Perhaps motherhood is always a promise that cannot be kept.

When her children are born, Nellika vows she will be the perfect mother. Motherhood is sacred, mythic: it will remake everything that is broken in her. But as her children grow, something buried is awakened, and the myth begins to crack.

Only the cool, green silence of the forest, where Nellika walks every day, can soothe what is repeatedly torn apart by family life. One morning, deep in a remote part of the forest, she is struck by a falling manna gum branch. Shockingly injured and unable to move, her only hope is that someone will find her.

As darkness falls on what might be her last day, Nellika must reckon with herself and the place where she lies. Is this fallen branch an accident or a punishment? As death draws close, the forest asks her: why should you live? And in the dark heart of her memories, she discovers that there is an answer.

A powerful meditation on nature and healing, How to Love the World finds hope where none seems possible.