Welcome to Glimpses into Words in Winter, where every week we’ll showcase writings from various presenters and authors appearing at this year’s festival (26-30 August).
To kick off the series, this week’s feature is an excerpt from “I am Worthy” by Cathy Williams, from the Heart Wisdom anthology (2026). This piece offers a moving insight into the upcoming event, Heart Wisdom, on Thursday 27 August at Radius Art. This will be an intimate gathering bringing together women’s stories, poetry, and creations that feature in the anthology and explore the many landscapes of the heart.
You can secure your ticket to Heart Wisdom here and you can explore the full festival lineup at the Words in Winter website.
Excerpt from: ‘I am Worthy’ By Cathy Williams (Heart Wisdom, 2026)
“I am worthy of unconditional love and support.”
What does it mean to really let your armour down? Mask off, to bare it all?
To be your most feral self, and still be loved?
I have built multiple layers of protection.
Layers upon slapstick layers. Glue-fused, taped around, hammered in, screwed down, plastered on. And still my heart has managed to break, shatter and be sliced open.
My fragile heart. My fractured heart.
A heart that longed to stay soft, so was wrapped in too many layers like a pass-the-parcel at a children’s birthday party. Except I didn’t et the layers off that easily.
I tried to be discerning.
I try to be discerning.
I discern.
And I trust, not easily or too easily.
I fluctuate between what I long to be true and what I am afraid is.
My heart is a deep well.
A vast cosmic swimming-into-nothingness mustn’t-be-afraid-of-the-dark void.
“Blood is thicker than water” or so I kept being told.
Thick. Thick with obligation. Thick with stagnation. A thick sticky pool that is nauseating to see and touch. Unlike the comfort my system feels when I see or step into a body of water.
Bath, pool, river, ocean, cup. Water. Flow. Depth. Life-giving.
The wash-everything-away-please-take-this-from-me salty cleanse.
Instant relief.
The let-me-just-put-some-water-on-it magic touch, my daughter has come to know after every fall, every panic, every moment of uncertainty.
Water comforts, blood stains.
Who do you let into your heart?
Who nestles into its folds?
Who keeps it beating?
Who takes the responsibility of it seriously?
“I AM worthy of unconditional love and support.”
Unconditional. No tit-for-tat. No and-you’ll-do-this-for-me-in-return. No heavy burden passed back and forth. No strings, no ties, no hierarchy. No and-they’ll-have-this-over-me.
Can love exist without conditions? Can support exist without wanting something in return?
Can I exist without people wanting things from me?
My most feral self. Feet and claws in the dirt, ash, soot, mud covered skin, howling to the moon.
In prayer. In surrender. A fire that is stoked with the scaffolding of my past selves.
Please, please-take-this-from-me.
