What is my next novel going to be about...

I was brainstorming ideas for my next book, and as someone who writes women’s fiction, I take inspiration from all the very many wonderful women I have met in my life. And I suddenly became very sad – recalling all the stories I have heard of the struggles of womanhood. The way women must overcome things, they simply shouldn’t have to in a sane society. All the misogyny, the inequality, the assaults on our bodies and minds. The contradictory pressures and even now, in 2023, the undermining and attacks of our fundamental human rights. I was thinking about it all and became overwhelmed, so I went for a walk in the garden. Having my feet on the earth has always been medicine for me.

I watched the kingfisher, with its iridescent blue feathers, swoop in for a fish in the pond. I noticed a dead sparrow on the ground and then watched as a raptor circled overhead, presumably wanting to eat the dead flesh of the bird. For a moment, the world just seemed brutal, and the walk wasn’t helping. And then I heard a cacophony of tweets and I peered up and noticed an old nest in a nearby cherry blossom. A mama bird was happily feeding her chicks. It’s not spring yet, and I thought that was strange. But more than strange, it was beautiful. Beautiful to see the mama nurturing her babies, somehow adapting to these new weather patterns and seasons. And it was a salutary reminder of how resilient we are as women – how we adapt, how we find ways to love despite all that is levied at us. How strong, wild, life affirming and creative we are. How friggin inspiring we are! And those are the stories I want to write. The stories of overcoming and prospering. I felt myself smiling. I could literally write a book about almost every woman I know, and it would be that story. It brought a tear to my eye. I think I’m going to be writing for the rest of my life. I better get cracking.

Winter Cherry Blossom - Gwen B

I am the wilderness

I am the wilderness.

I am a seed about to burst into a flower, 

I am the voice of a songbird,

I am a storm and wildfire.

I am the calming rain.

I am not meek, not tame,

not yours, not claimed. 

I am strong and wilful and wild,

I am the mother and the daughter and the girl child.

I will never be defined by your misogyny, 

because I am free. 

I am the wilderness, the womb of creation,

there is nothing more powerful to be. 

Gwen B 

Opening by Gwen B

Body is not an Instagram pose

Body is not an Instagram pose,

Body is breath, and believing. Body is feet on the ground to the forests, to the mountains, to the sea, and into the arms of beauty.

Body is not an Instagram pose,

Body is catching a falling apple, twisting a lemon of a tree. Body is sweet, round, cylindrical, oblong. Body is touch —  strong, wild and free.

Body is not an Instagram pose,

Body is an ode to movement, to dance, to walk, to run, to climb, to play, to see beautiful flowers, and beautiful things like the lined and inked faces of the old.

Body is not an Instagram pose,

Body is a heart that feels, that beats, that shakes, that loves, that cries with grief and aliveness, that bellows with jubilation.

Body is sticky bones that decompose. Body is deliverance.

Body is soil and sorrow and song.

No, my body is not an Instagram pose.

My body is a miraculous beauty that creates, that connects, that nurtures life and destiny.

And no matter how much the world screams otherwise,

my body belongs to no one but me. 

Gwen B

I am the sky - acrylic on canvas- Gwen B

I am so many things, seen and unseen.

In the morning light, a wide yawn — opening expectant.

Waiting for the new day to show my reflection in the water’s light,

waiting for the sky to greet me with dappled clouds,

to see me.

I am so many things. Seen and unseen.

A longing waiting to be fulfilled. Waiting for you to find me.

Not me, swimming on the surface like water striders,

me underneath woollen blankets, linen sheets.

Me at first light, with hot coffee, pale skin, stale breath — breathing hollow shapes into the wintry morning air.

I am so many things. Seen and unseen.

A warm hand extending a welcome, a cold retreat.

A smile, sometimes vacant, sometimes full

of stormy clouds and unpredictable grief.

A song of forgiveness. A song of joy. A song of hope.

I am so many things. Seen and unseen.

Deep-rooted and following braided rivers.

A broken wing, the earth beneath the ground.

Streams that flow to an ocean of belonging.

Emptiness and Everything

Yes, I’m so many things.

Gwen B

Hiding Lily by Gwen Bryce

Gentle

Gentle is soft and spacious, a moment of ease, tenderly allowing yourself to breathe, softly in and out.

Gentle is a featherlight touch, a place to go to find some rest when it’s all too much push and pull.

Gentle is a loving conversation with yourself, a kind word, a reassurance, a patient smile.

