The Adamantia of Wildflowers
This essay was originally posted March 30, 2026 to Substack.
A holy return to the garden of wildness we were created for.
“You belong among the wildflowers.” –Tom Petty
One of my earliest memories is of my family attending a Pow Wow in Oklahoma. I remember feeling the vibrations in my skin and bones from the drums the medicine man danced to. It reminded me of the way my mother’s voice sounded and felt when I laid my head on her chest. Rhythmic and comforting. Safe.
I didn’t share my father’s tan skin or black hair or hazel eyes. But whatever spirit flowed through the space around me and through the wind as it whipped the medicine man’s hair around when he danced, that spirit recognized me and I recognized it.
There at three years old, with my blonde pig tails and blue eyes, a piece of my identity locked into place. Native. Connected to God and the rhythm of nature and the earth beneath my feet.
I would eventually recognize that same spirit in gospel songs, and Bible stories, and in the middle of the night, comforting me in the wake of a nightmare. It was with me when I danced with joy in my heart, and when I cried on my bedroom floor when that fragile heart was broken for the first time.
It was the same presence that helped me welcome my babies into the world, and the same one that whispered, “look again,” when I met their father.
And, when it was time for my dad to pass over from this world into the next, that same Holy Spirit enveloped me, held my hand, and helped me get out of bed each morning.
I have never been alone. Not a day in my life, have I had to do anything with my own strength and power. And still, for most of my life that is how I have lived.
Not long ago on the way to the Oncologist’s office, I was acting particularly stubborn about something, though I don’t remember what.
“Little Bull,” Mom said quietly.
When I asked why she called me that, she revealed that this was a private nickname she and my father used for me in my teen years. Immovable, like a bull.
Sometimes my stubbornness reveals itself as a brick wall, and sometimes it manifests as grit. Even grit has its consequences in a personality like this. As a young girl, when I wanted to learn how to do something, or to perfect something, or master it, I worked at it diligently. I reveled in the energy it gave me to figure something out or finally get something right. To solve a problem. To be good.
The pursuit of excellence. That’s what I’ve always told myself, but having experienced the collapse of my own efforts, I now recognize it for what it is. A striving, ego-centric competitiveness that slowly morphed into a gnarly case of perfectionism. Mastery of self, but not always in a healthy way. For better or worse, my greatest rival has always been, me.
A few weeks ago, in a twilight sort of dream state, I could hear the shower running as my husband prepared for his day, but I also heard God’s voice in my dream say, “She is like adamantia.”
I woke up at that moment, registered that my husband was, in fact, in the shower, and I realized the word from my half-dream seemed somewhat familiar, though I didn’t quite recognize it. Adamantia.
It’s the type of word you need eyes to see and ears to hear its full meaning. It means invincible. Unconquerable. Unbreakable. It also means stubborn. This word is used by the prophets of the Old Testament to describe stone-minded and stone-hearted people. People that are hard to reach. Set in their ways.
It’s also a word used to describe diamond-like strength. Adamantia describes a valuable thing that is hard to reach, but worth the effort to try.
When I think of it that way it gives more meaning to the idea of a soul feeling its own worth. Something worth mining and refining in order to make it shine.
Thinking of human stubbornness this way helps me understand why God has worked so hard to repair what was taken from us in the Garden of Eden. I don’t think we can fully comprehend the lengths God has and will go through to return to His rightful place in our hearts.
The severance caused by that original sin left us with this deep chasm in our souls that we long to fill. An incomprehensible father wound we all try to heal with something: achievement or love—drugs, sex, wealth—even conformity. And we’ve forgotten what causes the ache we feel for Him.
When Jesus died on the cross, scripture tells us He “gave up the ghost” (Luke 23:46, KJV). I think we either don’t understand what this means, or we forget that we now have direct access to the Holy Spirit because of this. Up to that point, we could only get so close to God through Mosaic law, and the Old Covenant, and even then only God’s chosen people.
