Get Booked – Victoria Bennett, All My Wild Mothers, Weaving of Memoir and Herbal Folklore

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield, and this is Get Booked, the women's and men's radio station. Get Booked is all about opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there. Come and join us, get involved, and if you want to, you can catch up on previous shows at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on my SoundCloud, which you can find at hazelbuttfield.com. Now, on today's show, we are going to be looking at All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss, and an Apothecary Garden by Victoria Bennett. It's been released since the 1st of February of 2023. Victoria Bennett is a disabled and chronically ill poet and author. Her writing spans poetry, memoir, and nonfiction, and has been the recipient of the Northern Debut Award, Northern Promise Award, Andrew Waterhouse Award, Mother's Milk Nonfiction Prize, and was longlisted for the Penguin Write Now program. You're definitely in for a treat today. She has written and talked extensively on grief, care, and writing through times of change. With over 30 years of experience as a creativity facilitator, she's a firm believer in everyone's right to write their own story. She has dedicated much of her working life to nurturing spaces where people can do that. In 1999, she founded the International internationally celebrated Wild Women Press, an inclusive space focusing on nature, connection, and creativity. Having spent the last 25 years in Cumbria, she now lives in Orkney with her husband and son, and when not juggling writing, full-time care, and genetic illness, she can be found where the wild weeds grow, growing her apothecary garden. All My Wild Mothers is her debut memoir, and she is going to be joining us today on Get booked. Okay, my lovely listeners, today we are discussing All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss, and an Apothecary Garden by Victoria Bennett. Now, this is a weaving of memoir and herbal folklore. All My Wild Mothers is a story of motherhood, grief, and the transformation that can happen when we reconnect with the wild beneath our feet. In a time of uncertainty, it has something to teach us about resilience, love, and the power of joyful resistance. At 7 months pregnant, Victoria learns that her sister has died in a canoeing accident, and in that moment, her life changes. 5 years later, And struggling with the demands of motherhood, grief, and full-time care, Victoria and her family moved to a new social housing estate in rural Cumbria. Here in the rubble of a former industrial site, she and her young son begin to grow a wild apothecary garden. Daisy for resilience, dandelion for strength against adversity, sow thistle to lift melancholy, and borage to bring hope in dark and difficult times. Stone by stone, seed by seed, they discover that sometimes life grows not in spite of what is broken, but because of it. All My Wild Mothers is an intimate memoir of motherhood, a handbook on survival, and a testimony to radical hope. Here at GetBooked, we love focusing on our mental wellbeing, and so I think this book ties in perfectly with what we believe in. Nature has the power to do so much to lift our moods, so I'm really looking forward to chatting to Victoria. Victoria, welcome to Get Booked. Are you ready for this? I am, and good morning and hello, Hazel. Thank you for that wonderful intro. You are very welcome. I've loved reading this book, and I must say, it's taken me a lot longer to read this than normal books because I've gone off and ended up Googling certain herbs and where I can find them. And it's so hard. I mean, it takes a bit of work, doesn't it, to kind of identify all the different herbs? But also I just think I'm such a huge fan of nature, and I'm one of these people that I don't listen to podcasts and music and whatnot when I'm walking my dog. I just like to absorb what's going on. And so I've loved reading this book and just, yeah, another reminder of just how incredibly healing nature can be. Oh, I'm so glad you've enjoyed it. I think it's really, it's really important that we we kind of reconnect with that nature that is right there under our feet. So, you know, I mean, a lot of the plants that are in the book and were in our garden are what people would call weeds as well, you know, overlooked or dismissed or dug out, really. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? I was, um, I was watching something the other day and they were talking about weeds and how, you know, the language we use to belittle weeds, but yet they're some of the most strongest and hardy elements out in nature. They are, and they've got a lot to teach us, sort of, I think, about resilience and tenacity. A lot of the weeds that we have as well, once upon a time, were the things that were growing in the old kitchen and apothecary gardens in monasteries, and then they kind of escaped the walls of the monasteries and then sort of renaturalized themselves out in the wild. And then eventually, you know, what is a weed? It's just something that is unwanted, a plant that's unwanted. Supposedly. Yeah, so, so some weeds, you know, at some point they were, they were fashionable and much sought after. Well, there, I mean, there are some weeds that are quite annoying. I will admit that, you know, I do have to do a lot of weeding in my garden, but there are some out there that are just absolutely stunning as well. I did recently, actually, I've been to quite a few weddings