Gentle is being ok for a little while, in amongst all the Crescendo.

Gentle is a delicate scent, or lying on a plump bed of autumn leaves, or feeling the brush of a naked breeze on your soft and buttery skin. 

Or maybe floating about in the sunlight like a dandelion wish that’s lost in the wind.

Gentle is poise both solid and soft, like the ground beneath your feet that grows forests.

A place with little noise, but abundant with the sounding whispers of butterfly wings and bright and cheerful words.

Gentle’s calm, restorative way is calling out to you today.

Not tomorrow or in an hour, or next week. Be gentle as we speak, because Gentle might just be the simple happiness you seek.

Sometimes we over complicate things.

Gwen B

Gentle Contemplation - Acrylic on Canvas by Gwen Bryce

I Don’t Know Why People Try to Put Love in Boxes

I don’t know why people try to put love in boxes neatly edged with ribbon.

Love is a waterfall mist that spirals and flows in colours

and when it descends or rises in you — it’s often quiet, the way the sun reaches the horizon line at dawn and slips over in a single second, or the way the moon arrives in your window.

Unannounced.

I wonder why people try to put love in boxes?

I’ve loved many ways — upside down and right side up.

Romantically, I’ve loved men, but who is to say that one day it won’t be a woman that climbs into my heart?

I mostly know that love weaves its way through open souls.

Even the broken-hearted.

Because love knows hearts don’t break to close.

I wonder why people try to put love in boxes — why they trap birds in cages, kill lions for trophies or burn the wilderness to ash.

I suppose the wild is a frightening thing, all of that freedom dancing, untamed.

How dare love be bold and unrepentant?

The wretched and the beauty of it, all interposed.

The thing is, love will burst the banks of any coercion — because love doesn’t answer to anyone. Have you noticed how the forest bursts to life after a burn?

Love is not interested in dogma or religious books, or social norms. It transcends all that.

It’s bigger than everything.

I don’t know why people try to put love in boxes or package it in string.

Oh, the insanity of clipping a Raptor’s wing.

So terrified of its indiscriminate beauty, people do despicable things.

You can’t change the essence of a thing by holding it tight, you can’t turn a mountain into the snow.

And you can’t trap a soul and make it belong to you,

That’s the opposite of love.

Love is boundless.

That’s why so many fear it.

It’s the ultimate liberator.

it’s the open sky and the clouds.

It’s the river and its banks.

It’s the rainbow and it's colours.

It’s the essence of everything in existence.

Therein lies its indelible light.

Only because it’s free,

can it eclipse you and me,

and transcend.

————

We still love the dead.

Sometimes even more than the living.

Gwen B

Rainbow by Gwen B

My Mother's Hands

As the years come along I look at myself in the mirror and see my mama. Strange, my whole life everyone said I looked nothing like her, I was my father’s daughter. But today I see her grey hair, I see her scowling expression, I see her Jewish nose (a long story for another time), and seeing her in this way through my own eyes makes me very happy. She is no longer with me in this world- she lives in the moon and the stars and the wind, but today I saw her in the mirror and I cried.

As I stared at my reflection I remembered the shape of her mouth, her soft piercing baby blue eyes, the way they mischievously twinkled when she was up to no good. In the end she was blind and that nearly killed me-I can hardly breathe when I think about it, but her sight now lives on in me because I notice everything, and I’m often up to no good- just like her. And recently I noticed her in my son Kyle too- who gives a big rambunctious chuckle when his mischievousness prevails. 

I remember a wise man saying that “your hands are your mothers hands” implying that you are one with all who came before you, and yes I think I know now what he meant. 

My hands are my mothers hands, and my grandmothers hands and ultimately the Great Mother Devi’s hands. If you look at your hands long enough you will see it too. 

As the Native American writer Linda Hogan penned,“ Walking, I am listening to a deeper way.  Suddenly my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”  

So please never take your existence for granted because the universe has conspired, against quite considerable odds, to bring you here. 

In one heart,

Gwen B

Free to Be

To be where I am, 
is where I am meant to be.

There was no accidental journey even though at times it may have felt like a storm. The tragedies so random, perfectly unpredictable like complicit waves crashing out in unfamiliar places, all dependant on unquantifiable energetic momentum.

But still here I land, crash, fall.

Fall into me. 

There is no “other” on this planet with the same lived experience. My life, a unique expression of creation that is simply here to express itself.

