The Wild Within: What Plants Taught Me about Life, Recovery and Renewal

An immersive, enriching and sensory journey of healing, one wild plant at a time. ‘The wild is never finished. It insists on returning, on reweaving, on remaking what has been broken. And it was the wild that first taught me I could do the same. I didn’t come to plants as a scholar or a healer. I came as someone who had forgotten how to belong to herself. I came raw, fractured, emptied out by years of surviving. I came because I needed to find away back into my own body.’ In a series of viscerally alive chapters, exploring the wildlife, folklore and medicinal properties of common wild flowers and trees, Brigit Anna McNeill tells her own story of recovery and rewilding. Herbalist, trained therapist, and popular Instagram and Substack writer McNeill explains how the natural cycle of dispersal, growth and bloom can inspire our recovery from trauma, stress and illness. By weaving together both the beauty and psychology of reciprocity and non-human connection, she deepens our interaction with the wildness to be found both in the city and the woodlands beyond. The Wild Within illuminates a botanical path of self-care.