Review! Belly Journal
Belly began as an idea in Editor, Sarah Nicholson’s mind as she lumbered from bookstore to bookstore:
“I was looking for a creative pregnancy journal. I had seen yearly diaries like RAW Women which have women’s artwork and creative writing and I thought there must be something like that designed for pregnant women. I was really surprised that I couldn’t find anything.”
After birthing her son, with baby on hip, she set out to create such a pregnancy journal, slowly collating materials from around Australia to create Belly
Description (from www.bellyjournal.com)
Belly has been designed to weave a web of artists from diverse places and spaces around Australia to share their wisdom, thoughts and creative responses to the experiences of pregnancy, birth and motherhood. Belly explores pregnancy, birth and early motherhood through poetry, prose, photography, drawing, painting and sculpture.
The metamorphosis of pregnancy brings to the new mother an unavoidable psychological journey of growth and change. Growing inside and out, the pregnant woman lives out the death of her old identity of single self and the birth of the new, in her blossoming motherhood. The hours of birthing are an intense initiation into her new self. In a profoundly liminal descent into the underworld of her depths, she must surrender herself to the greater process of nature to open as a gateway for the budding new life she carries.
The 50 contributions collected in Belly display a vast array of diverse emotions and experiences using fresh and ancient motifs and metaphors. They explore the pain and confusion of this transitional experience. They celebrate the depth of experience, nurturing, beauty, sensuality, connection, wonder and love of motherhood and the creative life of women.
Indispersed among the creative explorations of these contributors is space for the pregnant woman to add to their own creative energies: write, paint, draw, add photographs, memorabilia, thoughts, questions, responses, dreams and wishes.
Belly : 128 pages, spiral bound and printed on 40% recycled Onyx paper. 16 pages of colour art.
Our Review – This is simply a beautiful book to honour and celebrate pregnancy! Filled with poems and images that inspire and support and lots of space for your own contributions. It would make a treasured gift for a mum-to-be, as well as a special memento of your own pregnancy. Pregnancy is a great time to start keeping a journal if you don’t already, as it is a wonderful thing to keep a record of your thoughts, hopes, fears and other feelings during this unique period in a woman’s life. This journal gives honour to your writings and creative expressions and will remain a treasured keepsake, even possibly heirloom to your own daughter!
Cost – Extreme value for money at only $29.95 (Australian) or approx. £11 (GB) / $16 (US)
Where to Buy – Available online through Nature’s Child AU Orders outside of Australia must email selection first and then correct shipping is quoted (minor inconvinience, but accurate postage charges). For postal ordering, visit the website www.bellyjournal.com.