So while I’m here in this momentum, in the flow, I may not always choose where to go,

but with my heart, with my mind,

I can steer the direction.

There is so much grace when I remember, that no matter at which point I am on the path, I am always free,

just to be,

authentically Me.

In one heart,
Gwen B

Plum Blossom Bee by Gwen B

For the hurting big hearted, empathetic ones

No matter what happened, what sadness came upon you, no matter that you thought that they had abandoned you, through death, or hurt, or their own hapless path, you survived, you are here and you loved.

You thought your love would hold them and so you made it their container,
but they were never yours to contain,
their paths like water, flowing where they must,
and so your thinking led you to damn up, as you tried so hard to hold them, to save them, to keep them afloat with your love.

And as the container you suppressed your needs, your heart, your voice and your unique song.

In the reaching out you forgot to reach in, and in so doing you abandoned yourself. When all along you too are a mighty river that needs to flow, to wash over and through and under and out. Out into the wild waters of a life embodied with your fullness, your reverie, and your great big beautiful, beating heart.

You are never abandoned in the freedom to follow your path. If you allow it, life will love you with a courageous storm that will wash out all those empty places and fill them with the cup of knowing that you are fully free to express all of your needs, to say what you mean, to honour and live a life freely expressed from your whole hearted truth, to love and be loved with abandon, to be seen, to be known and to be heard.

You deserve this. Yes, you do!

So please dear soul, be brave and courageous and return to yourself, to your loving heart. Go to the home inside of you. Return to grace and gift yourself the space, and the freedom to flow where you must, to trust in the beauty of new beginnings, to start from a wiser place, and most of all, to know you are never alone, even on your own you are a synchronous part of the great cosmic concerto and you will always, always be held in the loving embrace of the great big universal Heart, which you can find over and over again when you recognise, and freely express your own individual heartsong.

In one heart,
Gwen

Sakura Pathways by Gwen B

The Madhya Space

The Madhya Space

There is a place I go, that is deep inside of me, I go there to listen, to reflect, to remember. This place doesn’t have a location, I call it the space in-between.

In Tantrik philosophy it is referred to as the Madhya Space. It’s the space between breath, the intermittent silent silence between the in-breath and the out-breath, it is the place between sounds, before one sensory sound merges into the other, it is the millisecond between each heartbeat, it’s subtleness so soft, it feels almost as unreachable as melting due.

But the more I pay attention to this place of Pause,

The deeper the Pause becomes.

As though it is stretching out into a liminal space of deep mystery.

A space between the 'what was' and the 'next.'
A place of transition, waiting, and not knowing.
A space where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.

A space beyond here, a space beyond the places we know, but when we find ourselves falling into here,
into wide open, empty, formless space,

this is when we arrive,

when we remember.

This is the space that keeps our soul aligned and leads our soul home.

In one heart,
Gwen B

Sakura Spaces in the Forest by Gwen B

A prayer for the soul

Great Spirit,

Bring me peace.

The peace of a quiet, trusting, abiding love.

The peace of self love and surrender.

Open my heart to the quiet beauties.

Release my pain and turn it into constellations that light the way.

Turn my loves, both present and gone, into rainbows that shine to remind.

Bring me to stillness, to the quiet places where joy shows her mysterious smile, and let me watch her in awe as she dances into the naked light.

May gratitude guide my days and nights for the wonder of simple things.

A rose petal. A wispy cloud. A flickering flame.

Let my calm resolve reflect onto the outer planes.

Help Me, help us to remember who we truly are, were and will always be.

before the war.

In One Heart,

Gwen B

Bali Mandala by Gwen B

Missing

I heard that in French you don’t say “I miss you,” you say “ tu me manques,“ which is closer to “I am missing from you”. And that I think is the best way to describe how it feels when a loved one leaves, however they go, there is an empty space where they once lived in us.

The heart acknowledges this, acknowledges their place in our lives, acknowledges the love that still lives for them and that is a beautiful, poignant gift.

The sensation of the loss of their presence may be very painful and wrenching because it is an expression of how deeply our soul loves. We are not shallow beings, our waters run deep.

So, when it comes, let it come, this aching pain of grief, let it wash over you, let it sink deeply into your bones, let the current of its enormity wash out into the ocean of you and the oceans beyond you.

Grace this gift back into the rocks, the soil, the earth upon which you stand. 

Let the river of love, dressed in salty tears, flow where it must.

