Joseph Patrick Anthony

It has always been apparent to me that human beings resist growing up spiritually. We are attached to our own version of reality, because acknowledging that another way of seeing things, and living accordingly, requires that we relinquish what we thought we believed in. It means we have to admit that our way of life was actually based on an incomplete understanding of the way things are.

I realized how absurd it would be if another of God's creatures resisted growing up. What if a seed didn't want to grow up and become a flower, for instance? That powerful irony sparked the ideas which grew into 'The Dandelion Seed', and gave me a vehicle for expressing by way of analogy the human tendency to resist the inevitable.

When I gave Cris the story she became very excited because clear images came into her mind's eye, something that only happens when a story demands to be illustrated. The only illustration suggestion I gave her referred to the child on the last page. She herself came up with the ideas for the dandelion's journey, the initial manuscript jumping from the garden to the snowstorm. The illustrations only took 3 months to complete, and thanks to critical feedback and continued support from the wonderful folks at Dawn, dandelion seeds have been successfully proliferating ever since.