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Alison Harlow
Written
and compiled by George Knowles
That is the road to
Heaven, my love, From the old British folk-song attributed to Thomas the RhymerAs a practicing Witch and Feri Priestess, Alison Harlow was an early influence in the modern neo-pagan movement of America. She was the founder of the “Vanthi” line of Feri witchcraft, a co-founder with Gwydion Penderrwen of “Nemeton” an early pagan magazine and networking organization, a co-founder with Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart of the “Holy Order of Mother Earth” (HOME) a monastic sanctuary dedicated to nature, and a founding member of the “Covenant of the Goddess” an international organization of Witches. Susan
Alison Harlow was born on the 29th of August 1934 in New York City.
Her education began at the City and Country Grammar School in Greenwich
Village, before moving on to New Lincoln High School were she graduated in 1952.
To further her education she then enrolled in Bard College, but in 1953
eloped with one of her professors and spent the next 5 years in Bogotá,
Columbia. While there she enrolled
in Columbia University studying Cybernetics, from where she gained a Master’s
degree in Mathematics in 1958. This
started her on career in computers working for IBM as a programmer and systems
analyst in Hawaii and California. Later in life she put her professional skills
to good use in the health care area of computer programming. In 1962 Alison met her
second husband Randall Garrett, an American science fiction and fantasy author. Garrett was a long time contributor to Astounding SF
and other science fiction magazines during the 1950s and 1960s.
A prolific author he was best known for his Lord Darcy books and
the novel Too Many Magicians. Alison
and Garrett were married in New
York City in 1963. When his
father died later that same year, they moved to Austin, Texas, and lived
in his house for several years before moving to San Francisco in the mid
1960’s. In 1966 both Garrett and
Alison became founding
members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).
Shortly after they devorced and went their separate ways.
Randall GarrettThrough her involvement
with the SCA, Alison met with Gwydion Penderrwen an early founding member of Victor
Anderson’s “Feri Tradition of Witchcraft” during the early 1960’s.
Alison was initiated into the
Feri tradition in 1970 and trained by Victor and Gwydion, later
in 1975 she hived off to form her own coven called “Wings of Vanthi”,
thus creating her own line of the Feri tradition. Later
still Alison became a third degree initiated Gardnerian and incorporated certain
aspects of Gardnerian practice into her Feri tradition.
As such her line of the Feri tradition considers itself to be a modern
form of Wicca (unlike most other Feri lines), and adheres to the Threefold Law
of Return.
Gwydion Penderrwen - Victor AndersonIn the early 1970’s Alison bought a 220-acre plot of natural
woodland situated on Greenfield Ranch near Ukiah in California.
Greenfield Ranch was a huge 5600-acre
parcel of land that had been subdivided into a number of plots in the 1950’s.
Through the 1960’s early 1970’s as plots of the land were sold
off, it quickly developed into a large “New-Age” homesteading community.
Alison called her own plot
of land “Coeden Brith”
(Welsh for Speckled Forest), which
she intended to turn into a natural nature sanctuary. In 1975 sonsored
by Alison as a founding member,
the “Covenant of the Goddess” (CoG) was founded and organised from Coeden
Brith. Elders from many diverse
traditions met together at Coeden Brith in response to the rise of interest in
Witchcraft, feminism and enviromentalism.
The elders drafted a lasting covenant between each other and formulated
bylaws for the new organisation. The
bylaws were ratified by 13 member covens during the Litha summer solstice
celebration that year. Later that
same year at Samhain on the 31 October, the COG was incorporated as a non-profit
religious organisation. Today the
COG is one of the oldest and largest nondenominational organizations
supporting Witches in the United States. Situated adjacent to Coeden Brith is another 55-acre plot of land that was bought by Alison’s friend and Feri mentor Gwydion Pendderwen in 1976. Gwydion called his plot of land “Annwfn” (Welsh for Underworld) on which with Alison’s help he co-founded “Forever Forests”, an ecological mission aimed at healing the planet by planting trees. A year later in 1977 Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart of the Church of All Worlds (CAW) moved onto Coeden Brith as caretakers, and together with Alison co-founded the “Holy Order of Mother Earth” (HOME), a monastic sanctuary dedicated to nature.
Oberon and Morning Glory with a unicorn bred at Coeden BrithAside from Coeden Brith, Alison lived in Oakland and Palo Alto during the 1970’s, before moving in 1982 onto a 32-acre plot of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Scotts Valley, California. There she created a residential cooperative community called “Eclectia”, where she remained living in the same home until her death on the 13th of June 2004was a feminist and political activist supporting civil rights activities in efforts to find peaceful solutions to the world’s problems. She served on the Women’s Commission of Santa Cruz County for the last 8 years of her life, and was an active member of: The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), The American Association of University Women (AAUW), The National Organization for Women (NOW) and WomenRise for Global Peace. Alison was a beloved and respected member of many pagan
communities. She was a craft
practitioner of Feri tradition of witchcraft for over 30 years and remained a
staunch defender of women’s rights and civil liberties throughout her life.
On the 13th June 2004 after a brief battle with cancer, Alison Harlow passed away into the Feri
land of her ancestors. She died
surrounded by her blood and magical family, among them:
her third husband Doug and their children, her sister Linda, her niece
Rebecca and several members of her Feri tradition. End.
Sources: Drawing down the Moon –
by Margot Adler http://www.feritradition.org/Alison/about.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feri_Tradition http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.07/technopagans.html?pg=12&topic= http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usca&c=passages&id=8513 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/5569/Faery_Trad_Intro.html First published on the 25 August 2007 © George Knowles
Best
wishes and Blessed Be
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