WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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Well I think we\'re here for a purpose.
I think we just cannot drop

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through the seed of our parents. I think we
came something and we are going to something.

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We have a past. We have a present we have a future
and the present is what we\'ve got to work with

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and this is the way I would recommend
young people too if they\'re dissatisfied

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with the world as they find it
find some quiet spot settle down

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and self subsist take
care of their own needs.

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Make their own living. This
seems such a sensible.

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Normal, quiet, simple way of living. We never
deterred as with the thought of exemplars at all.

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It was just a decent way to live.
This is not the only good life

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but it\'s proved very good Scott and me.

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Scott was much more erudite,
much more educated,

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much more experience than I was
and also he was 21 years older.

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So he had a lot to give
me that I didn\'t have.

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And apparently I had a lot to give him because
we got on so compatibly for 53 years.

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[music]

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I chose an admirable families (inaudible)

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they gave me every opportunity to develop

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and to learn through experience.
(inaudible) was quiet

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retiring benefits (inaudible) influence.

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She never (inaudible) herself
but was there for the children

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when they wanted her or needed her.
She was an intellectual,

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an artist, a painter, very talented

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but succumbing to family
life and left her art

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they\'d (inaudible) real art
of growing of a family,

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the educating and nourishment in the family

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but my father was also an
intellectual, fine musician

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but without having been
able to practice it.

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I see pictures of myself at three or four

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and non (inaudible) I
was hardly in the body

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but I left the family and when
to girls camp in New Hampshire.

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For the first time I was on my own and
(inaudible) developed an individuality

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that is manifested at home.

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At 13 I\'ve again for the first
first really enter into your life

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and take a part of it up to that time I
was an introvert and a bookish child

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who didn\'t enter into the
life of the community at all.

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Well I finally emerged and developed

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and rounded out a character
which (inaudible) never before.

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My family gave me the opportunity
to either go to college

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in the United States or to conservatory
music in the U.S. (inaudible) traveling

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and study develop (inaudible) and I
immediately jumped at the abroad.

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I was anxious and eager
to experience a new life

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and I never really was

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American from then on. And I was
always rather a visitor here.

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In fact I don\'t feel at home in the
life at all. I am more interested

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in the meaning of life
and the purpose of life

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and the background of life

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than I am living in the Harborside Maine

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still a visitor. When I was just 17

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two weeks out of high school my
mother and I went to Holland

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and I lived there for quite a few years.

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The first summer I met Krishnamurti at a
summer camp up in the northern part of Holland

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and we became instantly friends

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for quite some years. He was
a great revelation to me

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and apparently I was the revelation to him.
And our contact was close

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and good as long as it lasted. But
Krishna\'s character and being

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remains a mystery to me to this day. (inaudible)
opportunity to being close to him for the time.

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I am glad to be his association

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and appreciation (inaudible) and the opportunity for loving
being loved. It was (inaudible) I didn\'t want to miss.

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It was also an edifying interest
(inaudible) of human relationships.

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Krishna moved on and I moved on

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in different directions. Krishna
(inaudible) is teaching (inaudible) on me

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I probably digested as much as I was ready for it
as much as rest became part of my being at times.

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What was in the winds

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the best thing that could have
happened to me I met Scott Nearing

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through (inaudible)phone call.

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Scott Nearing was a well-known social critic and
a brilliant orator who was tried for treason

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at the height of World War I for claiming that
corporate interests underlie the causes of the war.

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His dismissal from the economics faculty
of the University of Pennsylvania

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caused sweeping protests and his case
became a test of First Amendment rights.

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He was acquitted of treason and gained and other
faculty position but repeatedly attacked big business

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protesting the use of child
labor in American factories.

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Dismissed again for his radical views he was blacklisted
and his books which were once classroom standards

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were actually taken out of print. Helen
had met Scott a number of years earlier

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when she was home and her father had asked her
to invite Scott to speak at a Unitarian meeting

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which Scott did. She hadn\'t paid
much attention to him at the time

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but she was asked by her father and 1928 to
invite him back to speak and at that time

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they felt a connection. Scott may have noticed
that even more than Helen did and so in 1928

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Helen began to work as Scott Secretary. He
was separated from his wife Nellie Seeds

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at that time and by 1929

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it was clear to both of them that the
relationship had more possibility than that

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although they were still framing it as a working
partnership more than as an intimate partnership.

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Scott suggested to Helen that she make a trip back to
Europe to find out whether she wished to live in Europe

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or whether she was ready to do the
hard work of becoming the assistant

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to a radical social critic and outcast.

