A note on violets (and grief)

May has arrived.

The grass grows wild in our front yard, but I am not allowed to touch it until the violets are gone.

Every spring, they pop up by the dozen and my kids pick them to make bouquets, or eat them as a tiny snack. Despite the shaggy lawn, I have strict instructions to wait until the violets have faded before I mow.

And so, I obey.

Long ago, my favorite yoga teacher told me that the violets that bloom in spring represent "unexplained grief," the kind that comes out of the blue for no reason. I didn't fully grasp what she was talking about at the time.

Decades later, after becoming a mother, losing both my parents, and deepening into embodied practice, I understand more intimately the ways in which grief moves through us—rearranging the landscape inside, asking us to grow around it.

There is no linear timeline on grief. It disappears for days, weeks, even years, then returns suddenly with no warning, on an ordinary weekday, in line at the grocery store, or even in the middle of a yoga class.

There is grief in the blooming, there always has been.

It's easy to want to push big feelings aside, to box them up for later—especially when they come at inconvenient times.

We tell ourselves we'll deal with it later. But later never comes.

Maybe we think that because we still feel sad, there is something wrong with us, or that we are a burden to those we love. But grief is part of becoming.

What if grief is not something to set aside or fix? What if it could co-exist with joy—laughter and tears together, hand in hand.

The first spring after we moved into our house, I noticed our front yard was filled with white and purple violets. I didn't plant them. They were just there. And I heard the echo of my teacher from long ago: "watch for the plants that grow around your house, in your yard. They carry special medicine for you."

In flower remedies, violet essence is used for those who feel small or unnoticed, helping them recognize their worth and offering quiet courage and protection through deep transformation and times of change.

I sat with that for a long time. Maybe the grief is worth protecting.

And so, the lawn grows shaggy, while I wait for the violets to fade.

My kids now notice them in the spring before I do.

"Mom! I saw the first violet!" my son yells, running from the school bus and plucking it to munch on the way home, proud that he knows the medicine of these shy little flowers. My daughter hums to herself while she makes "salads" with the white and purple delicacies mixed with onion grass and oregano.

Some things root so deeply they cannot easily be removed. Maybe we don't need to try.

The lawn can stay wild a little longer. And so can we.

Join me this month for embodied practices to return home to yourself—without changing a thing.

Lucia