I was born in Kankakee IL on November 15 1953 at 1:55 AM. His parents were Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of Scottish/Jewish immigrants, and Leon, the youngest son of Breton/French farmers in Beaverville IL.I spent the first six years of my life on my fathers farm about a mile from Beaverville, a Breton/French community of about 500. Beaverville (originally, Ste. Marie) was founded in the 1850’s by the descendants of Acadians who migrated from Quebec on the instigation of Fr. Charles Chinique, who was also responsible for the development of nearby Ste. Anne and another satellite community, Le’Rable.
The Acadians where Bretons who, fleeing persecution and eradication of their Celtic culture by the French, landed on the shores of Nova Scotia in 1604 and founded Acadia, a colony which flourished for a about 100 years. The British came into the region at that time and drove the Acadians out. About two-thirds of them fled to Louisiana and are the ancestors of the “Cajun” people (Cajun being a corruption of the word Acadian). The other third fled to Quebec. Many of these became fur trappers, “Couer de Bois” and “Voyageurs” and helped carve out the unique history of New France.
In 1960 I entered First Grade at Donavan (IL) Grade School. Why didn’t I start in 1959? I was born in November and it was determined that I wasn’t mature enough to start First Grade. The summer before my 8th birthday was chaotic for me. My dad lost the farm, the victim of economics and alcoholism, and took a series of jobs with some of the large dairy farms in Northern Illinois. The family moved four times in the next year, finally landing in a flat in Kankakee, where his dad took a job at the nearby Joliet Arsenal. I was sent to school at St. Patricks Grade School, just across the alley. I was a quiet kid, whose favorite hang out was the nearby public library. Shy and non-athletic, I found a world inside books. Books about spaceships and journeys to distant worlds. Probably the single most powerful influence on my young impressionable self was Robert A. Heinlein . My favorite books growing up were Glory Road, Stranger In A Strange Land, The Door Into Summer and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Other favorite authors included J.R.R. Tolkein, Issac Asimov, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, Ray Bradberry, and E.E. “Doc” Smith. Television fiction also played apart in my unique spiritual education, with the early Star Trek series being my favorite diversion.
I was involved in an automobile accident in March of 1965, and was in a coma for about a month. I lost enough school time that I ended up having to repeat fifth grade.
My Catholic education ended then, which was timely, as I had decided I had had enough of Catholicism. On the Shabbat closest to my 13th birthday (11/1966) I was Bar Mitzvah.
That summer my family moved across town. I attended East Junior High School. and went to high school at Eastridge High School. My friends were the nerdy, intellectual kids. They were in the band, on the school newspaper and excelled in science and math. I excelled in english and the humanities, and was especially fascinated by religion and philosophy.
I graduated from Eastridge in January of 1973 (early graduation, as I was attempting to make up the time in Fifth Grade when I was in a coma), and started attending Kankakee Junior College.
In February 1974 I traveled to Israel (with my mothers encouragement and blessing) I spent the first two weeks touring the country, and then settled at Kibbutz Migav Am, near the town of Qiryat Shemona, in the Golan Heights. Once they learned of my farming background, they put me to work plowing a field. Incidentally, my father had owned this very model of tractor, a 1950 International Harvester. I had learned to drive it at the age of six, and my legs barely reached the pedals. I was advised to not plow past the red painted rocks that lined one side of the field. “Why?” I asked. “There are land mines beyond the rocks,” was the answer. Needless to say I did not wander past the red rocks. Another disturbing feature of that tractor: there was an Uzi strapped to the fender. “Am I going to need that?” I asked. “Hopefully not.” was the answer.
The Golan Heights are on the border between Israel and Lebanon, a somewhat disputed area. About two weeks later all of us Americans were evacuated from Migav Am. In another week a rocket fired from Lebanon hit the school. Luckily it was Shabbat so no children were in attendance.
I was located to Kibbutz Nahsholim, on the Mediterranean Sea, about 60 miles south of Haifa. That was a much more pleasant venue. We grew dates, figs, avocados, oranges and grapefruit. The Kibbutz featured a nude beach, which is where I acquired my taste for naturism. I also met my girlfriend, Rachel. Long black hair, a sunny smile and a load of fun.
In May I left to do my two week tour of duty / training with the Israel Defense Forces. This was required of all foreign volunteers for the Kibbutz system. Now, this was ironic since a year earlier, in 1973, I was successful in being granted conscientious objector status by the Kankakee County Draft Board. So, here I was in Israel taking military training. Two weeks later I hiked up Mt. Massadah (King Herod’s palace in the Negev). One snarky thing I did was as we were eating in the cafeteria at the bottom of the mountain, I wanted a cheese burger. But the cafeteria was Kosher do that wasn’t possible. I figured something out though. I got my burger, chips and a coke, took them to my seat, then went back to the line and got a slice of cheese. Voila: Cheese Burger. Soon, the other “solders” copied me.
In February of 1975 I learned that my mother had passed away, so I returned to Kankakee to sit shiva, intending to return to Israel (and Rachel), but family and friends talked me into staying state side.
Later that year I met Lynne , the daughter of a Belgium/French farmer from L’erable. We were married in August 1975 and that following Summer Solstice Joshua was born. But my relationship with Lynne floundered. She had never learned to drive, despite my pleadings (over 14 years), and became increasingly agoraphobic and falling deeper into the radical fringes of fundamentalism.
In May 1981 the twins, Jordan and Jesse were born. I took great pride in all three of my sons and attempted to be the best father I could be.
