Rise from the Rubble
We are going to hell in a hand-cart. Or so it feels when we look at the state of our planet. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. But maybe we can start paying attention and take actions, because even small actions can make a big difference. I’d like to tell you about someone who reclaimed her environment and healed her life.
My Brave New Girl podcast guest this week is Victoria Bennett whose debut book, All My Wild Mothers, is released in February. It’s a book of motherhood, loss, love and the healing power of plants.
When her sister died in a freak canoe accident, Vik was already heavily pregnant. She describes how the grief weighed in on her and her unborn child, and when he was born, as she breast fed, how her milk flowed incongruently with her tears.
Later her son was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition, her financial situation was dire, and she was moved to a council estate in Cumbria.
There was no garden to speak of. Just a pile of rubble left by the builders out the back.
On her knees from the burden of care, poverty and grief, she found herself amongst the rocks, stones and lumps of concrete, clawing at them and bearing their weight as she trundled away wheelbarrows of debri.
No money to buy plants, she collected weeds for her wilderness, slowly learning the medicinal qualities of each.
Like a wise woman of yesteryear she planted a healing garden. From the rubble she found hope. And as the weeds became a garden, her words returned to her and slowly her book grew too.
I tell you Vik’s story because she changed her environment, she created a place where biodiversity of plants, birds, bees and butterflies started to flourish. Yes, it was just in her back yard, but we have to start somewhere, anywhere.
If we feel we can only make giant gestures then we lose the point. As individuals the problem and the answer are under our noses. Look to our immediate surroundings and start there. Let’s begin where we are and go from here.
START WHERE YOU ARE
Whether it’s planting weeds in rubble or cleaning up a beach or growing your own vegetables on an allotment, it’s the small acts we do that make a difference.
Victoria Bennett’s memoir ‘All My Wild Mothers’ is a story of re-wilding our wastelands & the transformation that happens when we do. After losing her sister in a boating accident & later finding out her son had a lifelong medical condition, Vik turned to the rubble & weeds outside her door to create a new kind of future.
Thank you so much Vik for sharing your story so that we may also look to the simpler side of life where we can be closer to nature and allow it to support and heal us through our more challenging times.
Thanks also for showing us how to seek out nature in our daily lives so that when we hit the tough times we already have the means to help us survive and even thrive.
You can find out more about Vik’s work on www.victoriabennett.me buy her book All My Wild Mothers from all good book stores, and follow her on Instagram on @beewyld
Book launch: If you pre order the book from the hosting bookshop, you get a digital invite sent to you, or you can buy a ticket just for the event.
https://www.samreadbooks.co.uk/product/AllMyWildMothersLaunch/11993
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