There was a time, long and long ago, when our Mother the Moon shone as steadily
in the night as Father Sun does. The people of the Basin were guided in Her
light, which was as bright in its silvery glory as the golden glow of day.

Many years passed in the lives of men and women, and the Moon watched smiling
from the sky, undisturbed by all the trials of the Basin, for She did not know
what it meant to grow, to fall in love and to marry, to raise children and
support a community, or to get sick and die.

Then a spring came creeping across the land, and even as the leaves unfurled
upon the moonharts of the Serenwilde, a daughter of the forest took a
pilgrimage to Mount Shallamar. She ascended to the very top of the mountain and
stood with her eyes upon the heavens and Mother Moon, and when the Moon danced
across the sky to the point nearest her, the girl began to sing:

Mother Moon, hear me calling from the heavens of the night!
Here I stand, Your dear and small one, begging sweetly for Your light!

The Moon heard the tiny voice and She turned to see the girl, who was fresh and
young, with flowers twisted into her long hair and black eyes as bright as
stars. Something about the young woman touched the Moon's heart, and She drew
close to the peak and for the first time set Her foot upon the soil of the
Basin as She approached.

"What is it that you seek?" the Moon asked, and Her voice was as guileless as
the wind in the leaves of the Serenwilde.

Shielding her eyes from the brilliance before her, the girl said timidly, "I
desire Your blessing, Mother. When You rise again tomorrow, I am to be married,
and I wish it to be well with me and my husband for all the days of our lives."

And the Moon marveled and wondered at what this meant, but She only said, "You
have My blessing and My well wishes, child." She pressed a kiss to the girl's
forehead, which forever after bore the sterling mark of Her touch, and
retreated into the sky.

Rising the next day, the Moon immediately cast Her eye across the Basin for the
girl, and there in the bosom of the forest She found the wedding party. Draped
in white flowers, the girl radiated a happiness that awed the Moon. She watched
as the girl was married and as her parents cried and as her young husband smiled
at her with tenderness and love.

And the Moon withdrew into Her thoughts and said to Herself, "So this is what
the mortals do." Then, noticing the wedding gifts, She fashioned a small beam
of moonlight into a glistening jewel and laid it amidst the packages before
dancing along Her path through the sky.

The next years were somehow different for Mother Moon, as She paused every
night to find the girl, who was soon a girl no longer, but a woman fully grown.
The Moon smiled ever brighter as She saw the woman that Her girl had become, who
was kind and knowledgeable, always seeking to help her fellows and often sought
for her advice or input.

But the Moon was also struck by all the myriad trials and triumphs that the
woman saw in her life. She weighed them within Her thoughts like unexpected
treasures, and each was a new marvel and a new insight into the lives unfolding
throughout the Basin below.

Then a summer came as the apples ripened on the bough, and the woman left the
sanctuary of the Serenwilde and made the journey again to Mount Shallamar. When
the Moon came near, she again sang into the sky:

Mother Moon, hear me calling from the heavens of the night!
Here I stand, Your dear and small one, begging sweetly for Your light!

Before the song was even finished, the Moon had approached the peak and set Her
foot for the second time upon the soil of the Basin as She drew near to Her
woman.

"What is it that you seek, child?" the Moon asked, and Her voice was this time
was flush and full as the river racing through the forest.

And the woman smiled with serenity, one hand held up to shelter her eyes from
the light of the Moon, and she said, "I am expectng our first child, Mother,
and I seek your blessing upon the infant, so that it may be as well with this
new life as it has been with me."

The Moon marveled at this, but She took the woman by the hand, which forever
after bore the silvered mark of that touch, and said, "My blessing shall be
upon the child as they are upon you." With that, She rose again into the sky.

Seasons passed, and as the Moon rose and set across the forest, she watched the
woman first become pale and ill, and then grow round with her pregnancy, taking
on a glow as she waited for her baby to come.

One night, then, in the spring, the Moon rose to see the woman in her bed
laboring for the birth of the child, and She watched through all the hours of
the night as the strain weakened her and brought her nearer and nearer to
death, all for the struggle to give birth.

Lingering in the rosy pause just before dawn, the Moon fashioned another beam
of moonlight into an elixir and infused it into the cool water the midwife used
to bathe the woman's brow, and then She sank below the horizon, overcome by Her
worry.

The next night brought the Moon great relief to see the woman alive, though
weak, with an infant held close at her side. The child was healthy and well, a
son destined in other tales to be a great man. The Moon watched in wonder at
the woman's weary pride and said to Herself, "So this is what the mortals do."

Many years swept by, and the Moon kept Her eye always upon Her woman, learning
through her life of happiness and sorrow, hope and despair, pride and humility.
The Moon found Herself deeply proud of the woman, who remained capable and grew
wiser with time, gaining esteem and respect within the forest. Though she could
bear no more children, the woman became a midwife in her turn, and a time came
when most of the young adults who lived in the Serenwilde had been helped into
the world with her skill.

After all of this, one harvest as the people gathered the ripened wheat and
corn which would see them through the winter, the woman took up a sturdy cane
and slowly made the painstaking journey to the top of Mount Shallamar. The Moon
hurried to approach even as the woman sang:

Mother Moon, hear me calling from the heavens of the night!
Here I stand, Your dear and small one, begging sweetly for Your light!

And so the Moon set foot upon the soil of the Basin for a third and final time.
She moved in close to the old woman as though ready to catch her should she
fall, and asked, this time Her voice crisp and dry like fallen leaves, "What is
it you seek, My dearest?"

The old woman slowly drew her back up straight and cast aside her cane. With
the dignity of all her years, she said, "I know that You have watched over me.
I know that it was Your blessing which saved my life when I bore my son. At
every turn, You have smiled upon me."

The crone's eyes twinkled with her good nature as she continued, "I have come
to see You and thank You, for I shall not live to see another harvest."

The Moon understood at once, and drew near to the old woman and touched her on
the shoulder, which bore for what remained of her days an argent mark, and
whispered, "Ask them to bury you in the moonlit night." What was left unspoken
could fill pages, but the love was plain to them both.

The scant days left to the old woman were happy ones, surrounded as she was by
her son and her son's children, cousins and nieces and nephews, and most of all
watched over by Mother Moon. She died quietly on the cusp of the new year,
content with her life and how she had lived it.

And just as had been requested, the woman was buried at the fringes of the
Serenwilde one night so that the Moon could watch. After the mourners made
their way weeping to their beds, the Moon beheld the insignificant mound of
earth which covered the body of Her woman, and thought to herself with
indelible sadness, "So this is what the mortals do."

She fashioned from a beam of moonlight a small silver marker and laid it upon
the fresh grave. Then, overcome with Her grief, She turned Her face away from
the Basin for the first time, casting the once-vibrant night into darkness.

And so it is that the Moon moves through Her phases in remembrance of the woman
She blessed and the life that taught Her about mortality, first waxing in the
blush of youth, reaching the fullness of adulthood, and then waning in wisdom
and dignity towards the final farewell.

So it is told to the children of the Serenwilde, and so it is taught that they
may understand the example that is set into the stars for their guidance.