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Well contest your purse back to. I'm Jean Duncan and I'll be the host today
a senior perspectives is brought to you by MC T.V.
And the senior center and we're in the Mendocino Coast television studios today and
our guest is Marilyn mother bear
Scott and she's a poet and
a priestess. And so that should be
a really interesting interview and she hung out with can keys each as
a lot of interesting background so welcome to our show well it's
a pleasure to be here Gene I actually I've hung out with really I have to say
a lot of interesting people in my life starting back so I know Keesey is of
a local interest. I know absolutely people want to hear about but gosh there's
an awful lot where shall we start well you tell me that you went to then it
Bennington and maybe we should start there or did you want to start before there
well I went to Boston University and Bennington and then back to
Boston Mary and do
a lot of things that we can talk about there that's where. I started dance at
Bennington. And I loved it that we didn't have to do gymnastics that we could dance
to aspects and I had studied dance as
a youngster too in Philadelphia but when I got to Bennington we could do dance
every day and did it was it was wonderful and then when I went back to Boston I
continued my dance practice and. Performed in several companies and also created my
own theater group. I've been into theatre since I was
a child into words into performance I used to make all the little plays in the
living room on Thanksgiving and other family occasions one that danced before you
mention Merce Cunningham and few others that. You were involved
with there was
a wonderful organization in Boston during that period of time just started up
really called dance circle I don't know if it's still going on it might still be
going on at the time they would bring in master classes you could attend master
classes there and have periods of time like
a couple weeks for you danced with that person Merce Cunningham and Osaka lob Jose
Limone and just I can't remember all the names at this moment but all the did you
ever meet talk my life tar and actually I met her briefly once but she came
a little after that period but what
a wonderful choreographer I adored her and so. The
theater I created my own theater at the at the time it was called often little see
in or I incorporated and we did plays of social and political significance things
like Lorca and the one nights of Saran and birth ball Greg Oh wow those
kind of pieces that we hoped would bring awareness and all it was started down the
church basement them went to the wards before they were all rebuilt in Boston and
we created off
a loft there and an Maslow was the created the ark our A and. My
husband and I created the theater an open person Ian Feodor and it was really
wonderful colliery and now her use to come to our plays and we got good reviews and
how it was
a very wonderful period of. Yeah I was sent off then Theatre in Berkeley and I am
certainly resonate because they are doing some interesting things there too then
Well one thing that I would like to say is that even though the Adult life is you
know kind of fascinating the young life my youthful as
a child that life was very important in the way my energy and focus
went and I didn't have
a clear idea what I wanted to do when I grew up when I sat and
thought sense what it was as a child and no that was in
a Philadelphia all. My father I'm
a first generation American on my father's side he was born in Scotland and came
over at eleven so. We lived in northeast Philadelphia and
he volunteered for the to go into the war in the
second world war and lost his life so I He lost his life when I was seven and it
really did create an open pathway of spirit for me and I consider him my
first spiritual teacher and so that's why I brought this one
piece I don't know if this is a good time it's
a good time to read it yet because it has
a little bit of this background in it OK I call it solitaire and I'm sure
a lot of people love playing cards I know I grew up playing cards I still like
cards. The deck of cards sat on the end table begging to be played I
wish that my grandson were here we always enjoy
a game of five hundred or rummy or has seen oh He's fifteen now so many other
things to do I taught him to play cards when he was young and I encouraged his
interest and pressed the digit Taishan and other magics even younger than he is now
he could hold
a small crowd with his banter and legerdemain his grandfather my father
was
a magician too he entertained crowds in the church basement my sister and by along
with other church kids sat in the front row I watched every move he made and still
was an all one time he let me and my sister help he held out the top hat I put in
the flower she put in the baking powder we cracked
a couple of eggs into the fact that he dipped his magic wand into the hat stirred
a few times around passed the wand over the hat in canted the magic words.
