Arlyn Phoenix was born on December 31, 1944, in The Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Margaret (née Lefkowitz; 1916–1998) and Meyer Dunetz (1910–1996).
[2] Arlyn Phoenix left New York in 1968 and moved to California, where she met her future husband John Lee Bottom (1947–2015).
[citation needed] Soon after their first daughter Rain was born in 1972, they joined the religious group The Children of God and toured Mexico, Puerto Rico and South America as missionaries of the cult for several years.
[6] They returned to the US in late 1977 and lived in Winter Park, Florida, where Arlyn gave birth to her youngest child, Summer.
Around this time, they legally adopted the surname "Phoenix" (Arlyn later changed her name to "Heart" in 1988) and began to embrace veganism as their new diet and lifestyle.