where, like, on the table they have these tiny little envelopes of wildflower seeds and it's become incredibly trendy, hasn't it? Yeah, and it's good, you know, I mean, all of these things are really positive, I think, to encourage people to play an active part in that rewilding of any space, you know, wildflower seeds can be sown in between cracks and in the pavement and in window boxes and everywhere really, but, you know, there's also a need to kind of do that, um, responsibly. So, you know, wildflowers, like you're saying, some, some are more tenacious than others. So it's, it's really helpful if people can to use, uh, native wildflower seeds where possible. Yeah. And appreciate that their beauty as well. And tell us a little bit about how this idea came about, because it's quite a unique, um, composition, quite unique writing style, All My Wild Mothers, in that there's a different herb at the beginning, well, a different wildflower or weed or, you know, whatever you want to call them, at the beginning of each section, and then you kind of go into a slightly connected element in a memoir style. What was the reasoning behind that? And I'm— the two sort of worked hand in hand. So the writing was written in and of itself, so each chapter was written as a sort of standalone memory. Yeah. But the plants were all things that grew exactly, I think, except for two plants actually, gorse and laburnum. The plants all grew in our garden eventually. So they're all things that we planted in or seeded into our garden. So it felt, since the garden was growing alongside the book, it took the same length of time to cult— to to rewild and grow our apothecary garden, as it did to write the book, that those plants were in conversation with the memoir. So when it came to kind of structuring them, it felt important that the plants had their voice as well and their presence. So in some cases, the chapters directly link with the plant, but in most cases, it's to do with the folklore or the there's sort of some, something in the story about the plants, or some of their medicinal use, or, or just their character that, that links with, with the story and leads into it. I wanted that conversation between the two, and I wanted it to feel a little bit like, um, like it's a flower press, you know, or a herbarium, you know, the old-fashioned herbarium that people used to, to to, to, to develop, that they would find these plants and put them in and write all the information about them, and that would be their kind of collection. So that's the idea of it, that it's a memoir, but it's also herbarium and a garden growing throughout it. I, I like the way that they were kind of interspersed in between and kind of conjoined together, because it just, um, it, it made it a little bit easier as well to consume. You're kind of dipping in and out. I, I found it quite easy to consume the knowledge this way, rather than if it was just page after page of information and the Latin terms and all the information. Because otherwise it can be quite overwhelming, can't it? I think it can. And that's also important. I'm not a qualified gardener. I don't even class myself as a gardener. I'm just a woman who grew a garden. And many people would have thought that that wasn't a particularly good garden either, because it did have a lot of weeds in. But, you know, this knowledge used to be something that we would have had much more sort of woven into our lives. So I wanted that knowledge to be woven into the life that I was telling as well, in that kind of digestible easy, yeah, in a relatable way. So the plants aren't disengaged from experience. So I think it's easier to, I don't know, maybe it's easier to remember what, you know, what dandelion is for if you think, if you can then think about the chapter that goes with it. Yeah, no, I think it worked fantastically. I've really enjoyed reading it, but I must say, It was the book cover as well that caught my eye. It's stunning. Mm, I do. Yeah, it's a lovely, lovely book cover. So that was designed— so the illustrations inside are done by a different person to the book cover. But yeah, I love that dandelion motif, and that felt really important for the fitted really well with the book in that idea of that kind of cycle of seed, seed all the way through to the sort of full bloom. And the dandelion, of course, represents sorrow and grief, but also transformation. And it's that whole, the sun and the moon cycle. And so there's all these things woven into that, that dandelion motif, and also making wishes as well. And, you know, the idea that we would count how many children we would have by how many dandelion seeds were still on the dandelion. Line. And, you know, so there's so many things sort of wrapped up in, in the dandelion in itself. So I'm really pleased that that was the COVID It's quite interesting, actually. Um, today is the day that, um, I, I always kind of work through my to-do list, and I, I have quite a busy day. Um, and I'm going to do this is to go and buy some dandelion and burdock because I've had it— I've had a craving for it ever since I read that chapter, and it's ridiculous. But I Oh well, I have to get to know when you have it in your head. And I just know I need some dandelion and burdock now. Yeah, it's on my list. There we go. I think, do I get to— do you think I should approach Dandelion and Burdock producer and see if I can get a product placement? Honestly, I don't remember the last time I had some dandelion and burdock, but I know if I don't get it today, my kids are going to