ReWilding the Mother

Hawthorn, yarrow, blackberry, cornflower. I’m rewilding myself for my daughter, and for my mother who never had the chance.

The other day I saw a heartbreaking statistic that half of British children surveyed recently couldn’t identify simple species like bluebells or stinging nettles and 83% couldn’t identify a bumblebee.

We have become so afraid of nature.

We have forgotten that we are made of it.

@right.2roam

I’ve been on a journey of rewilding in this lifetime.

My own mother was afraid of nature.

I was always taught not to pick berries, and she didn’t tell me that weeds were in fact healing plants. She probably didn’t know.

She had an excellent knowledge of garden flowers - something I only wish I had enquired more about before she died.

She could name any flower in a bouquet, and would often be found in garden centres buying heaps of perennials to go in the many pots she had in her paved garden. On reflection the very fact she planted in pots and not directly into the earth tells me a lot about her relationship to nature.

When it came to living from the land she was clueless, and her lack of information left her terrified.

It’s only in recent years that I have come to learn about the wild and all she offers us.

It’s a slow journey, perhaps I carry more of my mothers fear than I recognised.

The pivotal point was living on our own piece of land for nearly 2 years. Watching her seasons change so intimately. Learning the subtle early signs of spring when there was still a frost. Being able to orient myself through the seasons rather than a calendar.

It changed me, forever.

But even living the way that we did, it was only our final months there that truly opened me up to the magnificence of natures bounty.

In our first year we created a vegetable patch with all the best intentions.

In our second year we let it run wild.

From this place of unbridled freedom grew the most magical medicine garden.

All plants for healing the feminine.

It was all so perfect. Of course the feminine nature thrives when she’s left to be wild.

I loved my wild garden very much.

Our once vegetable beds now full of wild herbs, plants and medicine.

The great tall nettles, the beautiful yarrow, the unruly raspberry bush and of course my beloved wild rose.

Each plant offering me her unique gift and medicine.

In the weeks leading up to us leaving I wanted to harvest as much of her medicine as I could. I wanted to take it all with me.

But alas it wasn’t meant to be.

Nature taught me a pretty rough lesson on what to take and what is ours, when really we own none of it.

More on that another time.

Anyway, for the past month I’ve been back at my mothers house. We are sorting through all her belongings (an absolutely horrendous task I gave to admit). Where I had become used to living in the wild we now find ourselves on a housing estate in a built up area. Both Daniel and I left feeling quite disconnected.

Then one day he told me where he had been taking Wrenna to walk the dogs. I was using the baby-free time to sort the house so I hadn’t been getting out much truth be told.

I didn’t recognise the way he described these walks so I decided to join him.

To my absolute joy and astonishment he lead me through a haven of hawthorn, elder, mugwort, yarrow, rose. He lead me to a paddock with miniature ponies. He carted me over a stile into a hidden garden.

My man had found the most magical of places hidden within this built up estate.

So now I join him for the walks. We pick wildflowers and berries. I speak their names so that my daughter hears the words and knows that they’re safe.

I’m rewilding myself for my daughter, and for my mother who never had the chance.

I’m rewilding myself for my entire feminine lineage.

And all those yet to come.