Maerian Morris

Maerian Morris (May 27, 1957-...) is a Neopagan author, scholar, digital and performance artist, editor, and priestess. She edited Green Egg Magazine from 1993 to 2001,^[1] is a former High Priestess of The Church of All Worlds, and is the founder of Westernesste, a modern Neopagan church, and The Sidhevairs, a digital sacred arts and educational virtual world that merges visual, aural, 3D digital, performance and collaborative participatory arts with ritual to explore myth, mythopoeia, folklore and the creation of new archetypes.^[2]

Biography

Born Linda Rosemary Barrier in California in 1957, Maerian comes from a long line of theater artists. Her paternal grandparents Edgar Barrier and Ernestine Barrier were both film actors and Broadway performers; her father, Michael Barrier, was also an actor, and her mother danced with the Lester Horton Dancers. The theater community of her childhood deeply influenced her later interests in the arts and sacred Drama. Maerian considers he father’s appearances as Lt. DeSalle on Star Trek, and the family’s friendship with Star Trek screenwriter Gene Coon as being particularly influential on her later interests in myth, fantasy, and science fiction.^[3]

Maerian was raised in the Hollywood/L.A. area of California until she left there in her mid-teens. She has four grown children, a son and two daughters, and a step-daughter.^[4]

In early 1973, still a teenager, Maerian left home for Laguna Beach with her high school sweetheart to join the remaining satellite members of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love who were forming “The Travelling Promised Land”, a caravan of busses and other vehicles travelling up the California Coast. Several months later she left the Caravan and moved to the San Francisco Bay area living in Eureka Valley (The Castro District) from 1973 to 1975. She, her partner, their son and another partner moved to Guatemala where they lived for about 18 months. Shortly after their arrival, they were near the epicenter of the 1976 Guatemala earthquake. In the wake of this quake Maerian moved to the Mayan Highlands of Guatemala working in disaster relief with CARE (relief agency) until late 1976. Only 18 at the time, and caught up in the social and political turmoil of the mid-seventies in Guatemala and El Salvador, she and her young family had some harrowing experiences and their relationships did not survive the traumas of their time in Central America.

After her experiences in Guatemala, Maerian became interested in cultural anthropology, and upon her return to the U.S. she attended the University of California, Berkeley where she completed a BA with honors in Cultural Anthropology.

In the late 1980s, while still in Berkeley, Maerian acted as assistant editor of High Frontiers/Reality Hackers magazine (later Mondo 2000), writing under the pseudonym of Nan C. Druid;^[5] moving North around 1990 to Mendocino County, she taught public school there for several years. At about that time Maerian (a long-time "Renaissance Faire" devotee) became a fencing instructor with the Cardiff Rose Fencing Academy, a renaissance reenactment and fencing group based in Northern California.^[6]

Relationship to the Church of All Worlds

In the early 1990s, Maerian’s experience as an editor led to her hire as editor of Green Egg magazine published by the Church of All Worlds (CAW), one of the founding organizations of the Neo-Pagan religious movement.^[7]

Maerian was employed by the CAW as editor from mid 1993 to late 2001.^[8] Believing that the role of editor for CAW demanded a deeper religious dedication to the organization, Maerian undertook religious studies in CAW, first becoming a Scion and later an ordained Priestess (1994). From 2000 to 2001 Maerian served as High Priestess of the Church during a time of significant turmoil for the organization. She chose to step back from active involvement in CAW after the Central Organization left California for Ohio, enacting organizational choices she felt had moved away from her understanding of the Church’s religious paths.^[9] Maerian chose not to resign from CAW as a member or Priestess, believing along with other long term and core members of the CAW Clergy that while the corporate entity had moved away from the core ideals of CAW, the spiritual heart remained alive and still beat strongly in many members of its Priesthood and former members. Maerian considers herself to be an inactive member of the CAW Clergy.