have to deal with a very grumpy mother. Uh, oh, well, you know, I'm always a believer that our bodies, you know, quite, quite effective in telling us what we need. Yes. Now, interestingly, um, do you think there's a potential nature and placebo effect being combined in the healing process of devouring nature? I think it's all together. I think it's all wound together. So I don't, I think that the plants, you know, plants are actually the basis of a lot of modern medicine. You know, if you take it back, you know, for example, foxglove, Digitalis, is the basis of modern heart medicine. Now I wouldn't use foxglove in its natural form. You know, it's, it's too risky. So it's not something that I would use because it's potentially fatal to use. But it was discovered quite a long time ago, you know, through its herbal use and its folk use that it was effective for heart conditions. So it's been developed into a modern medicine. So I think there's definitely a, you know, a pharmaceutical and if you like, relationship. But then I think it's also the whole thing. So when I talk of the garden being an apothecary garden or a healing garden, it was, it was as much about healing, healing in the space and what the process of growing that garden did for me and for my son and, and in sort of that growing with grief And also healing for the ground because it was very broken ground. There had been an industrial site. It was very poor soil. It was, you know, it was full of rubble and rubbish. So there was a healing to the ground and then a healing to nature in itself because obviously making it into a biodiverse space, you know, into lots of habitats meant that we encouraged lots of wildlife. Into the garden. So it was healing in that whole sense. So I think that those things do go together. Yeah, I agree. You know, we can, you know, for example, if I make my, I have a practice of making a tea each day where I'll just go into, you know, I'll go and I'll go into the garden and sort of more or less intuitively pick which plants I want to work with. That day, which I want to put into my tea, and I'll make a tea, and then I'll drink that through the day. And I'll, you know, as well as kind of whatever the physiological benefits that come from it, I'm also sort of conscious and thinking about, well, what's the symbolism of the plants? What's the folklore? Why might I pick those? And so you kind of look at it as a holistic thing. Interestingly, all my guests on Get Booked, um, I always ask for 3 top tips on maintaining a good level of mental well-being, and nearly always one of those 3 is getting out in nature. I think that it's, it is important. I think it's also got to be recognized that, that our access to nature is different for each person. So, and I'm a firm believer in kind of, it's okay in whatever capacity that you have in the moment. You know, there's no perfect thing. We don't all have to suddenly start hiking up Snowden. No, no. Sometimes it's just walking to the shop, whether you're in, you know, the city centre, You know, lashings of fields and greenery. Or sometimes it's just about opening a window. Yeah. And allowing, you know, allowing to sit and look out of a window even, you know. It doesn't, in some respects, you know, it's important to know that it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be physically active. You know, that's one thing. You know, we— one of the things that came from with the book was, you know, when I first, um, when I first started conceiving of it as a book, um, I entered it into the prize, Nan Shepherd Prize, which was the first year it was running, and it's for nature writing. And originally I was, I was trying to write what I thought was a nature writing book. Not this one. So I started trying to think of, and I was thinking, well, you know, I had this idea in my head of what nature writing was, and it wasn't going well. I'll admit it wasn't going well. And I decided, you know, well, I was encouraged by my husband to enter this, to enter All My Wild Mothers, and And I said, well, you know, because he said, well, what's nature to you? And I said, well, it's what's under my feet. It's the garden. It's where I can access, because as a carer at the time, and I couldn't go off, you know, I couldn't go off and have a pilgrimage somewhere or stride off alone into the mountains somewhere. It was literally what I could access. And so, you know, that became something that was important to share that, that that sometimes it's about what we, what we have, not what we think we should have or what would be the perfect thing. It's just what we have to hand in that moment. I think that's an important reminder actually, because some people just dismiss it on the basis that they haven't got what they think is the ideal scenario. But we can create what's right for us with what's available to us. And it's also about living, living with what we have, you know, that's something that the garden, you know, I was able to kind of understand through gardening, you know, I was grieving very deeply and also caring for my son with type 1 diabetes, he was diagnosed very young, and I was also caring for my mother through terminal cancer. And the garden, you know, I was able to learn really with the garden that these things grow in very poor ground, you know, that they, that there's this beauty and this life and this healing that can come about in really something that looks very inhospitable and barren and having no potential whatsoever. And it's, it's a resilience that the plants had, but also