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.
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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.
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]
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)
Her article "A Bouquet of Lovers", first published in Green Egg Magazine in May 1990, contained one of the first 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]
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.
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]
Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart is featured, quoted, interviewed, or otherwise referenced in the following books: