Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart

Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart (born Diana Moore, formerly Morning Glory Zell) is a Neopagan poet, author, lecturer, and priestess. She is of Irish and Choctaw Indian ancestry.

Early Life

Morning Glory began her involvement with neo-paganism in 1968, becoming an eclectic priestess of Shamanism. In 1969, she gave birth to a daughter, Gail, and pursued a full-time career as a writer and a mother. She traveled to Minneapolis for the Gnostica Aquarian Convention in 1973, where she met Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (then Tim Zell). She moved to St. Louis to study theology with the Church of All Worlds, where she was ordained as a Priestess a year later. She and Oberon were married in 1974. She has written, lectured and taught intermittently, co-editing Green Egg Magazine from 1973-75. Her primary focus for eight years (1977–85) was on the establishment of a wilderness retreat center dedicated to Holy Mother Earth.

Public Life

Since then Zell-Ravenheart has facilitated workshops at many events and festivals over the years, such as science fiction conventions, renaissance fairs, and Pagan and interfaith religious festivals. She co-founded the Ecosophical Research Association in 1984, an organization that explores the truth behind myths.

Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart have appeared at over 20 Starwood Festivals (and a few WinterStar Symposiums) over the past 25 years; because of this, there has been a Church of All Worlds presence at Starwood, called the CAWmunity, for over a decade.^[1]

In 2006 she was diagnosed with a broken spine and multiple myeloma. She is currently undergoing a course of chemotherapy, along with surgical and radiation treatment.^[2]

Priestess and Historian

Morning Glory identifies herself most strongly as a Goddess historian, natural loremistress and ritual priestess of the Goddess in Her many guises, connecting with both Wiccan and Pagan shamanic Magickal practices.

Through the 1980s and ‘90s, Morning Glory did research, traveled, lectured and taught college courses on Neo-Paganism, the Gaia Thesis and Goddess re-emergence, on her own and in company with her partner Oberon. Her pursuit of knowledge and experience with the teachings of the Goddess have taken her on overseas journeys to the Australian Blue Mountains, the depths of the Coral Sea, the jungles of New Guinea, the ruins of ancient Greece, the caves of Crete and the Taoist Goddess Temples of China.

As a ritual priestess, Morning Glory has worked on the creation of ceremonies of every kind and scale, from simple baby blessings and rites of passage including many handfastings, to spectacular events such as the total solar eclipse at the Stonehenge replica in the Oregon Dalles in 1979, attended by over 3,000 people. In 1990, she researched and co-scripted what has become an annual modern revival of the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries. Likewise she conducted a recreation of the Panathenaia Celebration to consecrate the Athena statue completed for the Parthenon replica in Nashville, Tennessee in 1993 and 1994.

Morning Glory has been listed as a resource person and featured in many books on Paganism and its modern history, as well as various TV documentaries over the years. She is also a published poet, songwriter and prose author. She brings to all of her projects a store of songs, chants and folklore, plus a powerful vision of the reawakening of the Female Principle. Her life work has been about creating an initiation into a new cycle leading to our next stage of planetary evolution: the Gaia Cycle—a marriage of science and spirituality, ecology, feminism and sexuality.

Over the past 25 years Morning Glory has assembled an ever-growing Goddess collection of over 150 votive figurines from around the world and throughout history. Portions of the collection are used in her popular workshops at Magickal festivals and women’s celebrations. This collection reflects and inspires the work of the family business Mythic Images, producing museum quality replicas of ancient Goddesses and Gods sculpted in partnership with Oberon. (www.MythicImages.com)

Polyamory

Her article "A Bouquet of Lovers", first published in Green Egg Magazine in May 1990, contained one of the first^{[citation needed]} modern English uses of the term "polyamory". She is known as a foundational member of the polyamory community, through outreach and education but also leading by example. Her partnership and marriage as one of five persons in the renowned "Ravenheart" group relationship is viewed as a real-world illustration of sustainable polyamory. She is active in the polyamorous community, having given many presentations in myriad venues, having been interviewed, quoted and made appearances on the subject, and has often worn her priestess mantle in offering support and council to members of the community on the nuances and challenges of the lifestyle. [1]

Living unicorns

She is known for the creation of the "living unicorn" created by minor surgery to the horn buds of a goat, a technique first attempted by Dr. W. Franklin Dove, a biologist in 1935.^[3][4] One of their "unicorns", Lancelot, toured with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Mythic Images

Along with her co-husband Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and other members of their group marriage, Zell-Ravenheart runs Mythic Images, a Neopagan business devoted to creating and selling votive statuary, jewelry, and books. Much of the artwork is created by the Ravenhearts, and is based upon both historical Pagan artifacts and original designs.[2]