just that willingness to kind of slow grow in there. I think that's the word though, resilience, because, um, I really felt you. I mean, I, you know, I, I lost my father and I struggled incredibly in different ways. And sometimes life can be relentless. It's one thing after another. And a friend of mine found out at 30 once, well, she developed type 1 diabetes at 30 and she struggled to get her head around it and to manage it. So having to do that when your son was, he was what, 2 and a half, was he? Yeah. Yeah. And I was just thinking the relentlessness of it, but it's all about resilience and trying to find a way to bounce. Back and keep going and just manage with what keeps on coming at you. Yeah. And slow it right down. Yeah. You know, I think that's the other thing that, you know, when I started to plant the garden in our house, it was, I didn't really, you know, it wasn't so much kind of, I'm going to create this amazing thing, although my son had some fantastic plans for it. Been 4 and a half and a bit at the time. Um, but it was just about putting a plant in, you know. It was, it was literally like that. It was, I'm going to put a spade in the ground, I'm going to dig, and then discover that there was a lot of rock in there. Um, and then put a plant in and see if I can make it grow. I, I did a recent interview with somebody called Emmanuel Chow, and he wrote fantastic book, and it's all just about focusing on having a purpose. And this is what you've done. You found a purpose, and you found somewhere to focus, because it really helps with your mental health and mental well-being. It's when, when people don't have a purpose, that's when they feel incredibly lost and in that overwhelming loop of hopelessness. Yeah, and it's also, I think, because it can feel overwhelming, you know, if I sort of thought about all the things I was having to deal with and thought about the future and what was going to happen and the past and what had happened and this kind of cascade of things that were challenging, things that were overwhelming. Relentless. That was, you know, that was very disabling, you know, that would be a point where that grief would become overwhelming. Because, you know, the reality of grief is that it's the shock to the system that our belief in things being right, things being fixable, things being immortal, is completely shaken to its very foundation. You know, everything that we understand is shifted. And certainly, you know, particularly in sudden grief, but also in other types of grief, you know, when people's security is completely turned upside down. And I think, you know, I wrote this book over 10 years, and I think, but I think that in the last you know, 3 years, so many more people maybe can connect with, with the things I've written about in terms of that feeling of just free-falling and not knowing, you know, that sense of certainty being ripped away from underneath. And when that happens, I think it's so important to just be able to go, I can do this moment. I can get through this, you know, not in that kind of, oh, live in the moment and it's so beautiful, but just sometimes it is literally just about getting through. I'm going to do the next 5 minutes. Yeah, little steps. I'm going to do the next half hour. Yeah. And I've done that with people in, you know, I've been on the phone to people where it's like, right, let's just get through the next 10 minutes. And that adds up to, you know, and that sometimes we have to just bring it right back to that. I think that's a fantastic reminder. I'm such a firm believer in, you know, when people just say, I can't do this, it's too much, and they just want to give up, and it's just a case of what can you do right now that's that's tiny, a tiny little building block into the big goal. And it's just, you do these tiny little things rather than being overwhelmed. And, you know, look after the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves. Yeah, I mean, there's so many sort of phrases, you know, that's where these little sayings come from, isn't it? There's always a, you know, there's a reason that these things exist in our language. But I think, you know, that idea of a seed that we can plant a seed, and from the seed a plant can grow, and from the plant a new habitat can develop, and from the habitat wildlife can come, and from wildlife there can be an extended benefit to the environment. So it's kind of all of these things, but essentially it starts with a seed, and that seed might fall into ground full of rubble. And in fact, it might need to fall into ground full of rubble because that might be where it grows best, which is the other thing. About all the plants in the book, um, that they, they all grow in wasteland, on roadsides, in, in disrupted, um, or scorched ground. So they're all things that grow in, in the, the soil of what's been disturbed, really, which I think is true of, of joy, you know, right? Strangely, that that sort of deep and unexpected joy that can come through, through kind of living in that space and living with that grief. Yeah, I like that. I think it's something really nice for us all to remember and to focus on. And interestingly, I've got to ask you this, Victoria, do you have a favorite plant that you mention in the book? Um, well, I like them all. Of course you do. I like all my children. But you have a favourite. It does feel a little bit like that. Um, actually, I mean, dandelion's one of my favourite plants, although I can't use it medicinally, um, because I have haemochromatosis, which