe, turning milk into a deadly cocktail? 

The earth is constantly giving us answers. Dropping clues, hints, breadcrumb trails… but the course we set in motion isn’t built for such subtlety, it’s a rather deaf machine, and keeps on churning on its tracks. Like the milkweed sap’s cardenolide in unseasonably hot weather, the machine, built for the comfort and protection of some, may cease to protect even those it was built for, probably sooner than thought. 

But it’s never too late to listen. Take the milkweed’s suggestion. Follow a thystle’s beckons, hop on and ride on a dandelion cypsela, and take in the view from a more rightful perspective: from beneath the plant world, looking up.