January named for the Roman God Janus

 

To find more of my books please click on the image above.

January, named for the Roman God Janus.

January, like Janus, stands at the gateway of the new year. He has one foot still in the departed year  while his other is firmly planted in the new young year. The god Janus was a dual faced figure with one face looking into the past and one turned toward the future and what it may bring. January is much like this Roman god. The threshold of the new year promised opportunity and adventure and so we embrace the forward looking aspect of January. But what is made new has it's origins in what has gone before. With this dual outlook, we can look back on the past year and analyse what we did that was positive and then the things we would perhaps prefer to forget. The forward facing figure reminds us not to dwell in the past but to look forward to what is to come. 

Janus was a god of transition, much as January is the transition from the old year to the new. A gateway god to guard the gateway of the year. January is a  now you see it, now you don't type of month. It blows hot with the ubiquitous January thaw, then it changes over night and the north wind howls with the snow demon's breath while the mercury drops to frigid depths. The flowers of spring and summer hide deep in the earth under their protecting blanket of snow ignoring the fickleness of January weather.

For me, January means the returning of the light, the strengthening of the sun as it makes it slow steady way from the southern skies toward the northern horizons. The light that began its return in late December at the Winter Solstice continues to strengthen throughout January. I'm not saying January is my favourite month...I leave that honour to May and October...but this first month of a new year is always welcome as it heralds new beginnings and the opportunity to shed old habits and emotions that no longer serve me. 

January is also the time of wassailing. The lovely ancient ritual of taking cider (either alcoholic or not) out to the orchard trees and sing to them while sipping hot cider and then offering cider to the trees in the hopes they will provide us with a bumper crop of fruit in the fall. I find it's a magical experience to engage with the nature of the trees and in some small way communicate with them. To stand with one foot in this world and the other in the realm where all things are equal and sentient.

Until next month,

Be well, be happy  

     

Memories from Christmas Past By Nancy M Bell

 

To find more of my books please click on the cute cover above.

Christmas is a time for family and remembering. This post was originally written in the 1980s when my boys were still young (and so was I lol). We were embarking on a new adventure, but leaving behind many cherished memories as well.

Christmas at Brandy Hollow 

There is nothing quite like a country Christmas. In this fast paced world there are very few of us who have the chance to live on a small farm and experience the joys of working with the land. When we sold Brandy Hollow I began to say goodbye to all the little things that are so much a part of living here. Suddenly I realized that on this particular Christmas (1988) I wouldn’t be snug in my little house in the hollow. Perhaps because I wouldn’t be in Brandy Hollow for Christmas I wanted to share the Christmas’ we celebrated here.

The times when the snow blossomed against the living room window and laced the cedar trees, bending the woods under its weight. In the new light of morning the horses would blow the snow up in puffs with their snorts and then roll and run and roll again. There is a special stillness here after a snow fall, especially a Christmas snow. Last year (1987) it came on December 23^rd, but is was still a Christmas snow. The sun just catching the tops of the cedar and birch in the barnyard and the blue jays and chickadees already searching for seeds. The gentle hand of  morning air sending sparkles dancing from the delicate fingers of the snow dressed trees. The warm smell of horses and hay when you step into the barn from the frosty stillness of early morning.

The warm glow of my little living room, the sun coming in the south facing window, a fire in the woodstove and the Christmas tree taking over the room. Because why shouldn’t the  tree be big and bushy? Every year we rearrange the furniture so we can fit the tree in and by Christmas morning there are presents under the tree, in the tree, around the tree and presents across the floor in front of the hearth as well. The just waiting for all that lovely ribbon and paper to be theirs. The lovely peace of Christmas Eve when the children are asleep and us old folks are waiting up for Santa. The scent of the fire and the flicker of the flames against the pine wood walls. The dogs sleeping on the mat my Grandfather Pritchard made in front of the stove, joined by most of the five house cats. There is that special thrill of anticipation that comes only on Christmas Eve. The warm feeling of love that accompanies the presents, given and received. The sharing of joy in giving that perfect gift. The dark quietness of the night, moonlight throwing blue and sliver shadows on the snow as I go out to the barn to tuck in the horses on this most special of all nights. The music of the wind in the trees and the starfire crackling in the stillness as I take a Christmas walk by the pond and take the opportunity to say my own private thank you to the spirit that created all this wonder.

