Embers - a novel by j.m. bridgeman

Sex - Culture Failure It seems to me, attitudes towards sex reflect the chasms which separate different individuals and different groups of people today. Sexual behaviour often reflects culture failure--the failure of one generation to transmit its rules, and the reasons behind those rules, to the next generation. In the past, sex was one of those things God and the men who worked for Him tried to control, especially in women. "You may only have sex with people I approve of, and after seeking and receiving my blessing." After many people abandoned their faith in God (usually cited as after World War I when millions of lives were sacrificed in His name), society began to question its blind faith in those leaders talking to God. In despair and feeling "lost," individuals often rebelled against the old ways. Many chose coupling/intercourse as a form of self-medication. These senses--of sex as reaction, sex as rebellion, sex as a path towards healing--are sti...

Sex - Politics, Choice, and Criminalization It's a pendulum swing, the way our democratic systems work. For a time, we elect people who say "No, no, no!" and "You cannot do that!" and pass laws which step all over the human right to self-determination. Then the pendulum swings back and we elect people who say "Let adults choose according to each one's own beliefs and conscience." A couple of years ago, our former government (here in Canada) passed a law making paying for sex illegal. I don't ever remember hearing it debated, nor any public outcry about "getting back into the bedrooms of the nation" which we've kept private since the first Trudeau was Prime Minister. Nor any debate about how, with one sweep of the pen, we were making criminals of thousands of citizens. Most likely, this change in law (previously, only soliciting was illegal) was a misguided attempt to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people, especi...

Spiritual Genealogy I mentioned my thrill at finding in John O'Donohue's "embers of kinship" quote the idea of "spiritual genealogy," some mysterious non-physical connection which may click or spark like two magnets smashing together. This connection may be some sort  of "blood link" similar to D. H. Laurence's "blood memory"--the idea that within us are mysteries, often unknown to us consciously, which we  have inherited through the blood and DNA handed down to us. Or possibly, sucked into our essence by osmosis from, through,  physical places or things. When we encounter strangers within whom exists some of our own inheritances, we sense a connection. O'Donohue calls this person an "anam cara" or "soul friend" which, by definition, implies that we are already  aware of our own "soul" and that we recognize within some Other some aspect of our selves.  This is why I see the idea of a  soul fr...

EMBERS - The Process A self-published novel by j.m. bridgeman, EMBERS is the story of a few days in the life of Wyn McBride, a mature female artist who loves her career, her friends, her home, homes, in British Columbia, Canada. An opportunity to visit Ireland for the first time changes Wyn forever. In this blog, EMBERSjmb.blogspot.ca/ I relive and share the process of writing the novel. EMBERS took me about three years to write. I started it shortly after my return from my third visit to England, Scotland, and Ireland in 2013. I finished a fast first draft around the time of Seamus Heaney's death in 2013 and the final revision the month Leonard Cohen died in 2016. Somehow these two losses seemed to spur me to polish and to launch. Both poets speak to me about the importance of place, identity, and being fully human. I also heard the words of an old favourite, D.H. Lawrence, who insists that "you can put anything you want into a novel." And the silen...

Goals (2) - To Celebrate Canada A second goal for me, for writing this story, is to celebrate Canada. Not specifically to "showcase" this great northern land but simply to highlight the way we love it, our feelings for it, and especially, the connections we have to the places where we have lived, especially those where we grew as children, before "the voices of our accursed human education" came between ourselves and our souls. As with the mouse sleeping with the elephant, no one will realize we are here unless we roar for ourselves. If we as a nation feel invisible, seemingly insignificant, how much greater the risk is that we may fail to recognize and to assert our identity, that which makes us unique, that which adds value to the world by our simple presence. Thus, Part I of EMBERS revolves around Wyn's trip between Vancouver and Sparwood, her solitary musings, her stops along the way. And Part II, although set in Ireland, challenges her to articulate how ...

The Fire Within One of my private passion pastimes is photography. I love the word origin--writing with light. I used to think that I was  always trying to "capture the light." As if it is prey and I am the hunter. Or the quester. As if the light is magic.  For  me, the most obvious hiding place for light (and its brokenness, colour) is in flowers. There is a reason why I was called  the "Flower Girl" in my family. Not only because I got to be in Auntie Olive's wedding party. Not only because I always  brought bouquets into the house--buds, greenery, blossoms. I just love them. But I also see these "hot flower pics" as  connected to the "embers" theme, because for sure, is not the fire here too, seeping out of the light at the flowers'  cores?  I heard that fire hidden in the seemingly cold cinders once described as "the mothering fire" and that is  another subtext in this novel. Mothering. Kindling. Warmth. Love.