Kadabra he reached in and brought out fully baked cupcakes offering them
to all the kids it was an every day during those years the war time forties that
we were treated to cupcakes I was so proud he was the king of hearts in my deck of
cards I picked up my deck feeling the comfort of how it fit in my hand fingertip to
thumb I felt the edges lifting up some of the cards letting the remainder of the
deck fall open in my hand releasing the cards
a free fall. Made the deck whole again I repeated the process several
times
a shuffle then wrapping the sides of the deck on the table I even up the edges separated
and hands sand the two parts into one that unique riffling sound
impossible to replicate more words then I tapped the deck on the table rap rap
ready to deal my sister and I played cards with each other and with cousins on my
father's side the Methodists encouraged
a bit of fun the Presbyterians my mother's side were more stern I'm not sure if it
was really OK to play cards in their book but we did it was not long before the fun
was on the card playing the magic acts the church basement Sundays church pew
my Scots born father volunteered to defend America's freedom for us his kids all
kids within a few months of the service he was gone it was
a crying shame that war ended soon after his death the flickering cards in
a fashion awful life's
a magic act now you see it now you don't I deal the cards placing
them on the table one lamp six down one up five down one up
or down
a game of solitaire sets my mind at ease. Now it's wonderful
caring thank you thank you for meeting man. So
you were. Quite young when when you lost your father and that that
changed your life to make you go into the things you later did yes and
it is an unusual surname really I've never told of I don't think in public but he
came to me every year on his birthday in
a dream and spoke to me directly and also answered like
questions as I grow up because when
a child is set loose of his moorings as mother and father you know he's
cast he or she is really cast adrift and there's
a lot more individuality that occurs because that Maureen is gone
I grew up after that my mother went to the Pocono Mountains and my sister and I
were brought up by my grandparents they were just wonderful and very steady and you
know it was
a good place for us to be but there was an element of that was had moved on that
had disappeared and and so my father's. Company like Cain
he came to me like sometimes I feel like oh my gosh as I was growing up by to do
that you know that was not
a good thing. And he would like his words were just it would be from him somehow in
my head and saying oh don't worry about it you did that that's done and you know
you have
a lot more life to live and you can make your own choices and that and I hearken
back to those kinds of languaging and words because you know I always say follow
your nose long enough to get to where you're going. As that's what I did you know I
kind of went in that way the things of choice and freedom and loyalty and
family and those kinds of things were the Scott. Claim you know
baggage you know lulled and he was that the early love he was
a human and humane person so everyone said oh you're like your father we're all own
that race by your father's parents no my mother's mother's Yeah what was she doing
going off to the Poconos when she was
a little girl well I suppose that she married young and
had two children one it nineteen and one that when he wanted to do something like
that and she moved in with her grant her pair parents and then it just got
a little top heavy and I often. Thought. About acting there are
no she went to the pope is this a good question because she had
a wife the sparkle of my mother had definitely had quite the sparkle in her eyes
and was a very sweet wonderful woman sometimes a little you know sad
a lot of things that happened in their life but she went up there my mother and
father were both bookkeepers and she got
a job in the Pocono Mountains away from only
a hundred miles away I when I say how can I when every summer and I thought maybe
she was she was
a comic or something. No she this is fairly serious but very sorry and funny.
OK Well there's so much to talk about in your background because. Well we don't
know how you got out of West for one thing OK we should jump to that because sight
after I graduated from
a school was very important to me that was another part of my life that developed
more fully almost because I didn't have my mother and father there my grandparents
were very steady but you know they were kind of of the what are you going to do for
a living what do you want your for
a job and it. School my mind I was saying that my
intellect gotten encouraged and you know I did very well I love to perform and when
I got in
a lot of positive energy back it it served me well I was the director of the high
school play I did see it or all the time both when I went to church and when I went
to school and it was in my high school days that my spiritual.
Pathway started to on fold into
a more diverse. Relationship with all that is. If people
ask me you know what is your practice who are you
a religious leader spiritually say something like And let's see if I can put it
together right now. And indigenous.
And indigenous Who do you know pagan. Mystic
Christo. All that collective. Big we're not
really going to put this in
a box I don't know I think that's part of my nature you know and I think it was
part of the times part of the late fifty's part of you know I graduated in fifty
five and Joe you're fifty five and went to the Pocono Mountains and stayed with my
mother and then. You know I was had been accepted into the Boston University for
radio and T.V.
