Who We Are

Is an education and support group for those who, originally inspired by the writings of Robert Heinlein, Robert Rimmer, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, are now ready to LIVE such alternative lifestyles as cooperative living, open relationships, and group marriage. Many of our concepts on multiply committed relationships come from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Live the Dream also sponsors a Nest of Church of All Worlds , the real-life, over fifty-year-old spiritual movement inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land. Live the Dream was founded in 1987 by Terry Brussel and Brian Gitt, inspired by Family Synergy founded in 1971 by Hy Levy and Pat LaFollette.

Upcoming Events

Saturday, March 15th, 2025, LIVE: 11 AM – 4 PM PST, Zoom: 11 AM – 1 PM PST

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Celtic Polyamory – Real and in SF

Handfasting has its roots in Celtic tradition, the most common being the Year and A Day
commitment ceremony. Originally, this was a time for couples to get to know each other
by living together and deciding if they want to spend their lives together. If a pregnancy
resulted from it, the handfasting became a legal marriage.

Today we have ways to prevent an unintended pregnancy and not everyone doing this is
of an age where such a thing would even be possible. Still, it is something more
committed than just “living together” or even being engaged without living together. The
custom is very common among Pagans, many of whom are poly. READ MORE

Saturday, April 12th, 2025, LIVE: 7 PM – 11 PM

LIVE THE DREAM PASSOVER SEDER 7:00 TO 11 PM (AT LATEST)

How did the term “polyamory” come to be?

morning-glory-and-oberon-on-Live-The-Dream

In a 2004 video interview Oberon is asked about the origin of the word and begins a reminisce that is quite revealing. The year was 1990. As he recalls it, Morning Glory was in the middle of a favorite and long-running rant about how people in the pagan community who were in non-monogamous relationships just could Not Follow The Rules about conducting multiple relationships successfully.

She happened to be voicing this complaint to her spouse of 16 years, Oberon, and Diane, their spouse of 8 years, who had heard it before, many times. Diane innocently suggested that since the rules were so important, maybe MG should write them up for everyone to see and they would publish them in an issue of the Green Egg, the premiere magazine at that time of the pagan and neo-pagan community. If she did that the rules would be read by thousands.

Morning Glory loved the idea and set right to work, pulling her two spouses into the project for inspiration. Sometime during the process, they came to the realization that there was no single term that everyone agreed on or used to describe what they do, and that the terms in use were awkward or bulky. Oberon, with his love of the Greek language, pointed out that the Greek prefix poly was already in use to describe other non-monogamous relationships. There was polygyny, polygamy, how bout poly- something? The problem was the Greek suffix fidelitus sounded more like a disease than a desirable life choice.

MG solved the problem in great fashion. In a separate interview in 2013 with cable program Destination America, she stated that she really liked the French term amor, and also the Latin amo, amos, amat, so she combined the Greek and Latin together to make polyamory. An enduring term and the primary identifier of a movement was born.

Here, then are The Rules, as delineated by Morning Glory Zell in the fall 1990 issue of the Green Egg.