Inconsolable

Penny

Of Ice and Mountain Slopes

"And in my dreams, I travel with them to realms inseparable from the stars."
--Where the Snow Folk Live

Where the Snow Folk Live is one of three short stories found in Winter Tales available from Pegana Press Books.

Where the Snow Folk Live from Winter Tales available at Pegana Press

Catching Up with Life

I have got the Spring Cleaning Bug, big time.  The weather is warming up, there is a freshness in the air, I see honey bees on blossoms, and the birds have stopped raiding the chicken feed.  And though we haven't even reached February yet, I have felt the call to action, and am charging around the house, dust cloth and broom in hand.

Furniture is being moved, whole rooms, in fact...

Here's a photo from a more tranquil time.  ;^)

March 2009 in the Maritime NW

Random Thoughts - Plastic & Fruit

Single use plastic:  Why would you use a non biodegradable material as disposable packaging?

VS. 

An apple comes with it's own delicious edible packaging courtesy of nature.  

Wheel Spinning

I'm an expert.  I can manifest more ways to spin my wheels...

Oh sure, it looks like real business, and anyone will tell you that life happens.  But really???

Every morning dawns bright with pure potential.  16 hours with which to make things happen.  Then "Fate?" intervenes.

This morning as I began a very involved project, I heard my hens literally shrieking for help.  I know their voices.  I know the clucks and cackles that mean "Hey! All the nesting boxes are full!" and the angry squawks that result from being pecked, and all the other sounds that used to bring me running.  But today, I heard a bonafide SOS distress call.  And I dropped everything, and practically tore the door off the hinges.  I may even have plowed through a fence.

Good thing too.  I startled a hawk and he flew into the fence twice, before finally navigating his way out of the yard.  And I saw before my eyes a landscape completely bare of hens.  Where in the world were my girls?

So I ran down to where I saw the hawk lift off from, and saw hen feathers all around.  With a sense of dread, I started calling and hunting along the fence line, and way back in a corner of the fence, where the black berry brambles have grown to cover an old broken chair, I saw four little feathered bums all crammed into a space that seemed impossibly small to harbor four fully grown hens.

I coaxed them out with my usual "chick chick chick", and they gingerly stepped out of the briars.  I looked each one over, and they all clustered around me as we paraded in triumph back to the hen house.  And I praised them for their quick thinking and ability to protect themselves from predators while I fed them a little extra feed, because who wouldn't want to have a little something after cheating death.

Then I began building little shelters all over their yard.  Which of course took time away from the other project that I had abandoned for the defense of my flock.  I finally stopped at six hiding places.  It was a beautiful day and they had a ball investigating all of the new play houses in their yard.

But when I came inside and looked at the clock it was 12:30.  And so it goes.  Yes, I got on with the project I was supposed to be working on, which also took longer than I intended...

But that's another story.

Winter Tales Ships Today

Winter Tales by Rita Tortorello available through Pegana Press

Winter Tales is complete and shipping out to new homes world wide.  I'm excited to see this book finally going into the hands of readers.

Limited to 50 copies, hand set and letter press printed by Mike Tortorello at Pegana Press in blue ink on snow white paper.  This book is bound as a chapbook and sold through Pegana Press Books.

It is my first published work, and I am proud to join the community of self published authors who are creating a new way to present their written words to the world.  I'm excited to be living in a time when we have the option to change how authors, artists, and musicians are received, making it possible for them to find their tribe of people who appreciate what they create.

I am the author of Winter Tales, which consists of three short stories inspired by Winter and the elements of Fire and Ice.  As the other half of Pegana Press, I also had a hand in the making of the physical book.  I do the binding at Pegana Press, and this book, because we wanted to keep it simple, is bound as a chapbook using a combination of blue flax linen and glacier blue silk threads to sew the cover of French Canson paper of soft gray, reminiscent of late afternoon shadows on snow with ornate cover title in blue ink and a glimpse of sparkle.

