Words By Terryl
The Exhausting Calculus of Harming None
Harm None is the commandment—the only ‘thou shalt’—contemporary pagans are required to keep. It seems a simple enough rule, but it’s not always easy to figure out what the path of least harm is in today’s vanishingly complex world.
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A Plea for the Lives of Birds
--- 2024-08-04
The wild bird population in America today is half of what it was in the middle of the 21st century. Seventy-five percent of that tragic loss is directly attributable to domestic cats. -
A Prayer for the Least Among Us
--- 2024-07-21
Ecosystems survive through the subtle interrelatedness between diverse species. Such relationships are better mediated by small players than by the blunt force trauma humans are wont to apply with our bulldozers. This is a prayer for those mistaken for unimportant. -
Legacy of Waste
--- 2024-06-05
Our species is choking on its own waste. This essay asks people to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Our very survival depends on it. -
Wolpe and the Pagans
--- 2024-01-15
The Atlantic magazine published a materially inaccurate and defamatory article by Rabbi David Wolpe in its December 2023 edition claiming that Donald Trump is pagan. This is one (real) pagan’s reply.
Saturday Morning Cartoons
A series of essays primarily for fun, some of which have a moral to the story.
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Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Part 1
--- 2024-09-03
Bureaucratic Intelligence is an oxymoron that has been much on the minds of many Americans during the past election year. These three humorous tales explore baffling encounters with bureaucracies, -
Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Part 2
--- 2024-09-18
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Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Conclusion
--- 2024-10-02
- Miscellaneous Treasures and Other Junk --- 2024-06-18
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Uncle Wally
--- 2024-04-08
Uncle Wally is a charming, sometimes infuriating mountain gnome. -
Word Nerd
--- 2024-03-22
MoonLit’s Word Nerd (WRDNRD) series explores the pain and pleasure of one woman’s ambivalent relationship with language. She writes, but not well enough to suit her, nor can she let go of the compulsion to try. -
Word Nerd 2: Elusive Fluency
--- 2024-11-15
The Sacred Circle: Building Community
Healthy and sustainable human communities are much like healthy, sustainable ecosystems. They are characterized by interrelatedness, a web of subtle relationships and mutual dependencies that are essential and far-reaching.
- Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Part 1 --- 2024-09-03
- Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Part 2 --- 2024-09-18
- Report from Hell: Bureaucratic Intelligence; Conclusion --- 2024-10-02
- Legacy of Waste --- 2024-06-05
- Uncle Wally --- 2024-04-08
- Wolpe and the Pagans --- 2024-01-15
Continuing Education
Not all of life’s teachers are to be found working in schools. Here at MoonLit we have noticed that life is an opportunity to learn and grow, start to finish, and that not all tuition is collected by a registrar’s office. The universe will obligingly continue to turn the volume up until the student either gets it and graduates, or fails and has to repeat the class.
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Expensive Tuition
--- 2024-11-01
A visit by a kindly ghost allows a middle-aged woman to learn the value of listening to the wisdom offered by parents—at last. -
Miscellaneous Treasures and Other Junk
--- 2024-06-18
What really matters in a human lifetime are relationships, and magical encounters with the beauty and majesty of the Sacred that take our breath away. Our author was slow to grasp this and burdened herself with miscellaneous treasures and other junk. -
Stepping Stones on the Road to Barbarism
--- 2024-08-18
Aging, gracefully or otherwise, can involve an increase in the number of sick days which, in turn, can wear the civilized veneer off a person.
Familiars
Terryl is an animist pagan (a contemporary witch) living in a living world, cohabitating peacefully with people of all species, in a community of the human and nonhuman. Her familiars are her teachers, her allies, her sanctuary, her helpmeets, and her friends. The connections are deep and meaningful. Familiars abound in the whole of the nonhuman world. Landscapes, weather, seasons, zenith, nadir, and the cardinal directions. Ask of the wind and the sunflower, what is it like to be you? Listen carefully—feel deeply—for the answer. Ask winter what the spring feels like.
- A Plea for the Lives of Birds --- 2024-08-04
- A Prayer for the Least Among Us --- 2024-07-21
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The Chosen
--- 2024-01-20
There’s a very good reason witches are so frequently associated with a feline familiar. Masters of ambivalence, cats assist witches with the most important and challenging part of spellcraft, which is changing consciousness.
A Pagan Celebration of the Spiral of the Year
Because we live our lives from beginning to middle to end we are tempted to think of time as linear. But time is a circle, a spiral of creation and destruction, of death and reincarnation, of birth and rebirth. These pieces celebrate that spiral and the renewal, the rejuvenation, to be found therein.
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Blush
--- 2024-05-01
A celebration of life’s reawakening, its resurrection, in spring. - Lughnasadh --- 2024-08-04
Holiday Greeting Cards
A collection of sentimental greeting cards from the spiral of the year, from our hearts to yours.
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A Holiday Blessing for the Dark of the Year
--- 2024-12-01
- Blush --- 2024-05-01
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Lughnasadh
--- 2024-08-04
A celebration of Autumn’s first tentative kiss. -
On Shadows
--- 2024-10-17
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The Goldening
--- 2024-08-04
Words Matter
“Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.” The origin of this cautionary wisdom is lost to antiquity. These words have always been true and pertinent. Although the internet has placed an artificial degree of separation between the words we write or say and their consequences, words have tremendous power. They manifest reality. It is important to be careful and kind with them
- Legacy of Waste --- 2024-06-05
- Wolpe and the Pagans --- 2024-01-15
- Word Nerd --- 2024-03-22
- Word Nerd 2: Elusive Fluency --- 2024-11-15
Guest Stars
**Open Call for Submissions** MoonLit Press was founded, in part, on a wish to be of service to the writing community. We know better than most how hard it is to get published, so we offer to share our space here with other writers here. Send us your best stuff and we will start the editorial review process. We will require a first serial copyright, but your work is yours to publish whenever and wherever else you choose to, with attribution to MoonLit Press.
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.