Mother and artist, Nellika Werner, walks in the forest near her home every day, hoping to re-weave the fabric of herself that is repeatedly torn apart by family life.

One morning, she takes a path she’s never walked before. In this unknown part of the forest, Nellika is struck by a falling manna gum branch, tearing her body open, crushing her spine, giving her twelve hours to live if she is not found.

Now the forest becomes something else.

*

When her children are born Nellika vows she will be the perfect mother. She’s thought about it forever. There is something sacred, mythic, in the task. Everything that is broken in her will be re-made by the act of mothering.

But one day, when she tired and pushed, she loses control. The myth begins to crack. As her children grow, the eruptions continue. She realises it is harder to leave behind the breakage of your past than she thought.

*

She tries and fails to get free of the branch. She waits for someone to find her. As the hours pass, she realises she is not waiting to be rescued. She is waiting to die.

Now she enters into a reckoning with herself and with the forces of the forest. Is this an accident or an act of punishment? She watches the sun trace its path over the ground and submits to the trees as her final witnesses. As light slips away, certain presences—a mist, a wallaby, a snake—appear to her, provoking her, consoling her, demanding her testimony. At day’s end, close to death, the forest asks her: why should you live? And in the dark heart of her memories, she discovers that there is an answer.

Both a meditation on the intelligence of nature and intricate map of intergenerational trauma, How to Love the World is unsettling, immersive and ultimately hopeful.