There is a peace in this farm and always a feeling of love and belonging. As though this house and this land have always been loved. But never is the feeling so strong as at Christmas. Even people who aren’t sensitive to their surroundings feel this too, this goodwill that pervades the very air. Strays find their way to my door, both wild and tame and human as well as animal. This is a safe place and a healing place. There is a little bit of that Christmas love that lingers here all year.

My Christmas wish for you and yours will know the peace and joy, and that ‘all things bright and beautiful’ and ‘all things wise and wonderful’ will be yours.

Wishing you all the best for the Holiday Season. Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Happy Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate during this season of returning light.  

 

Transitions by Nancy M Bell

 

To find more of my work please click on the cute dog cover above.  

As November trundles it way along toward the end of another year, separated only by the depths of December from yet another turn of the wheel, I start to think of the transitions in my own world. The sharp green exuberance of those years between, oh say, six and fifteen. Those years when the whole world lay ahead of me and I could be whoever or whatever I could dream about. The security of not having to worry if there was going to be food on the table for supper and a roof over my head. My only responsibility to care for my cat and my garden in the summer. All the golden and glorious opportunities that lay just beyond that border of almost a grownup but not quite. It relates to the Celtic cycle of Maiden, Mother , Crone. Oh, and wasn't the Maiden part of the journey glorious. More so than I realized at the time as I was always yearning forward, impatient to move on- to get there. Wherever 'there' was at the time.

The years between fifteen and twenty were interesting. Remember that Chinese curse? "May you have an interesting life." It seems that a female teenagers middle years are full of angst and strife. You're in between a child and an adult. Not quite old enough to truly understand some of the ramifications of some dubious decisions, but not young enough to excused on the basis of innocence. In a sense those teen years were a journey on innocence lost, but also a vast wealth of growth and a faint grasp on maturity. That being said they were good years, full of horses and friends and silliness. Midnight raids on horseback to the surrounding cornfields and later in the year the apple orchard. Riding in the moonlight, gathering in the stables until all hours secure in our little circle of yellow light cast from the barn. I learned that love could be transitory and words didn't always mean what they seemed to. First love, that real first encounter that comes after the tender throes of puppy love are left behind and you venture in the realm of more adult relationships, can be wonderful and devastating at the same time.

Leaving the Maiden years behind, I moved into the Mother stage at a fairly young age. Though not when I was married in 1977. You were expected to get married have kids. Which I did, but also continued with my work with horses which I loved. I don't think the Mother stage ever really ends, even when those kids are older than I was when I had them they are still my babies and I worry over them. Another stage of growing supposedly wiser and smarter. Hmmm. 

As I approach the last year of my sixties, I reflect on the transitions in my life. The lost of my dad and then 8 years later of my mother. Whether we realize it or not, our parents remain an anchor in our lives, our north star or lodestone, and when they are gone if left me feeling a bit rudderless. But now, I take on the role of anchor for my kids, although I'm sure they don't see it that way. I remember when I was about to turn 20, that was the most meaningful birthday. I would never be a teenager again. It was time to grow up. (or so I thought- there was still a lot of growing to do). Now as I near the seventh decade in my journey, I am still looking forward and reaching for the next adventure. I guess being a Crone does not necessarily mean I can quite growing and maybe, just maybe, actually achieve some semblance of maturity. Life if full of transition, big and small. Just as the seasons change and revolve, so too do our lives. What is that Macdonald Carey says on that soap opera? "Like sands through the hour glass, these are the days of our lives."

Until next month, stay well, stay happy     

Are you an October Person? by Nancy M Bell

 

To learn more about my books go to www.bookswelove.com

Are you an October person? I am for sure. An old friend and author first asked me that. She was an October person, always going out to fight the good fight with all the banners flying in the wind. I'd like to think I'm more than a bit like her.

Aside from that, I have always loved the transition seasons of the year. The miracle of spring after the long  cold nights and short days of winter. But autumn is my favourite. The glory of the maples burning against the vibrant blue of the sky, the last rose of summer blooming into the middle of October- another one who is throwing her banners against the sky and defying the frosty night of the full harvest moon.