causes, uh, iron overload, you know. Um, so I can't actually use high-iron plants. So I think that borage is one of my favorite ones. Starflower. Well, I like the, I like the folk name for it with starflower. It's one of my favorite plants. It's very good for kind of feeling overwhelmed and, and feeling, yeah, feeling kind of lost in things. But it's also a really good one for for kind of menopausal and hormonal. Oh, is it? Because you can get it in honey, can't you? And you can get borage oil. Yeah, yeah. So, um, so it's a good one for those sort of disrupted and, uh, things that are out of balance, I think is a good one for. And it's just so pretty, and you can put it in gin and tonic. Oh, can you? Brilliant. You can freeze it, freeze it in ice cubes. Now you're talking my language. Freeze the flowers in ice cubes, and then you pop them into gin and tonic, and as the ice melts, you get this beautiful blue and pink flower in your— I also like the fact that the flower changes colour when the bee has taken its pollen. Really? So, the flower is a deep blue, but then once it's kind of given away, its pollen, it's just been visited enough by the bees, by the pollinators, then it starts to change a lilac and pink. I just think it's brilliant. Kind of cute, isn't it? Well, it's like, it's like, hey, I'm done. So whenever I was sort of collecting borage flowers in, in the garden, I would always, I would always kind of try and only pick a, you know, try and pick mostly the ones that were starting to go lilac, because it's like, well, I've got to share it with the bees. That was always the issue of picking lavender, that I never wanted to pick it when it was supposed to be picked, because it was always a really good late, late summer food for the bees. I've just Googled, where can I find borage in Twickenham? Well, it grows, it grows, you know, it's a very hardy plant in that it will grow just about anywhere. But, um, but I think, uh, you know, it's ended up being something that is not seen that much in, in, uh, urban areas, but, but it does grow pretty much anywhere. Right, I'm going to task the dog with helping me on, on her walk today. I mean, she's a beagle, she'll probably ignore me, but, um, no, she'll find something else completely different. Yeah, she's like, did you say bacon, Mum? Bacon I can find, porridge not so much. So I'd love to know, um, what would be your 3 top tips for maintaining a good level of mental well-being? They come with— they're my 3 C's, which is creativity. But in that, I don't mean that you have to go and, you know, paint the next Mona Lisa or write a book, but just allow space to play, really creativity in that sense of play and playfulness. So that can come from, from making something or creating something, writing, painting, drawing, craft work, but it can also just come from being playful. My son taught me that one, but tapping into that sense of creativity that we have as small children is something that can be very nourishing. And in my case, it was allowing myself free rein with the garden. Community is my next C. I think it's really, really important to make, you know, to build communities, to grow communities, to nurture them. You know, that's, it's important in nature that we have communities, that we're not isolated. You know, plants grow best when they're in companionship with other plants that support and nurture them. So often, you know, if we pull out a plant that we think is a weed, we might actually be damaging the plant that we want to grow, because the weed is helping the plant, the other plant that may be more fragile. So that sense that we, we work in cohesion with each other and support each other and each bring something important to the other, even if it doesn't look like it is at first glance. And the other one's connection, and that's connection, it's similar to community, but connection with each other. And connection with our space that we live in, connection with people beyond our circles. I think we're being encouraged at the moment to have a language of division and a language of otherness. And I think more than ever, maybe this is a time where we need to connect more with ourselves and with each other So in that connection is also maybe my fourth silency, which is compassion. Having compassion for ourselves, you know, forgiving ourselves at times. You know, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be a certain way or look a certain way or achieve a certain thing by a certain time. And we all mess up sometimes and just having a bit of compassion goes a long way. But also having compassion for, for who we meet in the street. We don't know what they're going through. And having compassion for other people that we may never meet, because we all love, we all lose, we all grieve, we all hurt, we all laugh, we all feel joy. Everybody on this planet is, is experiencing what it is to be human in all its terribleness and all its beauty. So if we connect with that, then maybe that allows us to see the world as something that's precious, that we all have a part to play in, um, in protecting and nurturing. So those are my— If you ever find yourself in Southwest London, um, the shop on the end of my road, you must pop in. They pretty much embody everything that you love. It's a Hindu family, mum and dad and their two sons that live there, and they are just, they're quite well known in the area. Like, they open on Christmas Day not to sell anything, just to give out Christmas samosas and to give hugs to people that are on their own, and they kind