Happy New Year!

Tiwesday 12/31/19

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This is the last day before the dawn of the 2020s—the next Cultural Renaissance of the 60-yer cycle I’ve traced all the way back to the Italian Renaissance of the1480s. Here’s my outline of these:

Decade Popular Names

1480s   The Italian (Florentine) Renaissance

1540s   The Reformation; The Age of Exploration

1600s   The Golden Age; The English Renaissance
(Elizabeth I’s reign 1558-1603; Shakespeare’s plays 1589-1613)

1660s   The Scientific Revolution (Royal Society founded 1660)

1720s   The Great Awakening

1780s   The Enlightenment; The Age of Reason
(American Revolution 1773-1794; French Revolution 1789-1799)

1840s   The Transcendentalist Awakening

1900s   The Golden Dawn; fin de siècle (1886-1908)

1960s   The New Age; The Consciousness Revolution (1960-1974))

2020s   The Awakening…

2080s   The Diaspora…

Please check out my “2020 Vision: The Awakening” site: http://2020visionawakening.com/

Yes, it’s been awhile since my last Journal entry. I’ll try to catch up…

As I mentioned in my last entry, over the weekend of Dec. 21-22 (Winter Solstice), I participated in the Seattle Psychics Association’s Big Psychic Fair in Seattle, WA. This was put on by Belladona LeVeau, Dusty Dionne, and others of the ATC (Aquarian Tabernacle Church), with whom I was staying at the ATC HQ in Index. Around a dozen psychics were set up around the room to do readings, and ATC and I also had vending tables. We had very few customers, so we all did readings for each other.

Pic: OZ as the Holly King

The highlight for me was aspecting Santa as the Holly King, all dressed up in beautiful green velvet robes with white fur trim. I was fairly popular, and people took a lot of photos. I really do believe in Santa!

Monday evening I drove back to Seattle (an hour-and-a-half from Index) to have an Indian dinner at Roti with Lawrence Lerner and discuss progress on the Pagan Credit Union project I proposed last October, forming a core group at the Parliament. See https://theoutline.com/post/8021/can-a-pagan-credit-union-break-the-spell-of-big-banking?

On Tiwesday the 24th, my friend and CAW Minister Ed Fish picked me up at ATC and drove me to the Longhouse in Redmond, WA, for a delightful evening with my old friend Ron Peterson (Nirav), who is Head of the Venusian Church. This is a beautiful retreat center, on about 25 acres, with an awesome stone circle and a number of dwellings and residents. As 35 years before, I received a warm invitation to move in. Ah, but just as then, I have other plans…

Pic: OZ & Aphrodite at the Longhouse.

The last time I’d visited there was at Samhain of 1985, when Ron brought me up to testify on their behalf in a court case regarding their IRS exemption for tax-deductible donations. I brought Gordon Melton, who did the actual testifying, as Founder/Director of ISAR (Institute for the Study of American Religion). Unfortunately, they hadn’t incorporated with a 501(c)(3), as CAW is, so they didn’t qualify for such exemptions.

Way back then, I had a fabulous time at the Longhouse (they have a clothing-optional pool and hot tub!), and connected with a lovely lady named Linda, who became a significant lover in my life. She eventually came to teach at the Grey School, and she was on my list of old sweethearts to look up on my Walkabout. She was there this time as well, and we had a sweet reunion after these many years. When it came time to distribute the “white elephant” presents, folks insisted I wear my red Santa suit. Merry Xmas!

Pic: SantaOZ & Linda

On Xmas day a few of us went to the theater to see the final Star Wars movie, “The Last Jedi.” We all loved it, and thought it a fine conclusion to the long saga, with many old friends making their encore appearances.

After the movie, I drove to Olympia to visit another old sweetheart for a few days, then returned to the Longhouse on Saturnday the 28th for a great Solstice ritual, feast and party with about 50 members of Our Lady of the Earth and Sky (OLOTEAS). I gave a talk on the origins of CAW, modern Paganism, and the 60-years cycle from the 1960s to now. Long deep conversations in the hot tub, and another sweet companion for the night…

Pic: The Longhouse pool & hot tub

Heading back south towards Califia, I stopped off to spend a few days with Mitch and Lori Stargrove, in Hillsboro, OR, 200 miles and 3½ hours from Redmond. They have a beautiful home in the forest, with a nice comfortable guest room and hot tub. Turns out we have many friends in common—from just about everyone in my Vegas Vortex community and Firedance Family to old friends from Eugene and the Oregon Country Fair, Grateful Dead, Merry Pranksters, TOAD, etc. Mutual friends include Nikki Scully, Samina, Jeff, Abby, Merrill, Gary, Barefoot Steve, Bob & Norma, Badger, Morganne & Ivy, the Flying Karamazov Bros.…and so many others!