The three short stories contained within can best be described as magical realism.  Which is really just the ability to notice and interact with the magic which takes place in everyday life.  The Voice of Fire was inspired by listening to the Fire.  Try it and you'll see what I mean.  Where the Snow Folk Live was inspired by the land which is home to the Yeti.  And Cup of Cheer is the most magical of all.  Life on Earth from the perspective of that which fires the sky-the Northern Lights.  As I said earlier, all inspired by Fire and Ice.  The mystic spirit of Winter.

Stories like these exist to remind us that life is filled in every moment with magic which hides itself in ordinary things, but seeks to gain our attention so that we may awaken from the repetitive hypnotic trance of modern life and see through a different lens.

Stories tell themselves all the time--to all of us.  Sometimes, we hear.

Winter Tales

Put On A Happy Face

Sometimes the only thing left to do is put on your smiley face.

Cup of Cheer

Cup of Cheer is one of the short stories from Winter Tales.  The setting for this story is an inn on the frontier that borders "the land to the West and the land to the East".  Not only is the frontier a threshold between worlds, as all borders are, but it is the departure point for the narrator of the story.

A page from Cup of Cheer which appears in Winter Tales from Pegana Press

This is the final week end to get Winter Tales at the special preorder price.  This letterpress chapbook is limited to 50 copies and will be released on Monday January 19, 2015.  You may order your copy at Pegana Press Books.

Listen to excerpts read from Winter Tales in this discussion.

Some Random Thoughts

Last night near sunset, I felt the temperature drop like a stone in a pond.  I hustled the hens onto their roost so I could close them in safely for the night, but I could tell they weren't yet ready to be finished with their day.  After all there was still light in the sky.  A lot of scratching and pecking could be done with that last 10 or 15 minutes before nightfall.

But I was cold, and couldn't wait to be indoors.  I could hear them grumbling as I walked back to the house.

I was cutting some Himalayan lakta end papers for the books I will be binding in the next couple of days and I cranked the heat in the room I was working in.  Later when I went outside at around 7 o'clock, I stopped to admire the stars in the clear night sky overhead.  No wonder my hands were still ice cold.

This morning I woke to a world of frost.  And when I went out to the hen house just before sunrise and opened the door, Penny (always the last hen in at night and the first one out in the morning) flew out and gave me a sharp peck in the leg.  I guess hens have long memories.

I found the above photo on a Google search.  It was sent in by reader Chris Smart to The Telegraph in the UK.  I was struck by how closely it resembles my own ground (here in the Puget Sound) just outside my front door.  Frost covered oak and maple leaves.  Brrr.

I had to use this photo because when I went out to take my own, the frost had melted off.  Somehow it hasn't made me feel any warmer.  I think I'll go warm up by washing the breakfast dishes.  Warm soapy water aught to do the trick.

Stay warm.

Where the Snow Folk Live

From the letterpress chapbook, Winter Tales available from Pegana Press

Where the Snow folk Live.  They are as elusive as a dream.  They strike fear in the hearts of most.  A tale inspired by the search for the Yeti.  Winter Tales

Hens in the Yard

What makes me feel rich?  When I look out into my back garden and see my four hens, I feel very rich.

Even in the dead of winter, my girls never let me down.  They provide us with 3 to 4 eggs a day.  Everyday!  I feed them organic chicken feed, and kitchen scraps, but they mostly forage.  And that is another reason having hens makes me feel rich.

I look outside and see four little gardeners all working the soil and composting and generally just creating really fertile soil out of my very dry silty soil that was once, only hospitable to quackgrass.

But now I have hens.  They cleaned up a piece of ground in two days that would have taken me well over a week of painful back breaking labor.  And as far as I could tell, they applied very little effort and seemed to enjoy it immensely.

They bring an energy of industrious joy to the land.  They love being busy.  They love to see me coming.  They love to follow me around.  And in the spring, when it's time to plant, I will move them to another spot, and let them work their magic on a new piece of ground.

They are my new partners in permaculture.  And I am very grateful to them.

