Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart
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Zell praying for healing (c. 2006)
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Diana Moore
May 27, 1948 Long Beach, California, U.S.
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| Died | May 13, 2014 (aged 65) Cotati, California, U.S.
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| Other names | Morning Glory Ferns Morning Glory Zell Morning G'Zell |
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| Children | 1 |
Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart (May 27, 1948 – May 13, 2014), born as Diana Moore, subsequently known as Morning Glory Ferns, Morning Glory Zell and briefly Morning G'Zell, was an American community leader, author, and lecturer in Neopaganism, as well as a priestess of the Church of All Worlds. With her husband Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, she designed deity images.
Early life
Diana Moore was born in Long Beach, California on May 27, 1948. She was raised an only child in a strict Christian household by her Pentecostal mother, though she switched from attending a Methodist church to a Pentecostal one around age 10–12. At age 14, she broke with Christianity after arguing with her Methodist minister grandfather that animals had souls and went to heaven. She was strongly influenced by the Sybil Leek book, Diary of a Witch, which she read during high school. At the age of 17, Diana began practicing witchcraft. At the age of 20, she changed her name to Morning Glory because she did not care for the chastity requirement demanded of followers of the goddess Diana.
While en route to join a commune near Eugene, Oregon, in 1969, Morning Glory met a hitchhiker named Gary Ferns who joined her. The two were soon married, and the next year, she gave birth to a daughter whom she named Rainbow. As a mother, she was known as Morning Glory Ferns. The union was broken when she met Timothy Zell after he gave the 1973 keynote speech at Gnosticon in Minnesota. Morning Glory divorced Gary and brought her daughter to St. Louis, Missouri, to live with Zell. Morning Glory and Zell married at the Gnosticon of Easter 1974; the ceremony was performed by Archdruid Isaac Bonewits and High Priestess Carolyn Clark.
Church of All Worlds
In St. Louis, Morning Glory studied and was made a priestess of Zell's Church of All Worlds. She helped him edit the group's journal, Green Egg. In 1976 the two began almost a decade of traveling, adventure, and living in various retreats and in a school bus they converted to a mobile home. They founded the Ecosophical Research Association in 1977 at Coeden Brith, a ranch in rural Mendocino County, California, northwest of Ukiah, to investigate arcane lore and legends of cryptids such as Bigfoot and mermaids. Their wandering years ended in 1985 when they took up permanent residence at Coeden Brith, initially for the purpose of raising "unicorns" created from horn surgery on baby goats, which they did.
In 1979, Timothy Zell changed his first name to Otter, and for a short time the couple styled their surnames as G'Zell, a contraction of Glory Zell. In 1994, he changed his name to Oberon.
With Darling, Morning Glory revived Green Egg in May 1988. The journal had been defunct since 1976. In 1990, she established the business Mythic Images, offering for sale reproductions of goddess and mythology sculptures crafted by Zell. Morning Glory ran the business in addition to lecturing and writing.
Personal life
In 1999, the Zell-Ravenhearts moved to Sonoma County, California, where Oberon started the Grey School of Wizardry, which as of 2014 is the world's only registered wizard academy.
Morning Glory went to the hospital in 2005 to treat broken bones suffered in a fall. There, she learned she had multiple myeloma. She received surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and also entreated her friends to form a healing circle. She experienced a great increase in health in 2007. She lapsed in taking her medications in late 2011, and the disease returned in early 2012. During a period of remission in August 2012 she was filmed for a documentary for the Destination America television channel, the show called Hidden in America.
Death
Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart died at her home on May 13, 2014, at age 65, of cancer.
Writings
Books
