Element of Balance – Ostara 02025
A pagan contemplation of equilbrium at the Vernal Equinox.
By Terryl Warnock
The Prophet
The serious face in the mirror of the employee bathroom didn’t look all that bad, I decided, except for the red, puffy eyes. My hope was that this com
An Imbolc Invocation
Me and My Shepherd
The patriarchal smackdown of women who dared might have been a tired old story for other women, even then, but it was new to me. The story of women wh
Poetry by Jurell Cloward
MoonLit welcomes you back from a nice, long holiday break with the first of what we hope will be many Guest Stars. One of the principles MoonLit Press was founded on is service to the writing community. We are very happy to welcome the poet Jurell Cloward to the MoonLit family,
A Holiday Blessing for the Dark of the Year
May your turkey be juicy and your pie crust flaky.
May your happiness be boundless and your gratitude list long.
May you be valiant when faced with danger and tender when faced with love.
May your nobler self prevail when faced with contention.
May your home shimmer warm and fragrant.
May your planet know you as a light touch.
May you have enough and may you be enough.
May you wander in wonder.
May your cheeks be rosy and may your heart beat fast.
May your corners be perfect and may your bows never go flat.
May you breathe deeply and rejoice in living.
May you deserve the love of animals and little children.
May you earn the respect and support of your community.
May you play as hard as you work during the coming year.
May your stockings be well-stuffed, your generosity expansive, and your heart full of joy.
May you know passion and peace.
May your soul sparkle like the stars in the cosmos.
May you stand close, always, to that which you hold sacred.
May the Elf that roams winter's longest nights be generous.
And may you find your heart's true desire gathered around your hearth.
MoonLit Press wishes you all the best of the holidays this Yuletide. We thank you for your kind attention over the course of this past year as we have embarked on our experimental blog. We do so hope you’ve enjoyed it. We’ll be taking some time off in December to spend the holidays with our families and to revel in the season. We’ll see you again at the end of the year during the December New Moon.
Look for us on Mastodon, a free, open-source, distributed, independent chat service where there are no big corporations (or their agendas) between us.
Follow Terryl's work and give her feedback on:
| Mastodon | https://mastodon.sdf.org/@wordsbyterryl |
| mailto:moonlitpress@proton.me |
Gratitude list:
| Graphic design by AJ Brown | https://mastodon.sdf.org/@mral |
| Images by Weihnachten Kamin | |
| Images by W. C. Bauer |
Some images are through Creative Commons License and we would thank all of those creators if we could find their names.
Terryl is grateful to have the time and space to write, and will be using her Christmas break to develop some new inventory. She is grateful for the people who give of their time and attention to read her work. It is a gift beyond measure.
Terryl is also grateful to Al, whose skills compliment hers so well. There would be little point in doing the heavy lifting of writing without him, because without him nobody would ever read it.
Terryl and Al are both deeply thankful to the people who read our work. You’re why we do it. We love hearing back from you, and are ever so grateful to you for sharing our efforts with your friends and family.
Terryl Warnock is an eccentric with a happy heart who lives on the outskirts of town with her cat. She is known as an essayist, proof reader, editor, maker of soap, and proud pagan. A lifetime student, she has pursued science, religion, and sustainable communities. This, plus life experience from the local community service to ski instructor, from forest service worker to DMV supervisor, from hospitality to business owner gives her a broad view on the world.
Terryl is the author of:The Miracle du jour, ISBN-10: 0989469859, ISBN-13 : 978-0-9894698-5-2
AJ Brown, in a past life, was an embedded systems engineer (digital design engineer). He worked on new product designs from hard disk controllers, communication protocols, and link encryptors to battery monitors for electric cars.
A few years ago he surrendered his spot on the freeway to someone else. Now he is more interested in sailing, building out his live-in bus for travel, and supporting the idea of full-circle food: the propagation, growth, harvest, storage, preparation, and preservation of healthy sustenance. He is a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open Source Software[F/LOSS] and is willing to help most anyone in their quest to use it.
Together, we are MoonLit Press where words and images matter.
Word Nerd 2: Elusive Fluency
English isn't just my first language, it's my only language. I grieve the profundity of this ignorance because cultural and linguistic diversity is humanity's strength. It's what adds hue and texture to the beauty of the human tapestry we weave together. I have tried to
Expensive Tuition
Foreshadow
Resistance to authority can manifest in many ways. I have a friend, for example, who has the need for speed and insists that the speed limit is merely a suggestion. He's angry when he inevitably gets pulled over for speeding and is mean-mouthed with the police officer about it. This, of course, only gets him in deeper trouble.