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Sometimes in my youth or childhood
I must have been (inaudible)

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good well I must have
done something good in

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former lives there so
I\'ve been able to meet

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these two great personality,
these two great men

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and particularly lucky to have met Scott

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because he had so much to communicate
and he was such a block period

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in his life when I met him (inaudible)
at the lowest point in career.

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So we started out

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at the bottom scraping the
bottom of the barrel together

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and living poorly in New York
very poorest section of the slums

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and we build

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a good life together from nothing.

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We had no money.

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We had no prospects and his head was full
of ideas and my head was full of music.

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Well I don\'t think Scott could
have met a different a person

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who was more different than
he was with my background

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of no hard work, no mental discipline
except learning to play the violin.

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[sil.]

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And I could not have met a man more erudite

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and more politically minded than he.
So it really was curious

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that we got along together.
Helen brought to him

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youth enthusiasm total unquestioning
support for all his work.

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She brought her secretarial skills. She brought
also her extraordinary hustle ability.

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Helen was a wonderful saleswoman and had a very
good sense of how to advertise and promote.

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She did that for Scots books. Neither of
them knew exactly what they wanted to do.

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Scott had had a career. Helen
hadn\'t had one. He was prepared

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to find a way to teach freelance in the world
and Helen was prepared to give him her

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full energies in that work and at the time
at the outset it wasn\'t much more than that

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except that at that time Scott was looking

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for a spiritual guide and he found in Helen

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he believed an advanced soul
someone who could help him

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do the next piece of his learning.

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1931-32 Helen and Scott began looking
for land in Vermont in order to

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survive the depression in a way that was
more appropriate than living in the city.

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When they moved to Vermont they acquired
what became the first forest farm

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which consisted of a few hundred
acres and an old run-down house.

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[music]

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Scott was ready to live what he taught.

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He taught social justice. He would live in a way that would not
consume more than other people had the opportunity to acquire.

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He would live responsibly on the land.
He would teach freely

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if he could not taking a salary for that.

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Here\'s a person who clearly is this was ahead of his time intellectually
and on the cutting edge of where America is going culturally

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which is also why you have somebody
who today very much represents

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much of the sort of this cultural
movement that we\'re seeing now

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in terms of what we call sort of the simple living
movement but very much as a questioning of consumerism,

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the questioning of America culture – American cultural values around
this culture of consumption and are there any other alternatives.

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[music]

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Scott continued to lecture in the winters

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and Helen to be his secretary. She learned how
to garden. She learned how to build with stone.

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She learned that she loved it.
I was an absolute ignorance

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as far as living in the country or growing a
radish or a potato or a cauliflower were concerned

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I knew nothing about it. I\'d spend all
my adolescent years playing the violin.

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I kept my hands clean but when I met him

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I put on sears roebuck work
gloves and mixed concrete

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and laid stone and dug ditches
and cut trees and garden

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and took to it with a will.

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Scott and Helen decided very intentionally
to live a life which was not exploitative,

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which didn\'t use electricity,
which didn\'t feed off of animals,

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which had a very ethical core to it and
wasn\'t that a stronger political statement

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than anything Scott had ever done before in his life whether
it was getting arrested for citing the Constitution

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to challenge free speech laws or
whether it was running for Congress

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in 1918 and then again in 1928 or any
of his work that he did on the left

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in this country or anywhere else
around the world that this person

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who had gone through all of that would arrive at a point where his
strongest political statement was actually to live his beliefs.

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Marketing of maple sugar
in places like Manhattan

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brought them to the attention
of several famous people

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and when the famous began to discover them were the word
about them got out and other people with connections

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book connections particularly began to come to the
farm and then finally at when at pearl box suggestion

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they wrote the maple sugar book they
became known for that for the writing

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and people came to see how they were living and
sugaring in Vermont and that meant that really

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their life was public all along from the beginning. They
led a public life as well as a private life in Vermont.

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[music]

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Helen and Scott had a number of
specific practices they engaged in

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which appear in the books like Living the
Good Life; things like dividing the day

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into three segments in their case that would allow
them to participate in all the parts of their life

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they felt were important. One part
would be the working community.

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One part would be what they called bread labor which was
what they did to provide for themselves, the gardening,

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cutting wood, hauling wood, home building
that sort of work and the other was there

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the work of self-improvement, their personal
studies whether it was music in Helen\'s case

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or social science in Scott\'s case and all
of these were to come together in a way

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that allowed them to make contribution to their larger
communities both by being better, more conscious individuals

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and by being available to their
communities in specific ways of teaching

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allowing people to visit and so forth.

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Scott continued to lecture worldwide. Spent the
goodly portion of every winter they lived in Vermont

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traveling by train and
abroad and lecturing.