of all dress up. And if you ever find a damaged bird, they're one of the contact centers for that, you know. They have boxes outside, which is just food for people who don't want to— can't afford any food. And they just kind of— they have like a mini food bank, and they've got a mini book bank as well for people who want to read. And they just, you know, whenever I've made some additional cakes or I've finished with certain books that I know I don't need to read again, I drop them all around there, and they just put them in these boxes outside so people don't have to come in. They don't have to feel embarrassed. And they can just take free stuff. They are the most— they've become kind of a bit famous as well. They're always on the BBC and they've been in a, um, they've been in a few music videos as well because they're just ridiculously smiley. They always crank up the heat for anybody that's cold and can't afford to put the heating on in their own houses and they just need to warm up. Up. Homeless people as well can pop in and just warm up. They are just the epitome of community spirit, and they're fantastic. That sounds wonderful. But I think that that's it, isn't it? That, you know, we can't all do that, you know, for some people maybe like, well, I actually can't cope with people maybe or something. But actually we can all, you know, it's that thing, isn't it? We can all be part of the change we want to see. And that starts with ourselves and the ground under our feet. And extends outwards. And I think that that's, that's something we can all do. And I think right now it's really important to hold on to, to that knowledge that we can, we can affect change, you know, we can, we can make a difference, we can bring goodness into this world. And we attract what we put out there as well. Yeah, and we can put hope, and we can have hope, you know. It's like, it is that thing of find the thing to, you know, find the thing to plant the seed of your hope in and nurture that. And everybody will find something different, but you know, it's worth doing. You know, particularly, you know, my son, little, is little in the book, but growing into being, you know, his own adulthood now. And, you know, that age, it's like we hand the world over to them. Yeah. And we have to hand over, you know, I like to think that in growing the garden, that's what he's gained from it, is that sense that you can have something that's broken and something beautiful can come out of that. Yeah. And I think we need to hold on to that. We do, we do. And, you know, Unsurprisingly, we have run out of time. I very quickly just want our listeners to find out where they can hear more about you. What's your website and where can they follow you on various social medias? My website is victoriabennett.me, and that's a double N and a double T in Bennett. So that's hopefully quite easy to remember. And you can find me on Instagram as Vic B Wild. Which is V-I-K-B-E-E-W-Y-L-D. It's slightly more difficult, but if you find my website, you'll find all the links on there. And on X or Twitter or whatever we're calling it today— I'm sticking with Twitter. I guess you know what I've said, Twitter is actually the Vic Be Wild. On Instagram, it's just Be Wild. You see, I don't even know myself, can't keep up. Get onto the website and you can find it. Go onto the website, you'll find the links. Well, thank you Thank you so much, Victoria, for chatting to us on Get Booked. I've loved chatting to you. And listeners, go and buy All My Wild Mothers. Thank you for joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Thank you, Hazel. It's been wonderful to talk. And yes, thank you. I hope you find your porridge. Me too, me too. Gin and tonic's on the way. That was today's guest, Victoria Bennett, talking about All My Wild Mothers. That really kind of fed my soul. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And, and Victoria has done us an author-read extract of her book as well, which you're now going to get to listen to. Field Horsetail, Acrocetum arvense. Bottlebrush, Mare's Tail, Shavegrass, Pewterwort. Use Horsetail to resolve boundaries and strengthen a sense of self. Field Horsetail was commonly used by goldsmiths to polish gold. It is rich in silica, potassium, manganese, and magnesium. Because of its ability ability to increase the absorption of calcium, it is useful during menopause to increase bone density and help prevent osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. It is good for strengthening connective tissues and improving skeletal stability. Taken as a tea, it stimulates the immune system and flushes out toxins. Topical application can help reduce wrinkles, east brains, and inflammation. Cleanse wounds, staunch blood flow, and repair bleeding gums. The young plant is edible. It can be cooked as a substitute for asparagus, and the cooking water can be reused as a fungicidal spray to treat mildew and rust spot on roses. Field horsetail grows well in damp meadows, gardens, and on wastelands. I am trying to meditate. The man on the app tells me to "be at one with the space you are in, let all distractions melt away." I am not managing to do this because as he speaks I am listening to my son shouting in the room below. He is upset. He doesn't want his daddy, he wants me. I have been here for 5 minutes. I do not feel relaxed. Where does my space end and my son's begin? Friends suggest that I should take time for myself, but who is that self? The magazines tell me to get my body back in 10 easy steps. I look in the mirror and