MOST Newsletters Table
of Contents
The MOST Newsletter Spring 2000 Volume VII
A Project of The Peregrine Foundation
P.O. Box 460141 / San Francisco, CA 94146-0141 / telephone:
(415) 821-2090
/ fax (415) 282-2369
Staff: Ramon Sender, editor; Pam Read Hanna, Sandi Stein,
Contributing Editors; Tomas Diaz & David Hatch, HTML
wizards.
The MOST Newsletter is an open forum for fact and opinion,
and encourages
the expression of all views.
The opinions expressed in the letters published are those
of the
correspondents and do not necessarily reflect those of
MOST editors or
staff.
Spring 2000 Volume VII i -
ii-
iii
-------------- "What Go 'Round Come Around" -------
Vivian & Sandi
Judith Levy-Sender, 5/7/00
Vivian Gotters Remembered
Vivian, who was not so Jewish, was in so many ways
so Jewish and still, but, yet, was so much a part of Sonoma County
-- rendered New York cadences toned gently. Her regal Biblical-looking
profile was cast in a woman whose likeness in fiery temperament and handsome
face was a match to Mexican actress Katy Jurado at High Noon. Her smiling
eyes always looked amused, bemused by a cockatiel's twitterings, an apple
tree in blossom at Morningstar or a pig living next door.
She had a reserve even a reservoir of strength,
attentiveness unparalleled; She was the consummate listener-a learner of
lifetimes, who listened with her ears and her silver green eyes and
when she spoke it was with words that never fell lightly.... Vivian, the
artist, the video artisan , a Sonoma County mentor to a number of
artists and young women in search of careers in the sciences. Vivian, an
aficionada of JS Bach- a video maker whose love of Bach encapsulated, buffered
and transformed itself as it did her love for Lou to the last. In one of
her last conversations she made sure to say. " Do not say that I lost my
battle to cancer", She did not lose; instead she brought dignity and love
to us all turning outward to listen, to understand, to create even while
turning inward . ...
Bill Wheeler, 3/2/00: Goodbye
To A Most Fastidious Hippie
My Dearest Vivian, you qualify as a charter member of
the Morning Star Tribe. You brought to Morning Star an idealism from your
socialist/communist father, who founded a cooperative apartment building
in New York, coming from his belief of sharing the wealth. Uncle Lou was
card-carrying himself in the 1940s, but resigned from the party at the
death of Stalin and the revelations of his hideous crimes against humanity.
Lou said Communism was 'corny' when I met him in the Sixties. The chemical
rearranging of our brains those days helped explain that to us. His redistribution
of wealth already had happened, and it was free to whomever wanted it.
But really, was Lou talking about something on
the other side of that? Was it love? Or was it an admonition to not discriminate
against the rich? If Lou were here, he would give us a Castroesque/marathon/monologue
lecture with Vivian and me sitting in the front row.
I never really got a chance to say goodbye to Lou,
nor to Vivian. Maybe that's not the way it works. I do want now to express
to her my love, my care for her, my appreciation of the projects we worked
on together, and what a great emptiness I feel that she is gone. So here
it is from me to you: "Goodbye Vivian." I hear her laughter, saying though
it, "You silly thing!"
Rena Blumberg, 2/28/00 : Aloha family, I join in
the sadness at Vivian's death. She was a sister and a friend.
I still recall Vivian's poignant humor and her contagious laugh.
How lucky we all are to have known her.
I pray that she is in peace and that her spirit
soars. I am grateful to have known her.
With love to all, Rena
Pam Read (Hanna), 5/26/00:
Vivian, my Gemini sister, my confidant during the long sultry summer of
’68 in Wheeler’s Canyon when I was pregnant with Psyche. Always thoughtful,
always bemused and philosophical, always balanced, always a true friend.
Never less. Viv – I miss you. But we’re gonna meet again.
Real friendship lives forever. Take that to the bank. Badaba!
Ramon Sender, 6/15/00:
I retain many wonderful memories of my sister Vivian -- the gorgeous dyad
she formed with Laird in the Sixties. The visit they paid to Wheeler's
on Black Sunday, 1970, resonates strongly because their calm presence did
a lot to put what was an otherwise -- well, unusual day into its proper
perspective -- and me in the shade out of the hot sun!
Judy and I enjoyed many fine visits with Vivian
and Lou -- I especially remember a Thanksgiving dinner we had out at Jenner
together -- and many more after Lou's passing. I'll always be grateful
for her being there for Lou in many ways, and especially by his side during
his final moments planetside.
By some cosmic coincidence, when Vivian entered
the hospice program in San Francisco, their usual accommodations were not
available. Instead she was given a room in the hospital that overlooked
the Scott Street block where Lou had lived for some years. A few days later
she was gone. For now. Until we meet again!
