A Page of Memorial Writings in Honor of Our Friends and Loved Ones Who Have Gone Before

In Memorium: Lawrence Jordan

It is with deep regret that I must relate the passing of Lawrence Jordan, sometime in the night of November 5th, 2009.
Lawrence was an initiated man of Thiasos Olümpikos, and also one of the officers of the organization.
He will be remembered for his charm, his wit, his sense of the bawdy, and his comical insistence that everything, even Ancient Greece, was really Celtic.
Lawrence frequently figured in our Bloodshed Report, almost always as the wounded, but nobody who ever wrestled him thought of him as a loser or victim.  He could pick up larger men with ease and dump them on their heads.  At his first Apaturia he walked out of the woods with a broken leg/foot.
He was an excellent poet, and often improvised incredibly beautiful poems on just about any topic.  He was an incredible cook, and in our early days hosted wonderful feasts.  He was a born gardener, and his house was covered in roses, the front yard obscured by fruit trees with more roses intertwined with them.
He was also an accomplished and learned Wiccan High Priest.
He will be sorely missed.
He is survived by his wife Frannie, his daughters Zen and Holly, and one grandchild.

--Pürokanthos, Hiereus

In Memorium: Sarah Rachel (Stephanie) Treskin 

On January 17th, 2007. our very long time friend Sarah Rachel passed into the next existence. She had been suffering for some time from brain cancer, and when the time came it was no doubt a release from terrible pain.

I first met Sarash Rachel at the World Science Fiction Convention which was held at the Claremont Hotel in the late 1960s. I met her as I was being the Master of Ceremonies at some particular event which I do not recall. She appeared in the center isle of the room asking for help, clearly in great pain, and there was nothing to do but turn over the event to someone else, put her on a luggage trolly, get her to a car and thence to the hospital. Her life was like that, a rapid movement from joyful circumstances to medical emergencieis and back again.

We became friends and she was 'part of the family' over many years, even when she began to manifest a paranoia about almost everyone around her. Little did we suspect, until the last couple of years, that her mental instability had a harsh organic cause.

Her passions in the latter part of her life were beadwork and lace, both of which she did beautifully. Those of you who have attended the rite of the Limryan Oracle will remember the beaded headband with the Greek alphabet which is used: that is Sarah Rachel's work, as are many of the small clothes used in dromena.

We celebrated with her when she converted to Judaism, and with her we celebrated many Jewish festivals. The memory of Even becoming a 'dradel shark' one year in particularly charming and poignant.

I last saw her in hospital, just after New Year. She seemed to be brightening in spirits, as usual unhappy about having to stay there one day longer than necessary. I think she was anxious to get back on the chemotherapy and get well again. For the last year, at least, Diana was her care giver and the only person she truly trusted, but that day she seemed happy to have me visiting as well.

We will all miss her.

--Pürokanthos, Hiereus

In Memorium: Thomas Charles DeCles

It is with deep regret that I must announce that on Wednesday, June 28, 2000, the beautful son of Jonathon and Kimberly, Thomas Charles DeCles, was delivered stillborn at St. Helena Hospital, Deerpark, California.

We wish to thank all those people who were able to come and be of support. The staff members of the hospital gave of themselves unstintingly and were totally supportive in this difficult passage and we are very grateful. That friends and family were able to be present before and during the delivery was very important to us.

Thomas Charles was welcomed into our tribe and named, then annointed for his passage to the next world. We all held him and kissed him and made offerings for him. He was a very beautiful little boy. A public memorial will take place later.

Kimberly gave birth with the strength and beauty of an Amazon princess. Jonathon was the exemplary father that I wish I could have been, holding her and, when the baby arrived, receiving it into his arms.

Kimberly says that if people want to help she would appreciate letters. Their address is: Post Office Box 2400, Clearlake, CA., 95422. E-Mail addressed to them at the Lodge will be forwarded to them when they get their computer back on line.

--Jon DeCles, Grandfather

In Memorium: Marion Zimmer Bradley

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We regret to report the death, on Saturday, September 25th, of Marion Zimmer Bradley, beloved friend, sister, and mentor.

