PHOTO CC: MJ Vilardi some rights reserved

There is great joy in MJville tonight: Julie, one of our dearest friends from Antioch has found us. She’s at the center of the photo above, with Grace and Ross, in my tiny yard on Corcoran Street In Washington DC (mid 80’s). Right after Ross died this May I had tried for days to track Julie down, using every private eye technique and Internet trick I could think of. Then I realized how she, a woman of no small intuitive powers, would advise me to proceed: calm down, reverse the polarity and let it happen.

Tonight’s full moon is low in the sky and as rusty red as Grace’s hair, as though Mars dropped by for a visit (not impossible, ask Velikovsky). I think the power of that moon, being courted by Jupiter, gave Julie a shot of extra juice that supercharged her meditation. Julie reached out and made our very special circle complete. Tonight she wrote:

Juliana Swanson née Haynes (AKA “Julie”)

said: on July 17, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Greetings, to Ross and all who love him!

Ross’ spirit came and told me he was moving on. He also sent me here today during the Grace Light Full Moon to share the juicy Ross Vibe.

Ross and I “lost touch” over the years, but I have always cherished my secret memories of our good lovin’ times at Antioch and beyond. I hardly remember smelly feet because he was my heart-throb.

When we broke off our love fest, it took some powerful witchcraft to help me get over him. Well, part of me never did get over him because we are soul family.

There is no death, so party on, and let us celebrate Ross’s life with these wise words of Don van Vliet, one of our old favorites back in the day~

I like the way the doo dads fly
With just a kiss I blew you up into the marrow sky
Twirled n’ swirled ripe like rotten gold
Cold like silver in a bed stream, trees cracked like egg creams
The swarm wet green fingery hives
I like the way the doo dad flies
Neopolitan landscape runs wet my eyes
I like the way the doo dads fly
The pink startled morning giggles just ahead behind the bush
A dark hollow echo streams
Views me from a circle formed of fiber eyes
Speak seek n’ sing babble, magnify
Like wet shapeless babies
Clearly the dew drops cry
Spill n’ pass from hand to hand
N’ layed gently ready to explode
N’ the sand combed streamed
N’ the trouts blur like herdled sperm rainbows
Bubbles like glass spurs paddle ‘neath the foot bridge
Lily’s pad bulb, orange spotty
Frogs lick God’s lucky green tongue
Dragon flies bi-planes
The sun hung like a lone orange
N’ a blue tree fell over ripe into the sea
N’ swam like a giant starfish

Thank you, Ross, with all my heart here now.

It has been decades since I’ve seen or spoken with Julie, and I find I’m deeply moved, literally weeping at the orange moon with the joy of reconnecting with Grace, then Harry, then the final miracle at this sad (and for Ross perhaps quite glorious) occasion. Spirit Ross whispers sweetly in her ear that he’s catching that 777 Express to Heaven, and Julie consults an oracle (Goo-Gall) and — there’s the signpost up ahead — next stop MJville — but Ross is dead.

Thank you, Julie, for loving Ross, and loving us enough to reach out and share our joy and grief.

Julie also wrote: I know…I have a lot of feelings too and realize I need to do some inner work to reach out and heal some more about my past with Ross. I believe that is why he reached out to me…probably when he was doing the old post-mortem life review.

I do feel that he will not be reincarnating here but will be/is moving to another higher plane.

It is a miracle I was drawn to your blog, and this is a reflection of our love, which Ross is showing us is boundless. What’s a few 20 years or so between us. Thank you Ross for this miracle, and thank you MJ and Grace for making it happen, too.

PHOTO CC: MJ Vilardi some rights reserved

UPDATE: Check out the Ross McConnell Gallery Page we just put up. It contains photos I’ve taken of Ross over the years, as well as a few of his original drawings. More added daily! And If you have any McConnell-abilia to add to the gallery, or stories you’d like to share, please send them to me at mj (at) mjville (dot) com.

When Ross asked me to teach a class with him called “Science and Imagination,” I wasn’t sure I was really qualified to teach people science, which, though it fascinates me, was never one of my best subjects. “Don’t sweat it, Little Buddy,” Ross said, “Use your imagination.”

And sure enough, that was the key to what would be a thought provoking course that challenged the old dichotomy between the Arts and Sciences. And we got about a dozen students signed up, not bad for a student-initiated course. Our curriculum and syllabus was approved by the Antioch administration and our first classes went great. We read some mind-bending science fiction, like Olaf Stapleton’s Starmaker. And a recent and controversial book by a new astronomer on the scene, a charismatic guy named Carl Sagan, who, along with a Russian colleague, had written Intelligent Life in the Universe. We took our class to the roof of the Science Building to gaze at Andromeda through the school’s huge telescope.

And, when we found out about an important convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), we took our class to San Francisco to attend. A ballsy move, since everyone (including Ross and I) were also taking a full load of classes, and Yellow Springs, Ohio is about 2000 miles from the Saint Francis Hotel on Union Square. Not all of our students got past the initial enthusiasm stage to the “shit, we’re actually doing this” stage, but in the end we had six travelers plus ourselves. One big snag: the day we were to leave in Joe’s van (classic Hippie van complete with hand-painted festoons) I had to work: I was photo editor of The Antioch Record, the weekly paper, and I couldn’t leave for another day and a half until I got my shots in.

Ross took me aside and got real serious. “MJ, you have to go. There is no way you’re not going.” He suggested I hitchhike out to California after my assignments were in. I told him he was crazy. He said if I would do it, he’d let the van go on ahead and hitch with me. I said “Now you think I’m crazy!” Ross grinned.

And three days later he and I hit the road for Cali. Later, fighting off psychopaths and near death in Arizona’s Painted Desert, I pondered the wisdom of our decision. But even later than that, safe in the loving arms of a Berkeley saucer cult (later to be known as Heaven’s Gate) we wolfed down organic rice and munge beans and smiled blissfully, knowing we had made the right choice.

PHOTO CC: MJ Vilardi some rights reserved

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