Recent work

At the same time that her work as editor of CAW was ending in late 2001, Maerian lost her home in a fire and moved back to the Bay Area taking a job as an administrative analyst at her old alma mater. While employed at UC Berkeley she pursued independent graduate study there in rhetoric, folklore and comparative literature, focused upon the study of Hellenic religion and philosophy as well as medieval French literature particularly as it touched upon Arthurian legends, the Grail myths, and female agency.

Maerian’s academic studies also address historical contexts for gender-atypical roles for women, particularly in medieval France, the Renaissance and the Victorian era. She has published articles on comparative religion and medieval and Victorian studies and has been invited to lecture as an independent scholar on such topics as how fencing and the art of the sword transformed women during the Victorian era^[10] as well as on cross-cultural religious approaches to human virtue and ethical behavior.^[11]

Westernesste and The Sidhevairs

In 2002, Maerian Morris incorporated a former Nest of CAW into a separate new religious organization, Westernesste.^[12] Maerian is Westernesste’s founder and its first ordained Priestess. Westernesste shares much in common with CAW, but has a different religious focus that draws extensively upon mythopoetics and the expression of religious concepts through the arts, exploring Earth-centric, animistic, pantheistic religious concepts through cross-cultural myths and their expression as modern sacred arts. A particular focus of Westernesste involves modern explorations of the Eleusinian Mysteries. A primary aspect of this work is expressed through an exploration of the possibilities of new media and technology and the production of sacred digital and performing arts that communicate Westernesste’s religious ideas through the use of virtual worlds.

In 2009, Maerian and her still fledgling organization moved from Berkeley to Santa Cruz when Maerian was hired to manage the Theater Arts Department at UC Santa Cruz.^[13] There she continues her academic studies as an independent scholar. Maerian is a member of the United States Fencing Association, The National Writers Union and the National Coalition of Independent Scholars.^[14] She continues to be a writer, poet, storyteller, and editor.

Maerian’s primary interests lie in her work as a priestess in Westernesste. What distinguishes Westernesste from its many spiritual relatives is a primary focus upon the exploration and development of modern archetypes and mythopoetic work drawn from the literatures of fantasy, myth, folklore and science fiction. Westernesste currently finds much of its expression through mythopoeic interactions and digital arts in its virtual world property: the islands of the Sidhevairs. Maerian's digital arts and virtual events work is central to this expression.

Westernesste owns five “digital islands” known as The Sidhevairs which serve those people who are interested in the use of virtual worlds to co-create art that fosters respect for cultural and spiritual diversity. The Sidhevairs can be found in the virtual world grid known as Inworldz.^[15] The particular creative focus is the depiction of mythology and fantasy settings that encourage the desire to protect and appreciate nature. The Sidhevairs host virtual events and religious and academic lectures on topics of interest to Westernesste members. Maerian maintains an avatar presence in The Sidhevairs as Maerian Sidhevair, the “Elenarwen” of the Faelf (a new Sidhevair archetype that combines traits of both the Elf and the Faerie). Maerian and Westernesste's members have said that this combination of roles has a resonant effect upon who the Elenarwen is— both Inworld and Out.^[16]

Maerian’s virtual world profile as Elenarwen of the Faelf notes that although she pretends to be human some of the time, she must confess to varying levels of success in that effort.

NOTES

1. ^ Morris, M. Green Egg Editorials
2. ^ Westernesste website Westernesste, The Sidhevairs website The Sidhevairs
3. ^ Interviews with Sun Summa, 1986-1989
4. ^ [https;//www.sidhevair.org/The_Elenarwen.html bio]
5. ^ Mondo 2000
6. ^ The Cardiff Rose Fencing Academy The Cardiff Rose
7. ^ Adler, Margot, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today, Beacon Press, 1979; revised and updated 1987.
8. ^ See Green Egg entry
9. ^ See “Attempted termination & Second Renaissance” on the Church of All Worlds entry.
10. ^ University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) - Victorian Rituals, Celebrations, and Anniversaries -[1]
11. ^ Morris, M. The Nine Virtues, The Nine virtues
12. ^ from organizational documents found at the westernesste site
13. ^ Theater Arts at UC Santa Cruz
14. ^ NCIS website
15. ^ Inworldz website
16. ^ The Faelf website