I like to write about October people as well, when I was researching Discarded I found Louis Riel and recognized another October person. That being said, things don't always turn out well for October people, but darn we go out when we go with flying colours.

I love the colours of fall, the sepia tones of the dry fields, long grasses whispering in the wind, birds hunting the fallen grains in the shorn crop fields. And the wonder of the wild geese calling into the wind as they begin their journey. It always lifts my heart and for a moment I fly with them, my wings stroking the air.

So to all you October people out there...keep on keeping on!

Until next month stay well, stay happy

    

Falling into Fall by Nancy M Bell

 To learn more about my books click on the link above

It's that time of year again. The sun is making its way south through the skies and throwing golden slanting rays across the land as its position sinks toward the horizon. The air is full of shining motes of light as the sun glints off the dust raised by busy combines bringing in the harvest.

The days are drawing in as the Autumn Equinox approaches, mornings are blessed with the cool bite of what is to come and the grass is rimed with the last of summer's breath.

 

My roses are still blooming right now, the pumpkins are orange, the apples are glowing through the emerald leaves and the garden is getting ready for the winter sleep.  Fall is a time of renewal, much the same as spring.  The busy days of summer are coming to a close, the nights grow longer and wrap us in the comfort of our hearth fire and knowledge we are ready for the coming cold. The long nights gift us with time to spend in pursuits we have set aside for the warmer months. Time to bring out the projects that have been put on hold, time to savour the summer that is past, time for introspective thoughts and time to plan for the coming spring.

Nights through October and November are long and sometimes cold, but without the dark would we really appreciate the return of the light after the Winter Solstice? The slow trickle of lengthening days as January turns to February. For those who follow the old ways, Samhain, Alban Arthuan and Imbolc. No matter what we humans call the turning the seasons, the universe carries on with no regard to our celebrations or worries. I find comfort in that in some odd way. So I'm more than ready to fall into Fall. The short days will get me out of the garden and back into the house where the dust lays thick on my computer. There are stories to write and tales to tell.

Until next month, stay well, stay happy.  

 

Jessie's Cafe by Nancy M Bell

 

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https://www.bookswelove.com/search?q=bell

Hello, Usually I would use one of my book covers as the image, but I wanted to share this old building with you as it will figure prominently in my next book. This is Jessie's Cafe on main street in Castor, Alberta. This building has a long and storied life being built in the early 1900's when the railway was coming to Castor from Stettler and beyond. It is now empty having been many things in it's past including  a great place to have coffee and gossip, excellent Chinese cuisine and the upper floor was a boarding house in the far distant past. It was once known as The Golden Crown in later years (note the 'crowns' on the corners of the roof) There is even an outhouse on the flat roof of the cement block addition at the back of the building for the use of the boarders. I kid you not!

Jessie's Cafe is the working title of the new book and will involve some time travel and some interesting twists and turns. Stay tuned, Jessie's Cafe is due out in May of 2026.

Here for your viewing pleasure is the outhouse on the roof of Jessie's Cafe. Bet it was a might chilly in the winter. 

Until next month, stay well, stay happy.

Gardens in Bloom by Nancy M Bell

 

What is it about a garden? Sometimes it's like hockey and farming - There's always next year- but then sometimes it all comes together so wonderfully. Gardening and getting dirt under my fingernails goes back to when I was a kid and my grandfather would spend hours in the huge garden behind our house. I tagged along behind him and by osmosis learned so much with him having to speak a word. 

To this day I think of Grampa when I have my hands full of earth or my arms full of the autumn harvest. Just last night I spent an hour or so with my head and arms buried in a red current bushes and came home with stained hands, more than a few mosquito bites and an ice cream pail full of juicy currents. Today's job it to turn those currents into jelly.

Fruit and vegetables are always a joy but my real passion is flowers. Annuals, perennials, it's all good. Although I do have to say I have a secret love of the perennials, they show up every year like old friends come to stay for the summer. While I'm pulling out the never ending weeds I talk to the plants and I do believe it does make for more blooms and vigorous foliage. My husband thinks I'm just a bit wacky. Okay, more than a bit, but hey...life is too short to worry about what others think. Even one's husband LOL. 