I helped establish Boy Scout Troop 313 and became it’s first Scout Master. Scouting became my his retreat from a hellish home life, and a place to connect with his sons. Lynne e got worse, and started seeing the Devil under every rock. This eventually led me to buy a larger, more opulent home (in hopes of achieving “space”) but that proved to be of no use. Lynne managed to fill the space with clutter, and I finally left the house in January of 1990 and filed for divorce. I was also having an affair with a female scouter, but worse, he was engaged in the beginnings of what would become a life long affair with the Goddess.
BSA Troop 313 was disbanded by it’s sponsoring body, the People’s Church, when my wife let the Pastor there know of my affair. Most of the members of Troop 313 moved to Troop 300, sponsored by my dad’s former parish and I became an Assistant Scoutmaster there. This troop was made up mostly of working class union people, so my repertoire of Union songs were an instant hit (with the parents anyway) around those moonlit campfires.
It was around this time while living alone, that I became very involved with the internet, and various newsgroups. It was on one of these that he met Qadisha.
In March of 1991 I flew to San Francisco to meet Qadisha It wasn’t hard to convince me that “California is the place you ought to be” either. I flew back home, got my affairs in order and on May 1st, flew Qadisha and daughter to Chicago, where my niece Angela and I picked them up. We drove my ’88 Chevy Celeb back to Santa Cruz . The next November (13 months after their first meeting online), Qadisha and I were handfasted at Valley of Fire State Park, north of LasVegas NV, with about 100 members of the internet community (who flew in from all over the country) in attendance.
Together, Qadisha and I founded Circle of Fire and Friends,a group which organized public circles marking the Pagan sabbats. The group fell apart over time, when it was shown that all people were interested in was the Qadisha and El show, and not in forming community or working together. It was through CFF however that I met Adam Walks Between Worlds , and entered into a friendship that would change me forever. Adam, Qadisha and I corroborated on the founding of something completely different. That was Order of the Mithril Star , which blended ceremonial magick, druidism, thelema, and shamanistic elements, and the core philosophy from Robert Heinleins landmark novel, Stranger In A Strange Land.
For Qadisha and I, living together proved to be a strain on their relationship. In fact Qadisha didn’t believe that men and women should live together and had even taken a vow that no man would ever live with her. I took a room with a friend in Ben Lomond, nestled in the Redwoods between Big Basin and Henry Cowell Redwood State Parks. Sybok has a particular fondness for the giant trees, and that actually is his favorite feature of California. But Qadisha wanted to move to southern Oregon, because of it’s proximity to Interstate 5 and lower cost of living. In the summer of 1998, Qadisha and I relocated to Ashland OR , hoping once again to fulfill his dream of establishing an intentional community. Ashland was thought to be a good choice based upon it’s reputation as a new age mecca in the Northwest. But it was my second choice. My first was the very liberal town of Arcata CA, on California’s Redwood Coast.
Philosophical/political differences gradually drove Qadisha and I apart. I was inclined to be more openly Pagan, and was actually attracted to Ashland because one could do just that there. But Qadisha feared that her daughter would be ostracised, so a “rule” was imposed on me: “Never wear your pentacle in public.” Later, after we broke up and I was seeing someone new, Qadisha tried to impose the rule on my new relationship as well. That did absolutely no good and further strained things.
I was also a person whom communards contacted to network with others in the Pacfic North West. In July 1998 I founded The Jefferson Index, which was organized to provide a network for Pagans and other Earth religionists living in “the mythical State of Jefferson.” Ceridwen was one of these contacts, but I did more than just help her relocate from Santa Cruz, he married her on November 18, 2000, after relocating :40 up I-5 to Grants Pass, the “gateway to the northwest.” It’s also :45 minutes closer to my beloved redwoods.
Why Grants Pass? Several reasons. I was not at all happy in Ashland, mainly due to his economic situation. Since moving to the West Coast, I had never made more than $24,000 per year. A major reason for moving to Oregon from Santa Cruz was the lower cost of living. This was a reason for moving from Ashland to Grants Pass as well. Ashland has become an enclave of the elite, and housing prices are skyrocketing. Wealthy Bay Area folks are moving to Ashland in droves, driving prices up to where working class people can no longer afford to live there. Gradually I discovered that Ashland represented everything I hate about America: Bourgeois liberals who spout politically correct euphemisms while pretending there are no homeless in Lithia Park (and their Police force makes sure it stays that way), and spawn children who spit at and harass the poor “scrubs” among them.
In September 2000 a “friend” in Grants Pass offered Ceridwen and I his cabin, set on 20 acres in a forest clearing, :10 minutes from town. Having just received notice of another rent increase for his boxy Ashland-ghetto apartment, Ceridwen and I umped on it.
In July 2003, I resigned from the office of Arch-Druid of the Mother Grove. I was tired of being the “lightening rod” for everyone with a beef about the RDG. So Ceridwen was voted new Arch-Druid,and I became the new Clerk of the Mother Grove, a more “behind the scenes” sort of office.
In March 2004, Ceridwen and I and the RDG Mother Grove relocated to Humboldt County California, where the sacred tree of the RDG grows abundantly. In preparation for that move, Ceridwen and I founded the Sequoia Pagan Alliance, to network and make friends with Pagans on the Redwood coast.
What about my boys? I used to travel back to Kankakee about once or twice a year (they wouldn’t come to California, because (as we all know) “all Californians are Satan worshipers who eat babies while lounging in their hot tubs”), but I haven’t been able to afford that trip since the move to Oregon. I call and email them as often as possible, and as they grow up their relationship is getting stronger. The twins both graduated from Illinois State University, and Josh is married, has two boys of his own, and is personal trainer and basketball coach. Both of the twins are married and each have three children. They both are videographers (we used to call them camera men). Josh’s oldest son is married and has a little girl, my great grandchild.