You have loved. What an enormous experience. What a courageous, outrageous beauty! 

This love will always live in you, and perhaps, if you allow it to be just what it is without attaching a story to it, just seeing it and feeling it and acknowledging the sheer wonder of a love that has lived, even in grief, it may transform the pain into something that shimmers with colours of radiant light, a caterpillar into an iridescent butterfly, or something that tastes sweet and bright and beautiful.

And most revelatory of all,

if you are open enough to realise with real eyes, you will see that you are a potent, powerful being holding the capacity of a love so deep and reverent that it is capable of transforming unsurpassable mountains into lakeshores.

Your heart doesn’t break to close, it breaks to open. 

It’s all so damn beautiful!

In one heart, 
Gwen B

Sakura Blossoms by Gwen B

The Happiness Myth

It seems, from everywhere we look, that the goal of life is the emotion of happiness. We will be happy if we are successful financially and in relationship. We will be happy when we have a purpose, we will be happy when we achieve the perfect health and body shape. The pressure is relentless, just keep scrolling your Facebook or Instagram feed to see. 

Why then are we so lost amongst the sea of self-help gurus, and motivational speak? Why are we experiencing such a decline in mental health the world over?

It seems that the constant striving to arrive at happiness, is driving us into a vortex of despair. I will be happy when I have that, do that or be that. Comparisons on social media are heightening our sense of failure. Constant pressure to achieve more, have more and be more are the mainstream mantra. This endless striving gives us precious little time to be present with ourselves, our loved ones and our communities.

Perhaps our current epidemic of mental health decline and stress is because we are being sold an untrue story: the happiness myth.

What if the goal is not happiness? But rather the meaningful ability to peacefully embrace and accept all of the emotions that are coupled with the experiences that arise on this beautiful and heart-breaking journey we call life. What if we could look at our suffering through a different lens? Have we even considered deeply enough, that without the experience of sorrow, it is impossible for us to know joy?

We know and experience life through contrast.

Why are we so eager to label emotions as positive and negative, perhaps they are neither? What if we viewed our diverse emotions as threads that weave a majestic, colourful, unique tapestry for each one of us? Out purpose here is so much richer than just one emotion or one experience, no matter how compelling it is.

How beautiful it is to know the darkness of the night so that the stars may shine in all their glory and the moon’s iridescent light may reflect upon the land, enlivening nature in the blackness. How beautiful is it to witness the sunshine as it casts rays of light, illuminating all the shadows that roll, layer and frame the contours of the rich Earthscape below. 

There is so much exquisiteness in all this messy life, even though we all suffer. Each and every one of us can not escape the traumas of life. But we can certainly learn how to navigate them. If our hearts are open enough, calm enough, accepting enough, beauty arrives in unforeseen places, and if we are courageous enough to be vulnerable with it all, and share and accept our suffering as well as our joy, how much more meaningful, deep and beautiful our connections become with others and with life itself!

Our difficult feelings and emotions are not enemies, they are portals into the beauty of the beyond. They are waypoints, markers, and energies which enliven our experiences here. All part of the mysterious creative force.

Be at peace with them, even the challenging ones. Welcome them even, surrender them, because nothing can transform without arriving.

“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning, we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night, we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more.” – John O Donahue 

In one heart,
Gwen B

Butterfly Wheel by Gwen B

Embracing Emotion

Have you noticed how a slither of sunlight can turn the most ordinary thing into an unseen beauty? 

I have been listening to the soft whispers of the falling rain today. Letting the gentleness of earth’s gift wash into my wounded places. My vulnerability is aching to be nourished, heard and brought safely out into the light after a tender time. This shaking land of the long white cloud is shaking up all I bury. Mother Earth is restless and impatient.   

And so today I honour all the parts of myself that are afraid to be seen, heard, and judged. The parts I don’t often allow to surface, the parts that are constantly kept in that murkiness of deep judgement water by fear, pain and that deeply turbulent emotion shame.                     

It’s time to let them rise, gently, so nothing is broken open with force.  It’s time to walk into freedom through the crack in the light. 

I admit, I have been afraid to deal with these buried parts. My stubborn nature echoing the sentiments of a socialised conditioning.  Why go there?  It’s gone, in the past, dealt with, why bring up old wounds?  My mind questions but my heart innately knows: that it is these very emotions that I avoid, that hold the key to my emotional freedom, health and wellbeing. 

The act of burying emotion, though helpful at times for our survival, is the catalyst for falling out of love with ourselves. 

