They call us tumbleweeds, as if that’s all we are. But I’ve fed cattle through dust-storm winters when all else withered. My thorns, which so many curse, have guarded medicine that saved lives. Even now, as I break free from my last root, I carry a quarter million seeds—a quarter million chances for survival.

That first moment of release was like being born again. Sunlight caught the places where Navajo healers once gathered my stems, their gentle hands knowing the secret sweetness beneath my thorns. Where others saw an invasive thing, they found healing. Where others saw ugliness, they found grace.

The wind lifts me now, and I understand something new: this body wasn’t made for staying still. Each thorn that guards my frame catches light like copper, each twist and turn revealing strength in what others call misshapen. I roll across the Sonoran Desert, leaving life in my wake—seeds that will feed birds through winter, stems that will shelter small creatures, roots that will hold soil against the wind.

Children sometimes catch me, decorating my branches with silver tinsel in December, finding beauty in what their parents taught them to despise. Their small hands learn that even thorns can become stars, that the unwanted can become holy. In their eyes, I see the truth: nothing in nature is truly ugly when you understand its purpose.

Flash floods carry me into wild dances, my seeds drinking deep before their journey. Dust devils lift me in their spiral arms, scattering my children across vast distances where new life can take hold. Even in falling, I give—each landing leaves behind possibility, each rest creates shelter for something small and frightened seeking home.

Ravens know me. They brush their wings against my edges, carrying my smaller seeds to distant valleys where nothing else grows. Kangaroo rats leap through my arches in moonlight, gathering fallen seeds for winter, unknowingly planting next year’s gardens. Even the ancient saguaros seem to bend their arms in greeting as I pass, perhaps remembering how their own ancestors once needed wanderers like me.

In the quiet of desert nights, I rest against red rock walls where healers once gathered my ashes for medicine. My thorns catch starlight like strands of copper, like threads of hope, like prayers made visible. In these moments, I understand that purpose lives in unexpected places—in thorns that guard medicine, in bitter leaves that feed the hungry, in ugliness that shelters beauty.

Each dawn makes me lighter, scattering seeds like possibilities across the sand. Some will become medicine, healing human hurts. Others will feed the hungry or shelter the small. All of them carry forward this simple truth: that the unwanted things, the unloved things, the things people call weeds—these too have purpose, have grace.

And isn’t that the most beautiful thing of all? Not the beauty of perfect flowers or carefully tended gardens, but the beauty of the overlooked, the misunderstood, the unwanted—becoming exactly what someone needs.