Morning Glory’s “Wake”

Morning Glory, Morgan, Wynter, Baby Girl

 

My old friend Anna Korn and I drove up to the Zell compound in Cotati after I finished with the Wiccan circle at San Quentin, so we weren’t there from the very beginning.  When we arrived, there were cars parked up and down both sides of the country road outside their home and the place was packed.  There was a proverbial groaning board in the dining room that kept acquiring more and more dishes of food.  Platters of ham, beef, chicken for the carnivores.  All manner of salads and side dishes – beans, pasta, greens, tomatoes and pomegranate seeds, you name it.  Plus veggies, breads and many tasty chips for dipping in many tasty dips.  There were also food tables out on the various decks surrounding the house, with plenty of folks outside, too.  There was a seemingly endless supply of wines and other potables, including Pyrate Jenny with her lovely basket filled with about a dozen different flasks, each containing some kind of whiskey or rum.

People congregated in the two living rooms, the den, and in several seating clusters on the surrounding decks.  During this time Zack Darling, using a fancy video camera with a tripod and a handheld mic, recorded stories about Morning Glory from individual friends and lovers.

The stated plan was that small groups of people would be shuttled to the hospital for brief visits with MG.  Only two visitors were permitted in her room at a time. 

Anna is an old friend of the Zells and other Pagans at Greenfield Ranch, and in fact had lived there for a time in her younger years, so she was going up there to see MG. 

However, since I have never been involved with Church of All Worlds, although I’ve attended a weekend gathering now and then over the past 30+ years, I had planned to defer visiting to others who were either closer or who’d come from farther away. 

My former Holy Terrors coven sister Cerridwen Fallingstar had visited her only two days earlier, on Thursday, and said it was a really hard visit because MG was in such intense pain.  One of the first friends I spoke with when we got to the “wake” was Richard Ely, another old friend.  Richard told me that he too had visited MG a day or so before, and that seeing her in such extreme pain was difficult.  So hearing this news reinforced my plan to forego a face-to-face visit.  It seemed to me that, however much she appreciated a gathering in her honor, one in which people related loving, often hilarious tales about her, she had only so much energy in her weakening state.  There was only so much time, and there were so many people!

So I spent the time visiting with old friends, becoming better acquainted with others, and meeting a few new ones.

When Anna and I arrived, Cerridwen, who planned to drive back to Marin with us, was off at the hospital with Morning Glory.  She told us when she returned that MG seemed much, much, much better today.  Evidently the medical professionals found the right painkillers for her.  I was relieved to learn this.

But it’s the other observation Cerridwen related that upset me.  It turns out that some of the visitors to Morning Glory’s bedside had never met her before!  Why would someone who’s never met the patient choose to take up limited time, space, and the patient’s energy to get some grand introduction?  There’s a carrion-esque feel to this situation.  Not that I don’t love carrion eaters; I am one.  But carrion eaters wait till their meal is dead before diving in.

Now I didn’t ask Morning Glory if she welcomed people who didn’t know her.  Perhaps she did.  One might reasonably assume that someone took on the role of figurative gatekeeper of access to MG, in which case some boundaries might have been set up.  Again, perhaps someone did and everything was copacetic.  I wasn’t there.  But I can tell anyone reading this right now: if I’m in any kind of state wherein my health is compromised and I need others to care for my daily needs, whether in a hospital or at home, please do not bring strangers to my bedside!

Cerridwen, Avelynn(sp?), Willowoak, Raina, Julie (my hand in foreground)

Farida, driver for that particular shuttle, soon left for the hospital with Anna.  While they were gone I mostly hung in the living room where MG’s famous collection of goddess statues are displayed.  Personnel shifted, but most of the time Julie Epona more or less presided.  Others I got to catch up with a little bit were Anodea Judith, Willowoak (who was super unsteady on her feet, had fallen more than once that day, and seemed to want her wine cup refilled often), Raina Woolfolk.