We have never listed Marion's books here in Our Own Little Book Store because, frankly, Marion's success as a writer was so overwhelming that she really didn't need our help. "The Mists of Avalon" was, to the best of my knowledge, the Number One Best Seller in the World for a very long time after its release. --And besides, she was not only good, she was prolific: we were worried that if we listed everything available from her, we would not have any bandwidth left for the books we really needed to push in order to make a living.

We will remedy that in the coming weeks, as soon as we understand how all this works a little better.

If you are a person who has never read any of Marion's work, then please do so. Although her primary love was science fiction and science fantasy, she wrote across a broad spectrum of subjects and styles. Her best known works are the Avalon books, no doubt; but it would be hard to guage the love that people have of her Darkover novels. She received more than one fan letter crediting those books with saving sanity and even life! She wrote Gothics, Romances, some Erotica (long out of print!) and even some media adaptations. She wanted to write Westerns, but her agents suggested that it was a sparsely populated landscape, and it would be better to let the people who made a living there have that small piece of territory uninvaded. She was graceful and compassionate, and turned to Historical Fantasy instead.

There is at least one website devoted, it seems, to selling only Marion's books. What is in print is not hard to find. One hopes that more will become available. You can do a search of the web with just her name and get a lot of results. Or, you can got to the home page of her magazine at http://www.mzbfm.com/index.htm to learn more about her work.

Like most human beings, Marion cannot be summed up in the short space of any obituary. There would never be room enough to list all her interests and accomplishments. However, you can read another brief appreciation of another part of her life below.

--Jon DeCles

We regret to report the death, on Saturday, September 25th, of Marion Zimmer Bradlley, beloved friend, sister, and mentor.

In the early 1960s Marion and her then husband, Walter, founded the Acquarian Order of the Restoration, devoted to the restoration of the feminine in divine worship. She and Walter came back to the home farm in upstate New York at that time and initiated Paul and I into the Order. Their long and profound experience with various mystical traditions, dating back to Dion Fortune in Marion's case, fitted them well for the task.

When Paul and I moved to California to live with them in 1966 we were given further initiations, and when Marion and Walter were forced by financial considerations to move to Long Island, in New York, they left the West Coast branch of the order in my hands. Upon their return, Marion founded the Center for Non-Traditional Religion, which provided a place for small religious groups to have activities in a safe, clean environment. About that time my wife, Diana L. Paxson, took over the Acquarian Order and handled it up to the point at which she and Marion decided that the order had done its work, and dissolved it.

It was during this time that the various Women's Circles were formed which led to the formation of Spiral Path. It was also during this time (I think it was 1972 by then) that we began the exploration of Men's Mysteries which led to the formation, untimately, of Thiasos Olympikos. During that period Marion's intuition and support, and Walter's extensive scholarship, were invaluable. We could not have arrived at the Hellenic Experience without them.

I think that Marion achieved most of what she wanted in life. True, she did not become a trapeze artist: but she left us what most of the family considers her finest novel, the wonderful circus saga "The Catch Trap:" which many people also consider to be the finest Gay love story ever written. She did not get to sing upon the operatic stage (though she sang beautifully and constantly, and could spin out almost every soprano aria that Puccini ever wrote), but she did manage to become a major Patron and sponsor a singer in the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera.  She did not get to write the opera of "The Trojan Women" which was in her heart, but she did leave us the splendid and dark revisioniong of the Trojan War that is "The Firebrand." Surely nobody but the author of "The Mists of Avalon" could have taken that ultimate masculine subject and presented it so well from the point of view of the women involved. --Well, nobody since Euripedes.

If this were Ancient Hellas we would hold Games in her honor. We would have competitions in sport and especially in song. Some of us still will sing in her honor. For all others, let her be celebrated in the way that a writer is always best celebrated. Let her many books be read and reread. Let her stories continue to teach and uplift and support, and (what she would like most) entertain!

Farewell Little Sister! Be sure to go to the waters that are guarded, and drink only from the Lake of Memory. You know the words: I think it was you who taught them to me.

--Pyrocanthus

To learn more about Marion Zimmer Bradley and her writing, visit the home page of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magasine at: http://www.mzbfm.com/index.htm  

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