Because that performance thread still working right and. But at the
time they had opened up
a new little school that was taught by Harvard people called the College of General
Education I think it was the basis for general education classes afterwards but it
was like
a. A integrated class structure that you had
one theme like the division of western civilization and you did the politics and
humanity in the English Channel all around that team so you get the big idea of
that that part of our history and it was
a wonderful experience and I just like accidentally you know got put into it all of
us who were in that class of us P.R.C.'s school public relations and communications
placed into that we ended up with and they
a degree and I was very spoilt for. Us for the public relations the
communication that it just didn't carry the gravitated I seem to need to go on and
I transferred to Bennington and then came back and got married and did all this
other stuff we talked about and plus in the midst of all that
theatre got involved with. Leary Timothy Leary and Richard
Alpert who became known as Rom DOS and so we did
that energy and we're really on the creative edge of the psychedelic revolution
and. Through that energy we became interested in going to San
Francisco with flowers and. Right that's not where we really ended up my first
husband was an engineer and he got
a job. One of the you know Mountain View places down there
and they paid for our or our transportation and we took the whole summer and not
a beautiful trip west on that trip west that was one thousand nine hundred sixty
seven the summer of logs and we were on the edge of the
age edge that the kids later said we shouldn't trust anyone over that but we
weren't to create them and. We did go witnessed during that time and this is one of
the magic of of that trip and I'd love to read it but I think it takes too long
right now I have
a story about that trip and I'd love to do it I don't know I think you should do it
but I want to ask you first how did the fall Earth Catalog fit into that and now
that's after we get there so we can probably. Write way though I mean I know you
were also involved I was that I want to ask really interested so was very
interesting we're going west on the story will tell little bit about it and truly
we stop it was at the time I know you said if you use your hands and here I am I
can't help myself but when you went on the road in the summer of sixty seven you'd
be like this you know oh yeah
a few things to ever do to other people who were travelling and and you'd stop in
towns and you'd get directed magically to the swimming hole and things of that
nature I went to one of these and Ohio and
a coming out someone from your set. Can't What are you doing here and I said oh my
name's fun kids and of course you look just like my Frankish she lives in Palau
that when I thought oh well that's strange us just where we're going as you said oh
here and wrote down her name and that kid it was part of the kit
and McClanahan family and is part of the Stamford writing group at the time with
King T.C.
So that I went from the least I would add to that and that in for writing group Oh
alright I'll try Sis You know I don't know we may have end up not having so much
time stillness and flights you want me to do this yeah OK sitting in
this corner window looking out into some filtered forest I remember long Honda I
was still a young mother too perfect children a girl and
a boy slim and pretty with long legs stretching to embrace the melodic ravenous
hillsides the seashore so close you could sometimes see between the tree
tops sun shining on
a watery horizon unconditional love there was the seeking I have come
from one coast to the other and I wasn't the only one it was the Summer of Love
across the country I went with my husband
a bright young engineer who made Mescal when in the basement of our Victorian
Boston duplex and our two children leaving all our upper middle class positions in
the hands of the Mayflower movers who ripped us off royally and broke what they
didn't steal. The National Parks were still
a secret club that summer they had issued the gold
a gold club card you could stay in any park for
a full use flat fee of ten dollars for the summer our nine window micro bus bought
the year before was fixed to sleep the four of us and we camped out all the way
sometimes using mesclun to enhance the already mind blowing spectacle of natural
splendor we played in mountain streams for hours we packed the kids up mountain
peaks photographing seeded weeds against the breadth of blue and purple mountain
peaks and getting so close to alpine meadow flowers that I can still smells the
soil I can't remember without weeping with the joy of being there
that summer I recall putting on make up in the pure wilderness I was an Oriental
quartersawn putting paints on my face against the background of snow covered
mountains or meadows of tall flowered studded grasses from there I became unadorned
I stopped wearing make up I took off my clothing and walk naked in the alone in the
meadows feeling the grasses caress my body I can't remember without my senses
awakening my heart opening to embrace I gave up bras. Driving
on highways we passed other buses and cars filled with flower children old and
young our fingers spelled of the for the victory of recognizing the loving one as
that we were the intense and secret look of initiation piercing the mystery of the
Mona Lisa smiles that passed between worlds ages.