Naturopaths and Acupuncturist, Mitch and Lori are deeply into various esoteric studies and groups: Gaiastar Temple, Blue Lotus Mystery School, Thelema, Gnosticism, Ma’atian, and shamanic natural medicines on all scales. Mitch has been turning me onto some amazing music on Youtube by people he knows. One that perfectly speaks to the 2020 Vision is called “Dark as Night,” with the recurrent meme: “I believe in the good things coming.” By Nakho Bear (Medicine for the People). Another amazing video is his “Aloha ke Akua.” Check these out! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgP8LkEopM

Tomorrow 2:00 Mitch and Lori are hosting a gathering of the Gaiastar Temple at their home. It promises to be quite a gathering!

For previous Journal entries and more, be sure to check out my personal website: www.OberonZell.com. There are links there where you can buy my books, statues, jewelry, posters and more.

Brightest Blessings for the New Year—and the New Decade!

Joyous Yule 2019

Freyaday 12/20/19

A joyous Yule to everyone who sees this! May all Blessings come to you as we turn the Wheel into the 2020s…

Jon, Amy and OZ in front of the Yule Tree

I stayed with Amy and Jonathan/Jeannie from Dec. 9-15. We got along great, enjoying good meals and good company. I caught up on some of my favorite TV series (The Mandalorian; Strange Angel; His Dark Materials; The Watchmen), and then on Sunday the 15th I drove 230 miles (4 hours!) up to the Aquarian Tabernacle Church in Index, WA, northeast of Seattle. Archpriestess Belladonna LeVeau and Archpriest Dusty Dionne of ATC have welcomed me warmly and hosted me graciously, with a nice room and office I can work in, including a field golden retriever named “Honeybear” and two lovable cats to lay on my bed and keyboard.

As I described in my previous Journal entry, I drove on up to Camano Island on Monday the 16th to meet with Serious Israel, returning to ATC the next day. A marvelous meeting of two old Wizards!

Back here at ATC HQ, Belladonna, Dusty and I have been having deep conversations around the huge kitchen table, in the car driving to gigs, and soaking in the hot tub. ATC and CAW have been allied groups since the late ‘70s, when I got to know ATC Founder Pete Pathfinder Davis (1937-2014), and shared our CAW founding documents with him as he was designing the legal structure of ATC in 1978-‘79. Currently, my Grey School of Wizardry is a “sister school” with ATC’s Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary (WiccanSeminary.Edu).

Bella is a member of the Grey Council, and the absolute Matriarch of the ATC—which is set up as a Corporation Sole, with an impressive 35-40 affiliated organizations chartered under their umbrella group exemption. They conduct an extravagant “Spring Mysteries Festival” event every year over Easter weekend, drawing primarily from the Greater and Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis, but also a bit from the Descent of Inanna. I attended this a few years ago, and I highly recommend it!

Right now, my own main project and concern is “2020 Vision: The Awakening” (http://2020visionawakening.com/). I am reaching out to Pagan leaders, Elders, publishers, festival organizers, members of the Grey Council, and just, well, everybody—to promote a massive Pagan voter registration drive and adopt “2020 Vision: The Awakening” as a major theme for events in the coming year. Please forward this link to everyone you know!

Everyone I’m talking to—including Bella and Dusty—is enthusiastic and eager to get onboard with this. This could be bigger than the Harmonic Convergence of Aug. 16-17, 1987, when millions of people joined in a global meditation for world peace and the end of the Cold War.

At that time Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev led a political movement for reformation within the Communist Party he called perestroika (“restructuring”), with a policy of glasnost (“transparency”) political reform. Perestroika precipitated the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989 marked the fallingof the Iron Curtain. The fallof the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. And thus ended the 40-year Cold War. Just like magick!

