Ben’s book is an honest and personal journey exploring his relationship with family, friends and his connection to the land. This inspiring book tells how rewilding brought a resurgence of nature to his land and brought him hope, comfort and healing after such a terrible loss.
Struggling to comprehend the shocking death of his teenage daughter, Ben Goldsmith finds solace in nature by immersing himself in plans to rewild his farm.
In July 2019, Ben Goldsmith lost his 15-year-old daughter, Iris, in an accident on their family farm in Somerset. Iris’s death left her family reeling.
Grasping for answers, Ben threw himself into searching for some ongoing trace of his beloved child, exploring ideas that until then had seemed too abstract to mean much to him. Missing his daughter terribly and struggling to imagine how he would face the rest of his life in the shadow of this loss, Ben found solace in nature, the object of a lifelong fascination. As Ben set about rewilding his farm, nature became a vital source of meaning and hope.
This book is the story of a year of soul-searching that followed a terrible loss. In an instant, Ben’s world had turned dark. Yet, unbelievably to him, the seasons kept on turning, and as he immersed himself in the dramatic restoration of nature in the place where it happened, he found healing.
In God is an Octopus, Ben tells a powerful, immersive and inspiring story of finding comfort and strength in nature after suffering loss and despair.
‘Intensely readable, poetic, truthful, wise and wonderful.’
‘An extraordinary book.’
“I felt held by nature during the darkest time of my life, following the loss of my teenage daughter Iris in an accident. There is a deep comfort, meaning and joy to be found in nature. I wrote my book God is an Octopus because I felt my own story of loss, love and solace in nature might help others similarly hurting.”
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