This is my second spring and summer in the new house and it is taking a bit to get the gardens looking the way I would like, but one step at a time. It is coming along and there is a quiet satisfaction in starting from scratch again and then seeing the yard bloom with colour and hear the soft hum of bees in the hollyhocks and  other flowers.

I'm starting work on a new book set in an abandoned restaurant in my small town. It's going to be a time travel/romance/kinda historical. How's that for a confused genre? However, I do believe it will be fun to write. The working title it Jessie's Cafe and yes there really was a Jessie way back in the day. Stay tuned for more info as the work progresses.

I thought I would share some garden pictures to close. Happy gardening. Stay well, stay happy. Until next month...

Lavatera

Sweet Peas

Sweet William

Potato blossoms 

What is it about the Moon? by Nancy M Bell

To see my newest release Night at the Legislature click on the image above.

What is it about the moon that fascinates us so? I could spend hours just watching her swim across the sable ocean of the sky slipping through the constellations on her nightly journey. Songs have been written and poems composed, indeed even novels (although a lot of them are concerned with the affect the full moon has on certain shape shifters). There is something about moonlight that evokes magic in the heart and the imagination. Familiar sights take on new nuances when viewed through the lens of moonlight. 

The very fact that the daily tides in the oceans of the world are ruled by the influence of the moon is pretty darn amazing.  That an object floating in the vastness of space captured in the earth's magnetic pull moves literally tons of salt water is pretty magical to me. I know, I know, there is scientific information that explains this, but why get so bogged down in all that science speak when one can fill one's heart and soul with the sheer magnificence of the reality playing out before you as you sit on the shingle of the beach and watch the water creep up the shore little trickle by little trickle. Slowly filling the spaces between the pebbles while the magic fills your heart. Water is a living spirit, the earth's life blood. I often think how wonderful it would be to included in the unspoken communication between the waters and the moon's power to move it.

When I was a kid I would sit under the maple tree by the dock of our cottage where the warm night was a velvet ebony blanket around me and watch the moon rise turning the still water of the lake to shimmering ice with her light. In the complete darkness and silence that was filled with sound it seemed that anything was possible and that the stars were singing to to the moon as she journeyed. Later as I grew older, I sat on my horse in the Rouge valley and smiled as the moonlight woke ripples of ice on the Rouge River at the shallow Durnford crossing. So many small, but important moments in my life have been lit by moonlight.

The moon has always been female to me, regardless of the Man in the Moon stories, and the sun has always seemed male to me. The warrior as opposed to the healer. Both strong in their own way.   

I'm not sure I'll ever really figure out just what it is about the moon and it's light that inspires me and holds me in awe at the same time.   

Until next month, be well, be happy.   

 

Spring...It's Spring! by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about my books click on the image above.   

It's finally Spring here in Central Alberta. I know that on the west coast the trees are in blossom and the tulips and daffs are glowing. It seems Spring comes to different parts of Canada at different times for sure. In Southern Ontario the lilacs and tulips would be blooming by Mother's Day and the peonies wouldn't be far behind. Here, my peonies don't bloom until late June or early July. 

It's raining today on the dry dusty prairies. Which is cause for joy. It has been dry for so long, even the snow melt was whisked away by the strong winds. The top six inches of soil needs to be moist so the crops can germinate and flourish. In comparison to the growth of wheat, barley and canola my little garden worries are pretty tiny. Besides, I can water my garden, without irrigation pivots and a water source it's pretty hard to water hectares of grain crop. So today, I'm doing the happy dance for the rain and for Spring.

The Mayday tree in the yard has come fully leafed over the last week and the tiny flower spikes are waving in the breeze, soon to break out into white spiky florets that will attract the honey bees and the birds. Hollyhocks are  the first to brave the uncertainty of a Central Alberta Spring and they are raising their broad leaves to the sun and rain, fighting off the strong winds. Rhubarb is growing in the northeast corner of the yard which gets the most early sun in the year. It will actually be ready to harvest a bit soon. It will be so nice when the fruit trees here blossom and the lilacs by the house scent the air.

