On Change

'...Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life...' (Jane Hirschfield, Tree)

The autumn is settling in. Light shifts, shadows reach deeper into the garden. The corner, where I placed my summer seat, is now cast in shadow. I notice the sun as it kisses the tops of the ash tree at the back of the house, no longer lasting the evening hours. Overhead, I hear the steady beat of wintering geese. The terns have already gone, the road to the nearby shore no longer patrolled by their fierce protection. On the wires that hang slack between the houses, a quartet of fledgling swallows sit, their mother out of sight. I walk up to them, but they do not shift. Stay there, she has told them. Do not move until I come back! On the ridge-tiles, starlings gather, chatter loudly of change.

The garden that we planted this year, from seed and small cuttings, is turning too. Roses lose their flush of pink, drop petals to the ground. The borage flowers gather like stars in the little barrel pond by the back wall. The water is a dark, pea soup green but the other week, I saw a small frog pop up from below, and it made me smile. We have given it a home. Bees busy on the fading blooms, landing briefly on catmint, yarrow, St John’s wort. Each morning, I pick sweet peas to place beside my desk, their sweetness surprising to find. The back porch is filling up with seed heads picked from walks and wander-by. Upstairs, I hang bunches of chamomile and mugwort to dry. Every year, I have the same to-and-fro of whether to pick the flowers for winter brews, or leave them for the bees’ last feeds. The bees win most. Even on dark days, the marigold and corn chamomile still shine.

As the garden changes, so do I. In this September month, that closes my fifty-second year, I have taken to swimming in the sea each morning, the cold shock waking me up. I feel jangly inside, jittered and thin. Something inside of me is lost, a connection frayed; to myself, to life, to the ground beneath my still-bare feet. I swim to reconnect, watching my arms stretch out into the water, watching the early sun seep silver into the salt. When I turn to face the sky, I see clouds across the blue, the hugeness of it all against my small frame. I am both small and strong. I want to stay here. To feel myself strong again, remember the sense of belonging that water brings.

But I always have to get out, driven by the cold that seeps into a lulling warmth. I keep in mind the words I read: when you start to feel like you could stay in there forever, its time to leave. The aftershock is hard, my skin rebellious against the shifts of temperature, activating a stinging rash, and then the core cold that creeps in, not straight away, but an hour down the line, like a hunger.

I keep swimming.

I keep swimming because I need to return myself to a place that I cannot find on land. I am bone woman, selkie, left too long out of my skin. A siren sings at the centre of me, pulls me away from the noise and fog of things. In the water, I can weep, the salt of my tears just another part of the sea. That overused phrase - an ocean of tears. But what if it is? An ocean of tears wept by women like me, quietly, for what has been lost to the years: the beauty I wore like shame, the fecund earth I was too afraid to dig, the sharp light of a voice I was afraid to let sing.

I am dry-throated. In the night, I call, craning my head around the rooftop window to spy the moon. Speak then.

And a rage and sorrow and joy come pouring out into my restless sleep. I imagine swimming in the dark, my moon-body like a star in the sea. I break myself against the shell of night, let the clothes of my skin slip to the sand, shed the weight of time at the shoreline. It is easy to let go, to dissolve. The broken bits of me, the heaviness of flesh becoming nothing but the soft push and ebb of cold. Here, I am nothing but salt and memory, silence and sound, returning what was lost to my mouth as song, my body lifted, weightless against the waning tide; crone-woman, bone-woman, swimming free.

But I do not move. I wait in the dark, try not to wake the sleeping. By morning, I look like myself again. Only the salt taste of my skin gives me away. I get up, head down to the shore, step in.

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Short read from All My Wild Mothers

‘As autumn turns, my son and I search the local hedgerows for sour sloes. Grave foods, dry-mouth; nothing sweet to be found in this bitter fruit and yet, we gather them in for gin. In spring, the roadside hedges are shorn back by huge, mechanical scythes that rip the blossom from the trees and strip the shelter from the nesting birds. Without blossom, there is no later fruit. We must look deeper into the fields to find our harvest…’

(extract from Calendula, All My Wild Mothers - motherhood, loss and an apothecary garden)

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Plant of the Month

Calendula

Calendula Officinalis

Merrybud, marygold, summer’s bride

Hang a wreath of marigolds over your door to stop evil from entering your home

Calendula is a popular medicinal, culinary and magical plant, used throughout the ages, from the Ancient Egyptians to contemporary times for its healing properties. It has a long association as a woman’s herb, used to ease menstrual problems. It is anti- fungal, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antiseptic, and used in healing salves, washes, balms and creams to treat minor wounds, insect bites, burns and other skin irritations. Leaves and flowers are edible and rich in fibre and vitamins. It makes an excellent companion plant to protect against pests. Often planted to placed around doorways, as as welcome to good luck and prosperity, and on graves to protect the dead. Calendula grows well on roadsides, rubbish tips and wastelands.

(abridged from All My Wild Mothers - motherhood, loss and an apothecary garden)

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Deck of the Day

The Herbal Astrology Oracle

(written by Adriana Ayales with artwork by Josephine Klerks)

(image borrowed from Amina Mundi Apothecary)

An oracle deck that opens an ancient portal into the energy and healing power that connects the stars above us and the plants growing from the earth.

"As above, so below..."

Deepen your connection to the soul of nature—the anima mundi—with this 55-card oracle deck that alchemizes the ancient healing power of plants and the wisdom of astrology.

Since ancient times sages, shamans, and medicine peoples from Indigenous herbal traditions around the world have used astrological correspondences to work with the power of plants, both in divination and in healing. Plants grow and thrive or wither and sicken under cosmological influence just like we do.

Each richly illustrated card in this oracle deck is a wise plant ally and each guidebook entry illuminates the traditional uses, planetary correspondences, and the spiritual meaning behind each plant's energetic healing power to guide you along the winding path to healing, connection, and purpose.

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All My Wild Mothers - news

It was a lovely summer, visiting bookshops and sharing All My Wild Mothers. Such a special opportunity to connect with amazing booksellers and wonderful readers all the way from Orkney to Okehampton.

As we head towards shorter days (and stormier weather) I will be island-bound mostly, but looking forward to a couple of readings here in Orkney for Libraries Week (2- 8th October) and National Grief Awareness Week (2 - 8th December).

I am also looking forward to chatting with some new folk in online bookclubs and podcasts in the coming months. Keep an eye on my social media pages for updates, or check here

And last but not least, I will be running a series of 3 memoir workshops, free and open to deaf and disabled artists, with the fantastic CRIPTIC Arts, starting September 12th. Details here

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and reviews…

In a time of algorithms and over-saturation of social media, a quiet debut benefits a lot from reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Storygraph and other review sites. More than that though, it is like receiving a postcard home to let us know what adventures our books are having and the friends they are making along the way. It has been really lovely to receive reader reviews of the book. Knowing how and where these wild seeds of my story land is so important. I have been moved by the warmth and generosity of these responses and I am grateful for every one. Sharing a few here, with my deep thanks. And if you have read and liked All My Wild Mothers, please do leave a review in the above places. It makes a huge difference. This one made me particularly smiley recently…

‘a gorgeous journey through grief and growth and nature and love. It feels like a warm hug from a good friend’

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That’s all for now, lovely people. Thank you for being patient between posts. Please feel free to tell people about WildWomanLife and share this newsletter but do remember, please do not share text and images in any other form without permission and proper credits. Thank you xx