The following, that came via Sandi, I'm posting
in Vivian's memory:
--------------------------------------------------
Believe it or else, beauty and truth fans, it's time
for a prayer for YOU. A prayer to end all prayers. A prayer for everything
you've never asked for before, because you weren't sure you deserved it.
A special, no-nonsense, hype-free prayer exclusively for you -- in the
most unselfish tone of voice I've ever mustered.
Ready?
I am starting to pray right now to the God of Gods, the
God beyond all Gods, the Girlfriend of God, the Teacher of God, the Goddess
who invented God, and what I pray is:
Oh Goddess Who Never Kills But Only Changes:
I pray that my exuberant, suave, and accidental words
might move You to unleash ferocious blessings on all the beauty and truth
fans who've tuned in.
I pray that You'll grant them what they don't even know
they want. Not just the boons they think they need but everything they've
been afraid to even imagine or wish for.
Oh Goddess, You Wealthy Anarchist-Burning-Heaven-to-the-Ground:
The divine chameleons out there in sacred space don't
even know they're crazy. Please use Your blinding magic to help them see
they're all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own bodies.
Guide them to realize that they're all completely different from what they
think they are and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.
And make it immoral, illegal, irrelevant, unpatriotic and totally tasteless
for them to be in love with anyone or anything that's not good for them.
Oh Goddess, You Sly-Universal-Virus-with-No-Fucking-Opinion,
I beg that You help all the personal growth-addicts that are reading this
prayer to be disciplined enough to go crazy in the name of creation, not
destruction.
I pray that You teach them the difference between self-destructive
self-control and liberating self-control.
Awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when
it's impossible to do the totally right thing. Arouse the Wild Woman within
them -- even if they are men.
Give them bigger, better, more original sins and wilder,
wetter, more interesting problems.
And oh Goddess, You-Pregnant-Criminal-Who-Scorns-All-Mediocre-Longing:
Inspire all the original sinners out there to love their
enemies in case their friends turn out to be jerks. Provoke them
to throw away things that make them believe they're better than everyone
else. Show them how much fun it is to brag about what they can't
do and don't have. Most of all, brainwash them with Your freedom,
so that they never love their own pain more than anyone else's pain.
Oh Goddess, You Psychedelic-Mushroom-Cloud-at-the-Center-of-All-Our
Brains:
These budding Demeters and Innanas and Buddhas and Christs
deserve everything they need and much much more. Please arrange for
a racehorse to be named after them, or a boulevard or river or thousand-year-old
storm on another planet.
Help them win the battle against time, and learn to talk
the language of the most scientific angels, and master the zen of temper
tantrums, and get a fabulous mommy and daddy in their next incarnation.
Teach them to push their own buttons and unbreak their own hearts and right
their own wrongs and sing their own songs and be their own wives and save
their own lives.
Bless them with lucid dreams while they're wide awake
and solar energy-operated sex toys that work in the dark and a vacuum cleaner
for their magic carpet and a knack for avoiding other people's hells and
a secret admirer who's not a psychotic stalker and a thousand masks that
all fit their face perfectly and their own 900 number so that everyone
has to pay to talk to them.
Oh Goddess, You-Dumb-Fast-Infinitely-Wide-River-of-Electricity,
You-Smart-Slow-Smoldering-Lump-of-Angel-Fat-Left-Over-from-the-Big-Bang,
You-Ghostly-Snake-Who-Loves-Inventive-Tragedy-and-Sophisticated-Superstition,
You-Cool-Furnace-That-Incinerates-the-Props-of-Our-Nightmares-Much-Too-Slowly,
You-Creator-of-Happy-Purgatories-Where-Impeccably-Unironic-Apocalypse-Salesmen-Preach-Christian-Satanism-and-Rosicrucian-Baseball-Players-from-the-Middle-Ages-Dream-Politically-Cracked-Dreams-That-Reveal-the-News-in-More-Exact-Metaphors-Than-Any-Newspaper:
I pray that You provide all the global village idiots that are reading
this prayer with a license to bend all laws, rules, and traditions that
keep them apart from the things they love.
Show them how to purge themselves of the wishy-washy
wishes that keep them distracted from their divine desires. And teach
them that they can have anything they want if they'll only ask for it in
an unselfish tone of voice.
Oh-Goddess-Who-Gives-Us-So-Much-Love-and-Pain-Together-That-Our-Morality-is-Always-on-the-Verge-of-Collapsing:
I beg You to cast a spell to nullify all bad spells that
have ever been cast on all the beautiful love geniuses out there.