You see, I cannot be authentically me without embracing all of me. And all of me is not beautiful. I have dark places that need to be acknowledged and dusty crevices that need to be swept out with a loving hand. I am an imperfect human being.  Like everything in this world, I am a duality. A blend of polarities. Empty darkness and penetrating light. If I want to truly and deeply love others I need to truly and deeply love myself. My whole self. 

And that is why I want my imperfections to be lit.. So that I can see them and bring them into wholeness.with me. 

As the wise sufi mystic Rumi wrote : “Both Light and Shadow are the dance of love “ 

It is very hard for some to accept their own shadow. I have difficulty with this too, despite having spent very many years unlearning the dogmatic beliefs of a childhood in an insular community, I struggle. This is hardly surprising when we are beset with institutionalised belief systems which hold their foundation in judgement. We are taught to suppress what is bad for fear of judgement and this singular thing is wholly destroying our world.  

It is only when we hide and subvert our emotions that we grow hate. Hate grows best buried in the dark, it’s moistened and fertilised by fear and shame. 

The birthing of self-hatred is often unconscious, beginning with the suppression of shame and evolving on our earthly plane in catastrophic and destructive ways. Most don’t even recognise self-hatred in themselves, they simply lash out at the world and don’t know why.  The hurting hurt.

If we can not be at peace with ourselves, why are we surprised that the world is not at peace ?                                                    

It’s time for us to turn inward. 

This is the the most courageous thing we can do for ourselvesSelf love is built by inward acceptance. It’s the key to finding our treasure. To finding the parts of us that we perceive as lost.

There are times when we feel a great emptiness, so we search. We search the faces of others, we look on top of mountains, we search in beliefs, work places, we dive to great depths but alas we discover that the emptiness prevails and we are disheartened. That is because we are searching in the wrong places. 

I have looked inside, yes on my mat, in stillness, or on a forest walk, or sitting at the waters edge and I have discovered that:          

 I am here, all of me is here. No need to look outward. I am buried.                Within.  

Allowing myself to be seen and heard in absolute truth excavates the missing parts.

Speaking my heart even when I know that my words may not be welcome, wanted, seen or appreciated embraces the right of my voice to be heard.                                     

We all have right to be heard. We are all valuable.

I am holding my own hand now and climbing the mountain of courage. Surrendering the parts of me that are afraid and unworthy into the divine flow of this imperceptible yet tangible force of consciousness which creates all. This is a journey I must walk alone, for only I can look at my inner self.  Although truth knows that at our deepest essence, we are never alone, but all one.                                                                         

The divine paradox.

How others react to our heart and spirit, our wholeness , is their choice. They are free to be kind, cruel, judgemental or indifferent.  They may love us or hate us. Their reactions do not reflect us.      

We only mirror ourselves.

We all make mistakes as we walk this journey, and those mistakes are valuable teachers. 

I will no longer allow the world to know only one side of me, the parts that I myself judge as worthy of presence. Who am I to judge what the world sees?  What illusion am I perpetuating?

By judging myself, I am implicitly judging each and everyone of you. My suppression becomes your suppression.

But when I bring those parts of me that are vulnerable, ashamed, or perceptively unlovable into the light, I bring your vulnerability,  and shame into freedom with me. I allow a space for opening. By seeing my whole uncensored truth, you become less afraid of yours. 

Yes, today I dance with vulnerability. I allow myself to cry, be in anger, sit with shame. Even guilt is my teacher, showing me a better way to be. 

These mislabelled “negative emotions” are simply teachers. They are our inbuilt moral compass.  They are there for a very valuable reason, there is no need to reject them. They are like little lights on a pathway, guiding us in which direction to move. Always leaving the choice up to us. 

Each and every one of us possess an extraordinary alchemical power of transformation. 

So lets take full responsibility for our whole selves. Lets be:

Open, Free. Courageous. Resolute in vulnerability. Fully accepting of all aspects of ourselves.  Forgiving, unashamed and whole. 

I am loving all my unlovable places.  

Let healing seep into your buried spaces and show you how to love yours too.. 

Let salt water tears wash away all the assumptions we make about ourselves.  

Let Mother Earth’s rain pour love onto our wounds as we hold them up to Father Sky’s light. 

Together. Alone. All One. 

We can transform our darkest places into an indelible beauty. 

Much love,

Gwen B (C)

Sakura by Nina Beilby (C)