"Look within
Listen to your heart
Touch your truth
Taste the possibilities
Breathe in the courage"

- Amy Rowling

I am an artist, teacher, writer and life coach living in North Carolina. Three years ago I began writing and completed the book "She". It was a journey of love and self-exploration. Writing a book was not something I set out to do. My father was dying of colon cancer and I simply began writing (mostly poetry) to process the experience of loss, grief, and ultimately grace and appreciation.

My poetry also helped me to process the ending of a five year emotionally painful relationship with my fiance. I was beginning life on my own as a single, not so self-assured, 36 year old woman. Ironically, it was the honesty of the writing that brought me back to a truer, more confident self; the self I left behind many years before in search of love and acknowledgment that I felt existed outside my own heart.

However, this journey was not done alone. It was my women friends and a few great men that took my hand, shared their own stories, which I also include in my writing, and supported me on my journey.

The photographs are taken of women friends and I applaud them for allowing me to capture the subtleties of their gestures and features that are the essence of true beauty.

Having gained so much from my own writing, I decided to include journaling questions with each poem to encourage people to explore these topics of self-worth, loss, grief, empowerment and self-fulfillment individually or in groups.

I have shared "She" with women's groups, counselors working with women, and recovery groups. I believe that this project evolved to not only heal myself but to assist others on their very personal journeys.