Bibliography

Books

• Creating Circles & Ceremonies: Rituals for All Seasons And Reasons, with Oberon Zell-Ravenheart. New Page Books, 2006. ISBN 1-56414-864-5
• Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard, with Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, et al. New Page Books, 2004. ISBN 1-56414-711-8

Articles

• Brigit of the Celts in AMARGI Vol I. No.3, Feb. 1st 1989
• A Bouquet of Lovers: Strategies for Responsible Open Relationships in Green Egg #89, Beltane 1990
• Satanism vs. Neo-Pagan Witchcraft, with Otter Zell, in Green Egg, 1995
• "Firelight and Moon-Shadows: A Survey of Wiccan Lore" in Pop! Goes The Witch: The Disinformation Guide to 21st Century Witchcraft, ed. by Fiona Horne. The Disinformation Company, 2004. ISBN 0-9729529-5-0

Short stories

• "The Golden Egg", (ss) Sword and Sorceress #5, ed. Marion Zimmer Bradley, DAW 1988
• "A Lesser of Evils", (ss) Sword and Sorceress #6, ed. Marion Zimmer Bradley, DAW 1990

Church of All Worlds documents

• A Pagan Sacrament of Holy Communion

Discography

• Living Your Own Myth - lecture on cassette with Oberon Zell-Ravenheart ACE
• A Bouquet of Lovers - lecture on cassette with Oberon Zell-Ravenheart ACE
• 2006 - A Bouquet of Lovers - lecture on CD with Oberon Zell-Ravenheart ACE

Media

Television

• Channel 4 TV (England) (1998)
• Strange Universe (1998)
• A&E (2001)
• The Marilyn Kagan Show (1996)
• Those Amazing Animals (1980)
• "The Devil's Advocate with Charles Ashman", KPLR-TV (1974)

Notes

1. ^ http://www.oberonzell.com/OZAbout.html Bio on Oberon Zell-Ravenheart's Official Website
2. ^ Morning Glory's illness
3. ^ http://everything2.com/title/Living+Unicorn+Project
4. ^ Man Made Unicorns

References

Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart is featured, quoted, interviewed, or otherwise referenced in the following books:

• Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today by Adler, Margot, Beacon Press, 1979; revised and updated 1987.
• Do You Believe In Magic? by Annie Gottlieb (Times Books, 1987)
• Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft by Rosemary Guiley (Facts on File, 1989)
• Le Livre de la Licorne by Yvonne Caroutch (Pardes; 1989)
• The Pagan Path: The Wiccan Way of Life by Janet Farrar, Stewart Farrar & Gavin Bone (Phoenix Publishing, Inc., 1995)
• To Ride a Silver Broomstick: New Generation Witchcraft by Silver Ravenwolf (Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd., 1997)
• Heretic’s Heart by Margot Adler (Beacon Press, 1997)
• Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft by Rosemary Guiley (Facts on File, 2nd edition 1999)
• Religious Leaders of America by J. Gordon Melton (The Gale Group, 1999)
• Encyclopedia of Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi (Llewellyn, 2000)
• Make Love Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History by David Allyn (Little Brown & Co., 2000)
• Neo-Pagan Sacred Art & Altars: Making Things Whole by Sabina Magliocco (University Press of MI, 2001)
• My Misspent Youth by Meghan Daum (Open City Books, 2001)
• Rites of Pleasure: Sexuality in Wicca and NeoPaganism by Jennifer Hunter (Citadel Press, 2004)
• Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, ed. (Harrington Park Press, 2004)
• The Pagan Man by Isaac Bonewits (Kensington Citadel Press, 2005)
• Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults, and Magick by Holzer, Hans (2005). Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. ISBN 1-57912-477-1
• Pop! Goes The Witch: The Disinformation Guide to 21st Century Witchcraft by Horne, Fiona (editor). The Disinformation Company, 2004. ISBN 0-9729529-5-0
• Modern Pagans by Vale, V. and John Sulak (2001). ("Interview with Morning Glory Ravenheart"). San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-10-6
• Coincidance: A Head Test by Wilson, Robert Anton (1988). Falcon Press. ISBN 1-56184-004-1

Articles

• Lady Chimmerly. Stranger in a super-friendly land in Salon, July 17, 1999.
• Dunn, Meghan. Husbands and Wives in Nerve, November 30, 2000.
• Firefox, LaSara (2005). "Pagan Elders Speak Out: A Visit with Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart" in Widdershins, Vol. 11, No. 3.
• Palani, Sivasiva (1991). "Thank Goddess for Pagans!" in Hinduism Today, February 1991 issue.
• Ve Ard, Cherie L. (2005). Influence of the Science Fiction Writings of Robert A. Heinlein on Polyamory.
• LaSara Firefox Interview with Oberon & Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart

External links

• Church of All Worlds clergy: Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart - a biography
• Mythic Images

Persondata
Name	Zell-Ravenheart, Morning Glory
Alternative names
Short description	American neopagan poet
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death