Suffering from a touch of post court malaise, spending an evening with my succulents seemed like the best kind of therapy.

This is a hobby of mine that I’ve been cultivating for about the past six months, and I find it both incredibly rewarding, and grounding. Tonight is a landmark as I’m moving my first babies into their own little glasses (so chosen because they were cute, second hand, and a couple of them match glassware that my Nan still has in service!). The succulents in the photos all came to me as leaves on larger succulents, and they are my first attempts at propagation. To say I feel a smattering of pride when I see the new shoots forming, would be something of an understatement!

Reading around the subject a little before I embarked on this, I was struck by the advice that you can either leave the mother leaf on the surface, or bury it. Burying it seemed a cruel and wicked fate to me.

In time though, whichever option I select, the pup will take all that the mother has to offer, until she is withered and useless, and will then discard her. It is both hauntingly terrifying, and immensely reassuring to be able to bear witness so tangibly to this process.

Immensely reassuring to see new life emerging from destruction, and to witness the resilience and survival instinct of nature itself. Watching the pups form and grow, nourished by the mother, resonates deeply with me as a breastfeeding mother. Terrifyingly haunting because as mothers, I guess that same fate awaits us all in some shape or form. Withered, useless, and eventually discarded. Comforted, in no small way, I would hope, by the sight of our pups independently thriving.

It’s also a lesson in patience and observation. In providing optimal conditions and then sitting back and waiting to see the outcome. I can not force these leaves to callous, root and germinate, any more than I can force my daughter to flourish. I just have to trust that given patience, encouragement, and optimal conditions, they will do exactly that.

Let’s just hope that she feels I have a few useful years left in me yet.