Remove, banish, annihilate, and laugh into oblivion any
jinx that has clung to them no matter how long they've suffered from it,
and even if they've grown accustomed or addicted to its ugly companionship.
Conjure an aura of protection around them so that they
will receive an early warning if they're ever about to act in such a way
that would attract another hex or plague or voodoo into their lives.
And now, dear God of Gods, God Beyond All Gods, Sister
Lover of God, Mother of God, Goddess who invented God:
I bring this prayer to a close, trusting that in these
mysterious moments You have impregnated the dream glands of all the beauty
and truth fans out there with the most compassionate lust and smartest
love You can imagine.
And if there is anything I've forgotten which will help
their cause, please flash it into my imagination in the coming days and
months and decades, and motivate me to perform any tricks or carry out
any project that will encourage an abundant flow of sweaty creativity to
flow through them, inspiring them to become more wildly disciplined, erotically
feminist, aggressively sensitive, demonically compassionate, ironically
sincere, lyrically logical, insanely poised, orgiastically lucid, macho
feminist.
Amen. Awomen. Ommmmmmm and halle-fucking-lujah.
There you have it, beauty and truth fans. A personalized
prayer just for you. A prayer that'll probably come true simply because
you didn't even ask for it.
You may now kiss yourself on your own lips.
Joan
(Bransten) Sutton, 7/10/00:Vivian was a dear friend since the days
of our youth at Morningstar. She was quiet and deep like a lake.
In fact, she called herself "The Lady of the Lake." Whenever
I was with her I never felt as if I had to explain anything; she was so
sensitive and tuned in, that she understood whatever needed to be known
between us. So it was always very relaxing to be with her.
We shared a love for classical music and for Lou.
What more could one need?
She even had a little bird named Dijon who whistled Beethoven's
9th Symphony
(not the whole thing of course). When she
got sick, she was never hard to be with. She had me convinced up until
the day before she died that a miracle really could happen and that she
would recover. But she also said that she didn't mind dying
because she'd already experienced so many wonderful things in her life.
I really miss Vivian, her quiet, joyful nature and the
wonderful times we spent together.
It's hard to believe you're not a phone call away any
more Vivian, but I'll always feel close to you.
Paula Thomas 7/10/00:
i moved back to sebastopol after 20 years of
living in texas and
finally got in touch with old morningstar friends.
kathy sweeney then
terry blue(meyers) and finally vivian.
the first time vivian came to see me, paul from
m* drove her and when i
saw her it was as if no time had passed.
we chatted about old friends
and old mates. we ate good food and laughed
and cried when she told me
how her disease was taking her over. but,
she had good attitude and
was really positive. i hated for her to leave,
but she got tired so
easily. it was such a special day.
another time i invited terry and vivian to come
for dinner and to catch
up on all the time passed. kathy was living
with us at the time,
working on her rn. nursing license. i also had
some other friends over
and they enjoyed hearing old m* stories.
we all laughed and laughed,
ate and ate and when all was said and done,
it was a glorious day.
i spoke to her several times a week from
then on, but she was never
well enough to come o dinner. sometimes,
i left messages on her machine
when she was too weak to go to the phone.
she would always call me back
an tell me how my silly messages made her laugh
and how she needed that.
then i heard that she had gone to the city, basically
to die. i've
rarely been sadder in my life.
what a special person she was, what a presence
in the lives of all of us
she touched. her light will shine as long as we
all remember her . how
lucky we were to have known her.
paula.morningtar 67-68
Tomas 7/12/00:
Smoke Signals, 2/28/99
Writing a letter to warm a heart.
Sitting with a circle of friends, passing warm smiles
and friendship.
Absorbing the color of your friends skin.
Understanding the world with a gentle touch.
Knowing that the friends around you care deeply.
Some moments in time are meant for picking fruit.
Some moments are for just sending a warm feeling.
We sit and look at the person across the circle,
the earth surrounds them with its aura.
Peace, badaba, gentle friendship.
Vivian you make our light still shine brightly.
A shared moment in time, a space we occupied together.
My Morningstar Angel is standing with
Vivian watching this big black and yellow garden spider
at Morningstar.
The morning dew hangs heavy on it's web.
The sun is reflecting rainbows in each drop of water.
As I approach Vivian moves her head in a gesture, her
long dark
braids move, pointing her head toward the web.
We stand and watch this blessing, a moment shared together
in time.
No words were needed or spoken, just an understanding
of time shared together, watching a creature of god.
The sun is reflecting rainbows in each drop of water.
For thirty years we have shared this planet together,
being good, reflecting rainbows.
It is good being together. Vivian you make our light
still shine brightly.
badaba Vivian, Tomas
Vivian, French camera girl from Diggers, Ramon, Sandi
& Art.
More Photos
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