CANNON?BEACH – Friends describe Michael Burgess as a sage, a mentor, a teacher, a wickedly funny wit, a tireless supporter of homegrown art and artists, a man with “a heart as big as the universe and a wry, thoughtful intellect.”

The Cannon Beach man died Sunday. 

Burgess, 65, a co-founder of the Tolovana Arts Colony, a columnist for the Upper Left Edge alternative newspaper, and a writing teacher at Tilla-mook Bay Community College, was found dead in his home. 

“No one can even know the depth of what Cannon Beach, what all of us, has lost with Michael’s death,” said artist Steve McLeod, one of three concerned friends who found him.

Watt Childress, owner of Jupiter’s Books in Cannon Beach and a fellow writer, said he was lost for words. “If he were alive, I’d ask him for help, as I often did when trying to connect thoughts and words with soul. Michael Burgess came as close to a sage as anyone I’ve ever loved.” 

Andrea Mace, director of the Cannon Beach Arts Association, describes her friend of 15 years as “a man with a heart as huge as the universe, and a wry, thoughtful intellect. A man who was concerned with doing the right thing, of living with humility and intention. … The wonderful thing about Michael being a really good writer is that, with many books under his belt, his words will continue to touch the lives of those who read them.”

For former Portland Mayor J.E. “Bud” Clark, the subject of a biography Burgess had been working on for many years, the news was “very sad to hear. He was a good and talented man. My heart goes out to his family.”

Born in 1944, Burgess grew up in Portland. While his family enjoyed Oregon vacations, they always traveled to the central coast. Hence, Burgess had never set eyes on Cannon Beach two weeks before he moved there from Portland – thanks to his good friend, Billy Hults, another legendary Cannon Beach literary figure, who died June 16, 2009, also at the age of 65.

Burgess met Hults when he had his band, Billy Foodstamp and the Welfare Ranch Rodeo. Burgess, who wrote a column for the Portland newspaper This Week, went to see the band playing at a bar.

A few days after This Week went under and he was out of a job, Burgess recalled, “Billy called to say he’d found me a beachfront house to share. A friend drove me down and two weeks later, I was a resident of Cannon Beach.”

In 1992, Burgess began his 10-year run as a regular contributor to The Upper Left Edge, founded and edited by Hults. Many who picked up the quirky paper turned first to Burgess’ columns, “Behind the Times,” “Ask Uncle Mike” and “Blame It on the Stars.” 

For 10 years, he studied the influence of stars and planets on human destinies, as well as the Kabbalah, Western mystical traditions and quantum and relativistic physics.

“He sure had a bead on something,” said Claudia Johnson, an academic astrologer with a master’s degree in theology from Princeton. “Michael wrote some of the most insightful newspaper horoscopes I’ve ever seen.”

Burgess’ advice columns were collected in two of his five published books.

As a co-founder of the nonprofit Tolovana Arts Colony, Burgess was a promoter and supporter of working artists who reside in Cannon Beach. He said that the idea came about after he and Hults put together a show of McLeod’s work at the Wave Crest Inn. 

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.