wonder who has my body now, if it was ever mine. I always thought I had to choose writer or mother. Not both. The writers I read were, like Byron, mad, bad, or dangerous to know. They had lovers, drank hard, and if they were women, took their own lives. Those who survived needed not just rooms but whole worlds to themselves. All the great poets and authors spoke of the need for uninterrupted time, a disciplined writing schedule, and space away from the demands of of the world. There was no room for a child. A mother, on the other hand, was selfless, stable, and good. I was selfish and broken and bad, or so I believed. I told myself I had to fix myself before I brought another life into this world. When my babies died, this fear became truth. I was not fit to be a mother. Even though I was raised not to believe, I imagined myself being punished by an invisible, disapproving God. Yet my son did come, and when he did, I knew, if only for a moment, that I had to be willing to die to bring him to life. And I was. The mourned hours slip out of sync with the world. As life continues unaware. In this space of grief and love, I bathed him, soothed him, sang to him, fed him from my breast. He was my newborn star in a dark sky of sorrow. When the demands of my marriage shouted for attention, I could not respond. I had no energy for grown-up needs. The world went spinning on, but not here in this Mother World. My son, created from my blood and bone, asked nothing of me that I did not want to give, and I gave it all. Perhaps this mother love must always be this way, a series of small relinquishing griefs, each moment gone before it's known. At the end, if I do my job well, I will be left behind. Be present in the moment. To the person who grieves, there is only the moment, and in it I must live. I'm trying to let that moment be one of love, not fear. My son is teaching me. When I pull him back from the water's edge, when I stop him from taking his next leap, warning of what danger might come 'Come.' He turns to me and smiles. 'Yes, Mummy, but it might not,' he tells me, letting go of my hand. I want him to feel the shape of the sky around his body. I want him to know where his heart pulls, how to circle the air, sure of his flight. In order to teach my son to love the shape he takes, I need to love my own. To do this, I must spend time with the me that I have become, listen to the stories of my body, where it is broken, where it bends. I must learn how to be a mother and myself, to feel the tension tug between the two and sometimes fall through. There are days when I feel that I am failing at both. On these days, I must learn to forgive. Outside my window, the swallows circle in the blue, their bodies buffeted by the guidance of air. They are returning to their nesting grounds, driven by a memory of where they belong, even though those nesting grounds are no longer here. Will my son remember the home of my body when he has flown? I listen quietly to the rise and fall of my breath, let myself feel the quiver of skin over my bones. Take a deep breath in and exhale. Between the breath of birth and the last spent breath of death, our life is held. This beautiful, terrible, missable moment as Breath rises and falls. This is all we have. For now, I exist here between the in-breath and the out. It is not Zen-like. I am not a lotus flower coming into bloom. I am. That is all. Still, that is a good place to begin. Agrimony, Agrimonia, Cocklebur, Stickelwort, Garklive, Fairy's Wand. Place it under your pillow for a deep and peaceful sleep. Agrimony is associated with protection spells, used to help balance the emotions and banish negativity. It is helpful for those who bury feelings deep. Mildly astringent and rich in vitamins B3 and K, iron and niacin. It is commonly used to treat colic, urinary infections, diarrhea, skin complaints and ulcers. The flowers have a light apricot scent and can be made into a tea, tonic or infusion. Agrimony grows abundantly in waste areas, hedgerows and open ground. April's end brings storms and blows the blossom from the blackthorn trees. My son and I sit tight inside, listening to the wind as it sings through the letterbox. When the sun breaks through, we venture outside like field mice waking from sleep. "Do you hear the bedspring bird?" I say, listening to the squeak squeak of the Great Tit's song that signals brighter days. I take up my spade and start to dig into the storm-soaked sod. Over the next 2 weeks, we weather the seedlings outside, bringing them in at night until they are strong enough to stay the cold. Into the soil, we scatter gathered seeds of borage, cornflowers, corncockle, poppies. We dig dead nettle and water mint into the bog garden and gather burdock leaves from the backside below the bridge to lay over as mulch onto the vegetable beds. As they rot, the leaves will improve the soil for future growing. These changes come slowly, but what breaks down will give us what we need, balancing out the biodiversity of our backyard from the soil up. Together we fill each space, each patch of barren earth, and then We wait. Grief lives with us, but I will not let it claim these days. Each morning we walk our small and winding paths, the scent of cypress rising under our step. My son hugs his trees and currant bushes, encouraging each living thing to thrive. Under the lengthening light, our garden grows.. We welcome rain and sun as gifts and give witness. Slowly the ground begins to change. Invisible underneath, our winter work feeds the roots. Leaves and stems unfurl, and