Birds are everywhere, fighting over seeds and nesting materials. And, I saw my very first Sandhill Cranes this Spring. They were migrating and I came across a flock of them twice. I had to do a double take as I assumed they were geese at first, but nope. Cranes! They sound different as well when they fly, but the ones I saw were earthbound scavenging in a grain field. I am so used to the sound of Canada Geese which is what I encountered at our old house. But here, the Grey Geese and swans go through and their voices are all different to my ears. 

So wherever you are and whatever stage your Spring is at.... Enjoy the transition from winter into Spring and the lengthening days. We are climbing the slope of Light up to the Solstice which is when we begin the slow slide back toward the longest night in December. Cherish your journey, because it is yours alone.

Until next month stay well, stay happy.

      

Rainforest Writers Retreat ~ A Little bit of Heaven

 

This is my latest novel. The first offering in BWL Publishing Inc's Paranormal Canadiana Collection.

I spent a few days in early March at the Rainforest Writers Retreat at Lake Quinault in the Washington Rainforest. It is a wonderful magical place and to spend 4 days surrounded by other writers and just soaking in the creative juices was amazing. It's a pilgrimage I try to make every year, but lately it hasn't happened as often as I would like. 

I fly to Portland OR and meet my dear friend. Then we road trip up to Lake Quinault where we meet up with the other writers who are taking in Session 3 of the retreat. Patrick Swenson (Fairweather Press) hosts the retreat which runs for 4 weeks in late February and into  mid March. It is such fun, chasing tree squids and enjoying the raucous Cabin Party on Saturday night. I usually managed to get in about 20,000 words, but this year I didn't have a ms on the go as my latest novel (see above) released on March 1. So instead, this year I took in more of the social aspects and didn't spend most of the time in my room glued to my computer. And this year I also managed to write some poetry. 

I got to be a bar fly on Saturday night- enjoying laughs and some new cocktails : Sidecars, green tea shots (which incidentally had NO green tea in it at all.)

I let the pictures speak for themselves.

    

That In between Feeling by Nancy M Bell

 

To find more of Nancy's books click on the cover above.

Ta Daaahhhh! This is the cover of my latest book which will release in the Spring of 2025. It is set in the Manitoba Legislature building on the night of the Winter Solstice. It's part of the paranormal collection being created by BWL Publishing Inc. 

I had a blast researching this book, there are so many cool things in Manitoba that I could have woven a story around. Lake monsters and UFOs and so much more. But once I found the Legislature building I was hooked. The architect was a Mason and he incorporated that into the features of his creation. Messages in stone, hidden in plain sight. Including the iconic Golden Boy or as the sculptor named him Eternal Youth.

I have hit the doldrums of creation at the moment. I have just finished the tale and sent it off to the publisher for the editor to have his go at it. And now I'm in that pocket that happens when one story has ended but another hasn't yet been born. It's a strange place for an author who always seems to have a company of characters ranging around in her head. Some from older stories who wish their own tale told, some new ones elbowing their way in to the mix. 

But for the period that always comes after I type The End, there is a void of sorts. Almost as if my brain (or more likely my much abused Muse) takes a deep breath and lets it out, releasing the accumulated strain of corralling my characters into the paths I wish them to take in order to bring the story as I envision it to life. You laugh, but often my characters get uppity and take off on tangents of their own leaving me to chase along behind gathering up the consonants and vowels they discard and attempting to catch the news they are launching back at me. 

I suppose I should be grateful for the creative doldrums, and I am in a way. But I'm always waiting for the next cloudy storm of words to appear on the horizon, hoping the winds will blow them my way and pick me up out of the equatorial doldrums where I'm languishing. Picture my Muse down in the captain's cabin stretched out in the berth with a glass of rum, while I'm up on deck scanning the horizons for those clouds with a spyglass pressed to my eye.

Fortunately, the doldrums don't usually last too long. Soon the limp sails of my mind start to shiver in the breeze as a zephyr dances across the calm waters, waking wavelets in its wake. Down below, my Muse sighs, empties the bottle of rum, stretches and saunters up on deck with me to watch the clouds of words gather on the horizon.

Hopefully, it won't be too long before the winds pick up, but for the moment I am going to enjoy my stay here in the becalmed waters. Maybe I'll join my Muse for some of that rum.

Until next month, stay well, stay happy.