I’m starting to learn that because God understands how reactionary and instinctively we operate, He established rules to keep his kids safe. And I’ve noticed that throughout scripture, and still today, we continue to cling to these rules as a physical checklist—a plumbline to make sure we’re standing upright. To be good.
I think God knew these rules would only hold for so long. He created Adam from the earth, and like the earth, he was intended to be wild and free. I don’t think God ever intended to rule and logic that wildness out of us, and that’s why He made a way for us to get back to Him that keeps our authenticity fully intact.
Have you ever noticed a dandelion growing through a crack in concrete? The concrete is there to keep order, but the earth moves of its own volition, and the dandelion is adamant about its right to exist wherever it pleases. God’s creations can’t be controlled. The dandelion doesn’t realize its days are numbered and it doesn’t force its way through the crack. It simply longs to live, so it does.
Or honeysuckle—have you ever noticed how it expands and winds around and through everything it touches? Honeysuckle grows solely for the purpose of being beautiful, taking up space, and filling the air with its decadent fragrance. I believe this is who we are to God.
It’s the world and its systems and hierarchies that tell us to be something we’re not. If the scrappy dandelion decided one day to try and become honeysuckle, which flower would then take on the task of existing in spite of the world’s efforts to prevent it from being?
We’re all well acquainted with the ache of longing for meaning, purpose, or love. To know you matter. To belong to someone or something. I have been that scrappy dandelion who tried to become the honeysuckle. And I have been the honeysuckle, who pruned herself far too much in order to fit into spaces the world told me I should and could be in as long as I didn’t become too loud, too beautiful, or too smart.
This longing and desire to belong can make you adopt beliefs that don’t necessarily resonate with your soul because they belong to people you admire—look left and right to see what others are doing because there is safety in numbers. It can make you sacrifice your own witness and integrity at the altar of human approval.
The desperate longing to belong to your own family, friends, and community has the power to lead you down the safe and wide path God never meant for you, just because everyone else you know is doing the same thing.
I mentioned earlier that I used to call my perfectionism the “pursuit of excellence.” That was a lie I told myself. At the root of everything we do, I think our true motive is the pursuit of joy.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).
Jesus told his disciples that everything He had done and would do, was for the purpose of restoring joy. Our proper source of happiness, well-being, and safety has always been our creator. And I think joy is found when we follow the examples of the hearty dandelion and honeysuckle, and simply live, even if that means we make choices that are contrary to the ones everyone we love thinks we should.
I think that’s why we continue to operate as if there isn’t enough grace to go around. Grace feels like a limited resource when it’s absent in our homes, churches, schools, and society. We’ve become bitter, adamant, and set in our ways. We’ve made idols of the “good old days.”
We still follow rules as if we don’t have access to the mind of Christ. The world has convinced us that Jesus didn’t punch a hole through the veil when he gave up that ghost and we still choose to hide behind fig leaves, not because we don’t want God to know we’re naked, but because we don’t want those around us to know.
When I say my perfectionism is really rooted in my pursuit of joy, I mean that I learned at a young age that my joy could exist out loud as long as I was sweet and pleasing and made everyone around me comfortable. Eventually, I wasn’t able to be sweet and pleasing all the time, so I stopped believing joy was something I could have in my life at all.
Instead of seeking joy and love, I sought to disappear, to avoid being seen and perceived altogether. One day I woke up and no longer thought of myself as that little blonde girl who felt God’s presence in rhythm and earth and wind and dancing.
Dry bones.
That was unacceptable to me.
So, in the spirit of Holy Week, I honor my connection to that Holy Ghost, whose presence exists in the world because Jesus brought it back to us. In resurrection, I reclaim my place among the wildflowers, keeping rhythm with the heartbeat of the garden God created for me, adamant in my right to exist as I am.
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Thank you for reading and supporting The Common Joy.
—Mack