We were on our way home to where the heart is to the land where every door is open
ponds of people mixing in the mud special places you found out how to get there by
being there in the right place and going with the flow those people in places lead
to other people and places we were the people the original ones returning to the
earth in our life time more than the messengers we enacted the dream we were
bridging the time before to the time beyond we were between worlds we saw the
horizon way with sparkling fullness the highway turn to country roads the hillsides
cut to red roots hanging bare rocks crumbling to the ground trees thinning to
rolling hills then grass top to do ocean worn rock holding shell and stone sea
water and we'd Sandy sure's it was seventy two degrees that first Christmas in
California we were
a long way from Boston impulsive the beach sought us of it moonlight sought us out
midday moments the window was not enough we had to be there alone
together playing like children playing with children with bunches of people into
the valley we danced where oversized antique dresses discarded military garb on our
way in and. New way I taught at the private school my kids went to and logged we
all loved learning and teaching and loving it was almost the same thing and we did
it all the time between teaching and learning there was an intense stillness in the
flight it is
a different window I look out of now I am alone and still I love the trees seek me
out the sunlight and the darker it is almost all the same thing between the
sunlight and the dark there is an intense stillness
you know wonderful writer thank you again. I really like that I have your
husband was an engineer but he wasn't certainly typical and. I think we were all
bitten by the both times the bugs of the time so we were fortunate I believe in
that way because you know. Not everyone got the
opportunity to explore those doorways that we've got to explore
and co-create even so certainly the engineers I work for the most time my wife
never had those opportunities. Or in any culture at all does you know
so then I got here in the first thing I did was go to see it the Little Thing
She led me to Peninsula School I had already gotten
a job at Stanford. Gave notice once I took
a peninsula because it was just so wonderful for my children the main kind of
progressive school and and so we all were there for six years we did
a commune then and then another commune on Skyline Boulevard
and during that period of time the Whole Earth Catalog was being formed and we
we all lived up on that Skyline Boulevard next door to each other and and did you
do some of the writing for it did you do OK Well actually my. My
first husband and I separated and I was together with my second husband then only
not married yet and he was building airplanes for steward and real did
a lot of social. I didn't have
a job there I have worked at Peninsula School but I went over and played volleyball
with them all the time and we were part of the whole movement of what it was and
actually gurney Norman put my second marriage into the last Whole Earth Catalog
that's the story of divine right that goes page page on that book and gurney was
Norman as one of the fan for writers also with that group and so he wrote that it
was
a page page thing in and in my wedding so my second husband is on the back page and
all through the book is our spiral wonderful oh that's great well we only have
a minute left so I didn't what would you like to do and then it time flies
and we're all really does say I wish we had more time why you tell me well I just I
don't think we have time to read another one I wish we did because I really love
your poetry how long would and Jim and I went one minute could you do and one will
go fast will see I wrote this just last week because my birthday is June eighth and
. And I did it on texting that shows you how modern I am and realized I'd be I'd oh
yeah well just like that two years moving into our birthdays our
birthdays D A Z We Gemini's wander the open them beckoning road wonder
at the destination embrace what is forgive what is not
focus on what we will as it appears so suddenly at times it blows my mind
and we weep and sing and dance and pray that all beings will give up war
and be happy reshuffling the cards resonating with spirit wings taking us. Opt
into OUR be lofted air pure and redolent we swim in flowers
sway with divas touch what is God Goddess goodness plunged
to earth in love with being human and humane breath and body
we enter the all to live and logged in whatever is next
thank you so my to us wonderful aveira and I'm sorry we have to end so quickly but
that that was
a wonderful scene that was my pleasure and everyone be there and go to the
center and when you sit Bannockburn your thought bottom about other actors. And the
electronics. Go.
Thanks.