soon it seems all life is birthing. Bees find us, butterflies and birds calling curious about this ripening ground as life arrives, reckless and determined to grow wild over what was once stone. Wild Cherry, Prunus avium, Gean, Mazzard, Merry Tree, Sweet Cherry. Plant Cherry to bring good fortune and love into the home. Wild Cherry is used in wand making to ground spells and add power. It is high in calcium, potassium, and iron. Its bark was traditionally soaked in whiskey as a mild sedative during childbirth. Now it is more commonly used to treat chronic coughs, asthma, whooping cough, and bronchitis, as well as to alleviate stress and tension, regulate palpitations, and calm skin ailments. Sap from the tree can be chewed as an alternative alternative to chewing gum and is a rich source of vitamin C. The fruit twigs can be steeped to make an astringent tea or wash. The cherry fruit is widely used in pies, preserves, cordials, and other kitchen recipes, and both the fruit and bark can be used to flavour alcohol. However, the leaves and twigs and bark all contain prunasin and amygdalin, which convert to hydrocyanic acid when added to water. In small doses, this acts as a respiratory stimulant and mood enhancer, but can be fatal in larger quantities. Wild Cherry grows often in hedgerows, graveyards, and disturbed area. Although there are trees planted on the communal green, we are not allowed to plant them in the garden. Without trees, there is nowhere for the birds to hide. At our last house, there were lots of birds. They lived in the copse that grew between our garden and the railway embankment behind. In spring, we gathered lambswool and threads from my son's blonde hair to leave out for their nests, and during the winters, we made fat balls from lard and chopped fruit, which we tied to the holly tree outside our window. As they came to feed, my son and I checked our pocket guide to British birds to find their names: nuthatch, woodpecker, goldfinch, yellowhammer, sparrow, coltit, fieldfare, robin. We miss watching the birds. A garden needs trees. Without them, there is nowhere for us to make believe. When I was a young girl, a plum tree grew in front of out of the kitchen window. In summer it sagged heavy with fruit, and I would sit under it and eat the sweet plums, the sticky juice coating my fingers and chin. In autumn wasps would come, and with them warnings to look before I bit. I can still smell the sugar fermenting in the late September sun. My mother said it was on account of my name that I loved them so much. I was born with the hair the colour of ripe Victoria plums, or so the story goes. My mother, convinced I would be a boy after giving birth to 2 boys and 3 girls, had no name for another daughter. She took one look at my hair and named me after a tree. One summer, the plum tree broke in two, its bough split from the trunk. My father cut the whole thing down in case it fell. And there were no more summer plums. I decide to plant trees. Sometimes it is good to break a few rules. My mother digs out a sapling damson and a wild cherry from the hedgerow at the bottom of her garden. She gives these to my son, a clump of sleeping snowdrop bulbs still clinging onto the soil. I tease the bulbs away to plant in later. And stand the two spindly twigs to soak in a bucket outside. To these two trees we add an apple, apricot, and plum salvaged from the end of line sail. The gardening books tell me a sapling fruit should be planted in a hole twice the diameter of its roots and at least 2 feet deep. I managed 10 inches down, digging out stones before I hit compacted hardcore. It will have to do, though I have my doubts that fruit will grow. As we dig, a robin watches cautiously from the fence posts. My son sees the bird and pulls on my sleeve. "Mummy, robin! My robin has come to see me. He must have found out about the trees," he says. A robin often visited the garden of our old house sitting near to him as he played. My son called it his friend and was sad when we had to leave it behind. I explained that wild things cannot be caged and he'd understood, but still he'd wished it wasn't so. Now he greets this Robin as his long-lost friend, delighted to be reacquainted again. 'Welcome, Mr. Robin, we are planting you a tree,' my son tells this this curious little bird who watches us work. They're messengers from the spirit world, folklore says. When a Robin appears, a lost loved one is near. They bring signs of new life and new beginnings. In Norse lore, they protect against the coming storms. It is good that this little bird is here. We wait until the COVID of dark to plant our contraband trees, dropping each one into its hole, watering in, covering the roots with compost and soil. My son stomps in circles around each one, tamping down the loose ground with his dinosaur Wellington boots. Our hopeful orchard. This planting is our first act of faith, a promise we will stay long enough to see it bear fruit. To find out more about today's guest, you can pop on to victoriabennett.me and go and buy the book. I love what we do here, and it's making a difference, opening conversations on mental health and well-being. And it's good to talk, say what's going on and how you feel, to engage with people about what you've experienced. Dissolve the stigma and not feel as if a part of your life is a no-go zone, please do check out all our other many shows at womensradiostation.com and mensradiostation.com. And for more book recommendations, please pop onto my website at hazelbutterfield.com. Thank you for listening.