My own resistance to authority manifests much differently. I seem to be constitutionally incapable of taking good advice or learning from the mistakes of others. I listen to the good advice and observe others making their mistakes, but have a streak of stubborn hubris that deludes me into thinking I can do better. “It won't happen that way for me,” are my famous last words. It always happens that way for me too because, well, it happens that way for everyone (duh).
Karma
Until I got big enough to work my own chainsaw, my job was loader. I was to keep the cut firewood out from under Dad's feet and turn big
On Shadows
Samhain – A November Eve table blessing
The word hallow means to sanctify, to make holy. Halloween (Samhain, pronounced sow-en, for pagan folk) in America is a caricature of something that might be, perhaps once was, much more meaningful: a night to honor the dead in recognition of their significance to the living, to celebrate their contribution to immortality.
MoonLit sends you heartfelt Samhain greetings at this October Full Moon. The sun descends into dark during the coming turn and pulls all of us along with it. It is a time for introspection, and a time to remember and honor the dead. It’s also time to dress up and have fun. Happy Halloween to one and all.
Follow Terryl's work and give her feedback on:
| Mastodon | https://mastodon.sdf.org/@wordsbyterryl |
| mailto:moonlitpress@proton.me |
Gratitude list:
| Graphic design by AJ Brown | https://mastodon.sdf.org/@mral |
| Photography by Terryl Warnock | https://mastodon.sdf.org/@wordsbyterryl |
Some images are through Creative Commons License and we would thank all of those creators if we could find their names.
On Shadows was previously published in The Miracle du jour and is reposted here with the permission of MoonLit Press.
On Shadows was inspired by, and is dedicated to, Kari Ann Allrich, Goddess of the Hearth.
Terryl is grateful to the people who gifted her with this beautiful lifetime: her parents, and their parents, and their parents, and so on and so forth, back into the dimness of time immemorial. Samhain celebrates the kinship of human connection so ancient it transcends both human ken and human memory. It is the natural way of things for a community of the beloved on the other side to grow with the years as a human being ages. Halloween offers an opportunity to tell them we miss them and love them still.
Terryl is also grateful to be the batty old witch of her family at last. It took three generations to earn the title, The Bat, and it’s one Terryl wears with pride.
Al is grateful to his little brother Lloyd, he was a good example to us all. He lived a life of service to others and was dedicated to his wife, family, and community. He died way too young.
Terryl and Al are both deeply thankful to the people who read our work. There would be little point in any of this without you. You make it worth doing. We love hearing back from you, and are ever so grateful to you for sharing our efforts with your friends and family.
Terryl Warnock is an eccentric with a happy heart who lives on the outskirts of town with her cat. She is known as an essayist, proof reader, editor, maker of soap, and proud pagan. A lifetime student, she has pursued science, religion, and sustainable communities. This, plus life experience from the local community service to ski instructor, from forest service worker to DMV supervisor, from hospitality to business owner gives her a broad view on the world.
Terryl is the author of:The Miracle du jour, ISBN-10: 0989469859, ISBN-13 : 978-0-9894698-5-2
AJ Brown, in a past life, was an embedded systems engineer (digital design engineer). He worked on new product designs from hard disk controllers, communication protocols, and link encryptors to battery monitors for electric cars.
A few years ago he surrendered his spot on the freeway to someone else. Now he is more interested in sailing, building out his live-in bus for travel, and supporting the idea of full-circle food: the propagation, growth, harvest, storage, preparation, and preservation of healthy sustenance. He is a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open Source Software[F/LOSS] and is willing to help most anyone in their quest to use it.
Together, we are MoonLit Press where words and images matter.
Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Conclusion
Recap: Our storyteller has shared her four most crazymaking encounters (Reports from Hell) with bureaucracy in Parts 1 and 2 of this series. In Part 1 she shared how a summer job with the Federal government turned her into a thief, and how in order to survive a stint with the State government she became a liar. In Part 2 of this series, she wrote of the bureaucracies she has encountered later in life, how the Hysterical Commission turned her into a cheat, and how the Fire District has left her cynical.
This is the third and last installment in this series. Her takeaway. MoonLit has shared the backstory as context so that you may draw your own conclusions.