On August 23, in the wee hours of the morning, our beloved Kathy Morris left her body. After a cancer diagnosis just five weeks ago, she was held with great care by the team at Timber Ridge, our family and the many friends who created a beautiful flow of visitors, bringing love, stories, comfort and presence to her side. It was sudden for our family, and we were blessed with so many sweet people recalling her beauty to her and bearing witness of her.

Kathy is survived by her two children, Becca and David Pryor, her grandson Jackson, the tribe of mamas she raised us with, the neighbors woven into her life, and all the dance partners and crafting creatures who will mourn her. This comes just one year after our father, Roger Pryor, also passed away. She was cremated at Ayers one week after she left her body and will be taken to the ocean to be with the dolphins.

Kathy and Roger divorced many years before, but shared love for children and community and the deep history of building a life and raising us together here in Humboldt county .

Kathy was born in 1947 and adopted at six days old by David and Frances Morris, a spunky, community-minded couple who couldn’t have their own. They adored her and gave her all sorts of love and opportunity. She grew up in Colorado Springs before it bloomed into the city it is now, riding her horse toward the Cheyenne Mountains until dusk, when her mom would ring a huge bell to call her home. There were etiquette classes, horse training, country clubs and modeling. Although her parents hoped she’d marry a cadet, Kathy found a deep call in her heart toward a wild and rooted, earthy way of life steeped in dance and village mentality. She was a seer of beyond-human energies and felt the call to express her feelings through art and human connection. She began studying dance in her early twenties and never looked back. After graduating from CalArts in 1972, she dove deep into the modern dance scene of Southern California, worked as a waitress, created community dance spaces and taught modern dance at UC Davis. She loved how modern dance was a vast language that could transmute her heart’s poetry — life’s poetry.

She met our dad at the Christmas party for the restaurant where she worked, Laurie’s Steak House, with Roger’s sister in Venice, California. He was living in Lake County on a self-sustained ranch at the time but fell in love with her wild spirit; they were smitten and pregnant and married within a year. In 1978, pregnant with Becca, they made their way to Humboldt to start their rooted village life. Standing pregnant in the Plaza Kathy knew this was the place to raise her babies. She taught modern dance at HSU when we were babies, as well as maternity and creative movement classes at what we now call Redwood Raks ( the old creamery dance center) , and participated in a dance company that would become our first village here as a family in Arcata. She poured herself into the Old Creamery Dance Center. She shined and thrived there. The dance center was her third place. The village was bursting with art and care and wild children .

She was powerful in her stance on respect, love and acceptance. To be her child and roam in this town was a blessing, while also edgy. All the adults and children running around our village created a beautiful tapestry of care and community that I can still see traces of here and now. She helped build our parent-run school long before the charters came into play. “Gateway” brought together a crew of families that celebrated birthdays, wild nature-lead learning for years, and many of those same people came to give her love and comfort as the cancer began to take her.

She was always creating: dances , clothes, collages, thrifting, dresses she had to tailor. Human heart connections mattered to her like air and water. She believed in the unseen world, ancient wisdom, divine energy, the precious Earth, the spirits that guide the animals, Goddess energy, Holy Mother and even Jesus. She loved to sing in the car and at work, and for years sang in the interfaith gospel choir. She chose everything in her life with her full heart. She had drawers of knick-knaks ready to be wrapped like the Taj Mahal for anyone, for any occasion, and a red clown nose in almost every drawer and the door pocket of her car. She believed in finding a way that included humor. The singing was part of her medicine. Don’t take it all so serious, she would say, her hand in an L shape pointing to the sky.

Her wild and primal nature was palpable and allowed anyone near her to be who they really are. She was at the front of women finding their voice in an era that just barely allowed women their power voices. She worked for local garment creators, from Benay’s Basic Baby Clothes and White Rose Designs and lastly a decade at Kokatat. When she retired she continued creating and offering sewing services through her own company. Wherever she worked, the village grew. She had little to no filter, and she delighted in seeing her way open or stretching another’s view or heart. Even when she struggled with her shadows, she always found deep grace and endurance to persevere and we knew her love for us sustained her in many ways. She gave us our voices and deeply loved us both for our creative and powerful spirits. If you knew her, you knew she loved you. You had a place near her to feel known and accepted, no matter how strange you felt. She found beauty in everything, even pain. She loved every pet she ever had almost as much as her kids. And was an advocate for animal and human rights.

She was magenta in a beige world.

On Halloween, a holiday she loved, she always carved her annual PEACEpumpkin to show where her heart stood on the matter.

So on October 31, from 1 to 4 p.m., we will celebrate and honor her life at Redwood Raks in Arcata. We shall sing and dance and feed each other. Bring something to share a dish to add to the table and a flower for blessing, and yeah, of course costumes are welcome. She loved to see all the characters come out.

Our family is tender.

If your heart calls you to join us, please contact Becca at 707-845-3919.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Kathleen Morris’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.