Ella Forever

Bless me subscribers, for I have sinned. It’s been a month since my last newsletter and in that one I didn’t do much writing, just sent a compilation of Solstice-themed AI visuals.

This issue:

Back to writing, Druid Heights, Moy Mell and the Dunes, Ella Young and counterculture

Peering out of my little foxhole, I kept waiting for things to change before getting back to writing to you. And speaking of the foxhole, our kitchen reno was put on hold over the holiday season, then weather delays, and now still waiting. (First world problem, I know.)

Now the carpet of the new year is finally being rolled out. I’d held back due to all the intensity of winter weather, with deep freeze temperatures followed by heavy snow. I’ve come to my senses and decided to activate the year anyways, not just sit by the fire, noodling around online and reading in the day and watching movies at night.

I trust that you also may be on the same wavelength of being, in your own way, taking care of things in these ways we now have, in the mid 20s of the 21st century. In our time-shifting calendar blur, I’m always just a little late to the party. “What? Nearly February?!”

Time Passes

I was led by unseen connection with the departed poet and folklorist, Ella Young, to see that her old house in Oceano had been sold in August of 2023. She had been present in my mind as I wrote my book Attars, which was set in the dunes.

I met the previous owner of her house with the unicorn gate by phone. He told me tales of living there with his family in the 50s after Ella had passed away, and visits from Shamcher who often visited from LA with his wife Evelyn. Shamcher was talkative, storytelling, and dapper, while Evelyn was in her deep distraction. Perhaps the trips were healing activities for them. Shamcher’s Fairy Tales are True, recalled his time in the dunes, and his connection with Ella Young peppers much of his writing.

Ella Young's house in Oceano, mostly real estate photos

The thread that led me here was a mis-titled photo that I was certain was Ella’s house, but it had been named for the modernist architect, RM Schindler. (There is a plethora of all things Schindler, and the creative world of Southern California in the 1920s and 30s at this Link HERE.) Other details in Ella’s home took me to Roger Somers, whose touches can be seen in the interior. I have the impression that he may have built her house, but can’t recall where I got that idea. And he was instrumental in the founding of Druid Heights.

Now the focus goes over to the decaying and amazing Druid Heights, named for Ella as the Druid, and Heights, as in Wuthering Heights. You can see lots on Druid Heights online, but might want to start with this BBC article: Founded in 1954 by lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow and builder Roger Somers, Druid Heights became a cultural hub that profoundly influenced a multitude of cultural currents during its 30-year heyday, from gay liberation and radical feminism to Zen Buddhism. MORE

The Goddess meditation hut - photo by Fabrice Florin CC BY-SA wikimedia commons

Following along on this exploration showed me that Ella’s spell from Moy Mell is still active, and available. Folklore has no time limit, and meaning has no boundaries. Lesbian witches and naked saxophonists brought us cedar hot tubs and interest in self-realization as almost de rigeuer rites of passage into what had been called the counter-culture or the creative nature-culture. As the spirit of Alan Watts remains in his mandala library at Druid Heights, and the energies held in Ella Young’s Irish wonder tales work like rhizomes throughout the West Coast, we remember these places as activating nodes for creative remarkable living and Being.

I wove Ella Young into one of my earliest issues of Personal Papers:

The Bee's Knees

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Till next time!

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Everything is always connected, beyond time, and somehow right on time, let’s decode it.