My flock:  Penny, Tricksy, Fanny and Ruby

The Voice of Fire

Do you ever sit in front of a fire, and listen to the song it sings?  Have you ever hearkened to The Voice of Fire?  A story of magical realism by Rita Tortorello.  One of three short stories in Winter Tales available through Pegana Press.

The Voice of Fire from Winter Tales available through Pegana Press.

Here is a page from the letterpress chapbook, Winter Tales.  Special preorder price is available through January 18, 2015 at Pegana Press.


You can listen here to an excerpt read by the author.

Winter Tales StoryCast

In this StoryCast we discuss the inspirations behind Winter Tales.  The author (OK, that's me) reads an excerpt from two of the stories.

Enjoy.

Winter Tales

Winter Tales -  Three original stories available from Pegana Press.

I'm really excited to announce the upcoming release of my first published works.  Three short stories of fantasy inspired by the winter season, collected together in a hand letterpress chapbook under the title Winter Tales.  Available through Pegana Press.

A Little Background

Winter Tales was first conceived by my husband Mike who wanted to have a special chapbook to release for the winter season.  Together we run Pegana Press.  He is the letterpress printer who lovingly and painstakingly sets each individual letter and space of type for each book created, and then takes each block of type apart to use those letters and spaces in creating the next page.  It takes months for him to create a book.  Once the book is finished, he hands it to me for binding, which I do by hand.  For almost 6 years we have worked to create the kinds of books we ourselves would enjoy reading, with works from some of our favorite authors.

Since we typically publish works by authors known to collectors of fantasy, Winter Tales is a bit of a departure for us.

The Stories

Stories tell themselves to me constantly, right out of ordinary day to day experiences.  And if I'm present and focused, I am able to recognize it as such.  My brain says, 'Hey! That's a story.' and then I will  rush to my computer and write it down.  And because I see ordinary daily occurrences as magical, the stories typically feel like fantasy.  I am told that this style of writing is referred to as magical realism.  I like that phrase.  I joyfully inhabit that realm of magical realism in my perception.

An example of that is conveyed in the first story of Winter Tales, entitle The Voice of Fire.  That story was inspired by simply sitting by the fire and listening to the sounds it makes.

The second story, Where the Snow Folk Live was inspired by the legend of the Yeti.  And the third story, Cup of Cheer was inspired by a photograph I saw years ago.  I used it in a blog post, but when it came time to write the story, the only thing that I kept was the title.  The story had by now, evolved into an idea inspired by the Northern Lights.

In the next day or two, I will include some excerpts read from Winter Tales.  I hope you will enjoy.

Transition

Garden of Awakening Orchids in Portland OR.

If you've landed here expecting to see HeartStar MindBody Connection, I've moved it.  It was a relatively painless process, and for that I am grateful.  I've installed a tab at the top of the page labeled "Energy Medicine" that will take you to its new location immediately.

I wear a lot of hats these days.  I am still very much involved in my Energy Medicine practice, and seeing clients regularly.  And I love doing that work very much.

I am still binding books for Pegana Press, which is our small family run press.  And I love doing that very much too.

I think talents and interests are like children.  They are each unique and they each require special care and nurturing to bring out the best in them.  And like children they can be loved equally, even though each one adds something different to our lives.

I have been writing for many many years and in all this time, I have kept my writing mostly to myself.  I haven't even thought about publishing until recently.  I have always just enjoyed writing and when a story came to me, I wrote it down.

Now suddenly, I find that my status has changed.  I am publishing three short stories in a chapbook format through Pegana Press.  The book is limited to 50 copies.  It was hand set and letterpress printed on a Vandercook SP15 press, and will be hand sewn with ornate soft cover.  It will most likely be ready for release next week.  There is also a tab on the menu bar above, which links to Pegana Press labeled Winter Tales, which is the name of the book. *

Winter Tales contains three original short stories inspired by the elements of Fire and Ice.  I will be talking more about the stories in my next post.

Thank you for your interest.

* See my Written Works tab for links to publications.