During that period Zack recorded Cerridwen, a former lover of MG’s, reading a story she’d written about her early days with MG.  The scene was a park in a middle class neighborhood in the Los Angeles area.  I found it to be a magical piece, full of love and sensuality.  I was glad I happened to be there to listen to it told directly to MG via the camera lens.

Anyone who knows Morning Glory knows she’s a sensuous, sexual, loving being, so it’s not surprising that other lovers spoke, including MG’s “Filly from Philly,” Diane Nemea Laessig.

Hospital visiting hours having concluded, we loaded our car to leave when Oberon drove in the driveway with a car full of folks.

I hope that this tribute served to lighten the spirits of Morning Glory and all her loved ones and caregivers.

Photos by Diane Nemea Laessig.

New Titles of Interest to Pagans

As a member of the AAR, I am on the mailing list of lots of academic and religious publishing houses so I get their catalogs. I enjoy perusing them and sometimes come up with some intriguing titles. Here are few from the latest from Ashgate's Religious Studies and Theology:

Invented Religions: Faith, Fiction, Imagination, Carol M. Cusack, University of Sydney, Australia. "...investigates four religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism ["Chaos is a goddess"], the Church of All Worlds ["science fiction, environmentalism and a holistic pagan vision"], the Church of the SubGenius ["science fiction mythos, culture jamming, and the sacredness of slack"] and Jedism ["Third millennium invented religions"]. ... explores these groups as reactions against the religious marketplace of the 1950s and 1960s. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1999s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet." [my emphasis] Fewer than 100 pages for a hundred bucks!* I would imagine that an Aussie's perspective on these American phenomena would be enlightening.

From a series on Sexuality and Religion:

Indigenous Religions, edited by Stephen Hunt. This British scholar "...gives full scope to the multitude of attitudes towards human sexuality found in expressions of religiosity outside of the so-called 'World Faiths,' with examples taken from cultures as far afield as Africa, Australasia, South American and the Pacific Islands" A whopping 800 pages for a whopping $250! I'm assuming by "World Faiths" they mean the Big Three Abrahamics, plus maybe Buddhism and Hinduism.

New Religions and Spiritualities, edited by Stephen Hunt. "...reveal the range of contentious attitudes towards human sexuality from the so-called 'new spiritualities,' quasi-religions and the more 'hidden' forms of religiosity, which are now evident on a global scale." [My emphasis.] Contentious, eh? I'm guessing that we Pagans may be among those referred to as "new spiritualities" or "quasi-religions." Five hundred pages for $250!

From series on Vitality of Indigenous Religions: Blackfoot Religion and the Consequences of Cultural Commoditization, Kenneth Hayes Lokensgard, ("Commoditization" is a longer way of saying "commodify.") "...explores the exchange of Blackfoot 'medicine bundles' within contemporary Blackfoot culture and between the Blackfoot Peoples and Euro-Americans. ... deals with the attempts of some Blackfeet to repatriate ceremonial materials from Euro-American hands." There's that old cultural appropriation bugaboo again. For this hundred bucks you get not only 192 pages, but also four b&w illustrations and a map.

Crafting Contemporary Pagan Identities in a Catholic Society, Kathryn Rountree, Massey University, New Zealand. "Contemporary western Paganism is now a global religious phenomenon with Pagans in many parts of the world sharing much in common -- from a nature-revering worldview and lifestyle to a host of chants, invocations, ritual tools and magical practices.

"Taking the Mediterranean society of Malta as a case study, ... [shows] what it is like being Pagan in a society where the vast majority of the population is Roman Catholic ... reveals that Paganism here is a unique brew of indigenous and global influences." [My emphasis.] Well, this book has a few more than 200 pages, plus 21 b&w illustrations, for another hundred bucks. I would love to hear those chants; bet we know many, if not most of them.

Another Southern Hemisphere perspective. I'm glad to see that our English-speaking neighbors below the Equator are getting funded to do this kind of research. Also, note that the word Pagan is capitalized in this book, but not in some of the others.

* Many of these books are available in hardback or as eBooks for the same price.