Like Dandelion
Haiku and brief tribute to one of my formal teachers for Teachers Appreciation Week and Mother’s Day 2020
Tall dandelions in the alley with short dandelions in the mown lawn—background.
DANDELIONS LEARN
TO BLOOM CLOSER TO THEIR ROOTS
TORN RUBBERBAND MAN
LIKE DANDELION: In the footsteps of Lucille Bertuccio—mother, naturalist, teacher
We are all teachers. We are all students. Lucille Bertuccio (1936-2016) knew this as she lived it. Lucille was one of my undergraduate professors and I owe much of my stubborn sense of personal socioecological integrity and justice to her.
Stealth in aim, Lucille first attracted the curious. Within the school of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, her course title: Ecohumanism. What’s that? Students who really wanted to know signed up, showed up, and finished the course. The assigned reading, books designed to bend the mind toward different paths. Books that were all philosophical novels except an anthology, Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind edited (1995, COUNTERPOINT PRESS). The anthology, edited by Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner, and self-directed readings in transpersonal psychology rekindled my affection for psychology previously dampened by exclusion of the spiritual in an advanced course.
“Lucille Bertuccio’s observations of nature began from the time she was a young girl living in New York watching dandelions grow between the cracks in the sidewalk.”
Many of Lucille’s formal students became to remain her friends whether or not we left town. There are surely several reasons why Lucille’s students grew intimate. Lucille mostly taught by example. So, we believed in her. She was also a fierce advocate of the small and delicate, if strong and enduring—traits that formal students wear by nature and nurture. So, we trusted her with our lives. She knew how to brew dandelion wine*. So, we admired her. And, Lucille shared not only her knowledge and skills, but opened her home, including her worm box. So, we felt—at least the potential to be—equal with her.
Like dandelion, a flower most familiar with adversity, Lucille would not be deterred. When mowed down by judgment whether on personal or professional matters, she persisted to thrive where and as she could. Lucille passed while in her daughter’s care February 2016. She was 80 years old. We’d been out of touch for several years.
Autumn 2017, when opportunity arose to dedicate a regenerative memorial already planted in honor of Lu (Lucille) Rocha in the Gardens at Lake Merritt*, multiple synchronicities were no surprise thanks to the ecohumanism lessons twenty years prior. The memorial garden honors two Lucille’s—mothers who cherished and backed “the little things” upon whom all life depends.
LINKS
Lucille Bertuccio co-founded The Center for Sustainable Living and the Grow Organic Educator Series in Bloomington, Indiana
“The little things…”—Globally, five bumblebee species are listed critically endangered, eight species are listed endangered, and nine species are listed vulnerable to extinction. IUCN Red List—Bumblebees
“Given the pervasiveness of lawns coupled with habitat loss, our findings provide immediate solutions for individual households to contribute to urban conservation.”—To mow or to mow less: Lawn mowing frequency affects bee abundance and diversity—ScienceDirect
Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects: 1. Mow your lawn infrequently or get rid of it—Mongabay News
*Alcohol is poison and recommended in tiny doses if at all—The Maharishi Ayurveda View of Alcohol
*Tora Rocha retired from managing The Gardens at Lake Merritt in 2017 and continues her work with Pollinator Posse.
Music: The Spinners—Rubberband Man in Akeelah and the Bee (2006); Little Richard—Lucille
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