The 2020 Vision project includes an invitation to come to the website and enter your own Vision for the 2020s. The more we can envision the coming decade according to our brightest hopes rather than our darkest fears, the greater the probability of manifestation (i.e. the collapse of the probability field; magick meets quantum physics!)

Pic: OZ with Dawn, owner of Mystic Sanctuary

Wed. evening the 18th I did a talk and book-signing at Mystic Sanctuary, in University PlaceWA 98466. This was an hour and 45 min. from Index, so we had a lot of time to talk in the car. At my talk, a lovely woman showed up who I thought looked somehow familiar. Afterwards she came up and let me know she was Jezebel Blessing, who had lived with our Ravenheart Family at Shady Grove in the early 2000s. I couldn’t believe how different she looked today, having lost a lot of weight! It was good to see her, and we reminisced a bit over the great parties we used to throw—particularly our annual Addams Family Reunion Party.

Pic: Jezebel Blessing with OZ at Mystic Sanctuary

Last night (Thurs. the 19th) I did another talk and book-signing at Edge of the Circle Books in Seattle, WA 98105, only an hour from ATC. And this weekend I’ll be appearing at the Seattle Psychics Association’s Big Psychic Fair in Seattle, I’ll be doing Tarot readings in my usual Wizardly regalia, but from 2pm-6pm I’ll be wearing a beautiful green and white crushed velvet Santa suit, as the Holly King—giving out authentic Norwegian paper heart baskets with Yuletide blessings, and posing with people for photos.

My business partner Jay has been adding clothing and mugs to our Mythic Images website in time for holiday shopping. We have a lot more designs to add, but there is a nice selection of Millennial Gaia items already available. https://www.themillennialgaia.com/product-category/clothing/

For previous Journal entries and more, be sure to check out my personal website: www.OberonZell.com. There are links there where you can buy my books, statues, jewelry, posters and more.

#pagan #wizard #ozpatreon #iampaganandivote #2020visionawakening https://www.themillennialgaia.com/

A Long and Busy Stretch

Tiwesday 12/10/19

This has been a long and busy stretch since my last entry in this Journal. I just haven’t had the time to sit and write, as I’ve been either driving, doing gigs, or visiting with friends. Right now I’m visiting with Jonathan/Jeannie & Amy Jonas, in Gresham, OR, on the SE side of Portland. They moved into this nice suburban neighborhood just a month ago, and are still unpacking. Jon is a serious Lego fanatic (AFOL=Adult Fan of Lego), and a member of the Portland Lego Aficionado Group. The house is full of large totes, bins and boxes full of every kind of Lego imaginable—and some really fantastic Lego constructions—some motorized.

Last night we were invited to a neighbor’s for a get-acquainted social. Straight out of “Pleasantville.” All very nice, friendly, smiling, straight people; at least some of whom were Mormons. With our non-alcoholic drinks and high-carb hors d’oeuvres, we all took turns introducing ourselves and saying a bit about what we are into. One woman proudly proclaimed that she was a great-great grandmother, with 9 kids and 27 grandchildren! I said I was an author, an artist, and a Wizard—with a School of Wizardry. And that I used to raise Unicorns in the 1980s. They all smiled politely, probably thinking I was crazy. But today the host posted a link to an article about me and my Unicorns, saying:

By the way, as an aside, you’ll remember our new neighbors, Jon and Amy Jonas, brought along an out-of-town guest Oberon Zell, who introduced himself as a real wizard and that he had once raised unicorns for the circus. Many of you may have wondered if he was teasing or was he for real.

Well, it turns out he’s a celebrity of sorts after actually “creating” a real one-horn (unicorn) animal in the 1980s. You can read the story here: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79557/curious-case-ringlings-living-unicorn

So, going back to my last entry:

Saturnday, Nov. 30 was my 77th birthday. My Godson Zack and his lovely lady Brianna took me over to Bodega Bay on the coast for a seafood feast. We had to check out some of the filming locations for the 1963 Hitchcock movie, “The Birds.” Synchronistically, I had just watched the movie a few nights before with Gail, Joe & Alessa!

Pic: The schoolhouse in Bodega Bay, featured in “The Birds.”

The next day I drove 150 miles up to Redway, CA, to visit my old friend Darryl Cherney. We had met in 1987, at Annwfn, where Darryl conceived the idea of “Redwood Summer in 1990.” That was when he and Judi Bari were blown up with a car bomb under the driver’s seat of the car Judy was driving. The FBI immediately arrested them, charging them with transporting explosives! Her pelvis destroyed, Judy died a few years later. But Darryl eventually won a lawsuit against the FBI, receiving $4 million in damages. He used the money to produce a fine documentary film, “Who Bombed Judi Bari?”

Pic. Darryl’s 10-room house, with trees growing through it.

And he bought a nice chunk of land with a crazy hand-built 10-room house on it. His 7-year-old daughter Alli was off with her mother, to be returning the day after I left. Darryl was building a nice outhouse for them, and he asked me to paint a Unicorn on the inside of the door. I’ll see her next month as I return that way; I hope she likes it!

Pic. OZ paints a Unicorn on a little girl’s outhouse

On the 3rd, I drove 5 hours to Central Point, OR, to visit Cat Gina Cole and her husband Mike. We totally hit it off, and I recommended Cat to teach at the Grey School, introducing her to Ambika Devi, our Dean of Faculty, at the GSW Admin meeting on Zoom the next day. Phaedra Bonewits and a couple of members of Cat’s coven came for dinner, and we talked late into the night—muchly about Isaac, who we loved and missed. Cat got out her Ouija board, and Phaedra and I tried to use it to contact Isaac. But all we got was gibberish.

Pic. Dinner at Oberon’s Tavern in Ashland.
L-R: Rose Jacobs, Cat Gina Cole, OZ, Phaedra Bonewits.

On Thursday the 5th Rose Jacobs and Phaedra joined us for dinner at Oberon’s Tavern in Ashland (yes, I showed them my ID; but I couldn’t get a free beer). After dinner I went home with Rose to Veneta, OR—another 3-hour drive. She has a large property there, with Pagan neighbors. One of them is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he looks like my twin!

Pic. Dinner with the gang at Old Nick’s in Eugene

On Friday the 6th Rose had arranged a big dinner gathering at a Pagan-owned tavern called Old Nick’s in Eugene. The proprietor, Emily Nyman, joined us at our table. A cool thing they had was a hand-made replica of the Throne of Swords from “Game of Thrones.” Of course, I had to sit in it! I think I’m seeing a pattern here—many Pagan groups around the country are patronizing favorite local taverns for “Pagan Night Out” dinners, live music, and other events. How traditional! And what a delightful privilege to be taken to so many of them on my journey!

Pic. OZ on the Throne of Swords at Old Nick’s.

After dinner, a few of us retired to Rose and Dustin’s house, where we stayed up late into the night discussing “the whichness of what, and how to unscrew the inscrutable”—as Lance used to say. Among this company were an enthusiastic young man named Buffalo, his friend Bobbie, and Fenwick Kaidevis Rysen—a dear and brilliant old friend from Annwyn. Buffalo gave me a bottle of his homemade apple cider, which we all enjoyed.

Pic. OZ and Buffalo

Saturday morning the 6th I drove another two hours to Tigard, OR, for a talk at “If the Broom Fits,” owned by Debbie Bailey. A couple of years ago she’d had me up there for a Witches & Wizards High Tea, which was utterly charming.

After the talk, I drove another half hour to visit Jay & Jadzia DeForest, in Oregon City, OR. Jay is my business partner in Mythic Images, and recently completed production of a beautiful 14” version of my Millennial Gaia altar statue. Next we’ll be working on a lifesize garden version!

Jay has been adding clothing and mugs to our Mythic Images website in time for holiday shopping. We have a lot more of the other designs to add, but there is a nice selection of Millennial Gaia items already available. https://www.themillennialgaia.com/product-category/clothing/

On Sunday the 8th, Jay had booked a Meet & Greet cocktails/dinner event at McMenamin’s Chapel Pub in Portland: A Casual Evening with Oberon Zell. We had a private room for a dozen of us, and we all had a good time.

And Monday the 9th, I drove a short distance to visit Jonathan, Jeannie & Amy Jonas, in Gresham, where I’m now writing this.

For previous Journal entries and more, be sure to check out my personal website: www.OberonZell.com. There are links there where you can buy my books, statues, jewelry, posters and more.

#pagan #wizard #ozpatreon #iampaganandivote #2020visionawakening https://www.themillennialgaia.com/