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[music]

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There was no plan in the 1930s

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that said on a piece of paper this is what we will do and
this is it exactly how will work. It was all an experiment

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and it turned out that there are certain
things worked and certain things didn\'t

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and it evolved into what then became a philosophy
in a way of life which they call the good life

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but there was there was no
predisposition towards that.

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When ski development
brought resort activity

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to their part of Vermont, Helen and Scott
abandoned their successful homestead

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and started all over
again in Maine in 1952.

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They lived quietly in Maine for many years but by the early
1970s over 2,500 people a year were visiting their homestead

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to experience the good life in action.

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There were three forest farms. The book Living The
Good Life made the first one in Vermont famous.

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The book Continuing The Good Life
made the last one in Maine famous.

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The middle house though was

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where a lot of the good life work really got done
in fact most people that visited Helen and Scott

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during their most productive years know that middle
claret house best that\'s where the gatherings were,

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that\'s where Scott taught about stone
building and dug the pond by hand.

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That\'s where they were able to cut all their own wood and
people learned about that story but at the same time

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they were writing Living The Good Life while they were living there
are those first years they lived there were when they wrote the book

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because they published it themselves it didn\'t become famous
until it was reissued by (inaudible) and in the 1970s

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so there was a long period where
it was not the famous house.

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By the time that became famous they were
building and living in the last house.

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[music]

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They were also doing a lot of their traveling in the world and
lecturing together visiting China, visiting the Soviet Union,

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and writing the books about the state of the world during that
time rather than writing books about their own lifestyle.

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So that made the middle house in
the print record less well known.

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If it weren\'t for Helen we I think we\'re
just probably seen Scott disappear

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you know by the 1940s-1950s
he would have relevant

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to any discussion we would
have about American culture

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and Helen was able to bring Scott back to life
to find a purpose in the life to figure out that

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there\'s this thing called the good life which can actually be put together
into a philosophy and then ended up being a good market this thing

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so they put themselves out there on the
extreme living an alternative lifestyle,

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living a principled life, advocating
those principles and living by them

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in a really really strict
way to a degree that

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any kind of backsliding from that is readily
apparent and seen as contradictions.

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When in fact you have to understand
it is simply an experiment

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and experiments don\'t have contradictions they just have things
that work and don\'t work and you\'re trying other things.

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From the beginning she had really
seen herself as his second fiddle,

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as his subsidiary supporting his work
which only at some points was her work.

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But somehow moving up here

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Scott receded more and was just a –

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he was content to be the background person
that I had been in Vermont which was curious.

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I took on the decisions and I arranged
what was to happen with the house

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and I designed this house

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and more or less build
it under my direction.

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In the 70s was a very exciting time

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to be in Harborside there because because
people came from all over the country

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and coming to see

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Helen and Scott Nearing and some of
the other people in the neighborhood

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and it was a very remote area.

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We were 20-25 miles to
the nearest small town

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that had a grocery store in it. So out
in the middle of seemingly nowhere

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sometimes you know a hundred people every
couple of days would come down the driveway

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and they were always people looking

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and searching for the same things
that we who lived there were doing,

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people who wanted to simplify their life or figure out how
to grow their own food. And when I read Living The Good Life

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basically the idea running a small farm with
all the difficulties sounded like an adventure

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and so that was the part that I delighted
in the fact that it was a challenge,

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the fact that it was difficult,
the fact that it was real

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and the fact that the Nearings were living their
lives the way they thought already lived was

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what made them such a wonderful
wonderfully appealing couple.

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You read a lot of books and the people
when you meet them aren\'t the people

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that the book portrays but it\'s Scott and
Helen were right as they\'d written it.

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They were honest. They
were straightforward.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
They were difficult because
they believed intensely

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
in what they believed in and lived their lives
according to their own little set of rules.

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:38.000
(inaudible).

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:53.000
[sil.]

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
Now for some practical details.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
Pay as you go.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
[sil.]

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
There isn\'t anything that we want. We\'re trying
to build up the soil not to wear it down

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
and the way to build it up is
to get every smidge of material

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
that you can get your hands on
and put it back into the soil.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
Scott was a teacher so he to be a teacher

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
you always need to have a student
or two so when the people

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
came to the garden and looked
over the wall to talk to him

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
he kept on working and then they
would come into the garden.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
And we\'ve been here in this
country for only 250 years

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
I mean we white Western Europeans and we lost
about 40% of our topsoil during that time.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
There are now nine different families

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
living on what was their
original 140 acres here.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
So an awful lot of people came and Helen
got sold off different pieces of land

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
and I sold land to friends and so
it\'s turned into a whole community.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
They were so open to sharing

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
how they lived and what they believed in

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
so that you know if you had read their book

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
or saw them at a lecture and
went up to speak with them

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
they would speak with you and invite you
to their home to see what could be done.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
And so all people saw was the endpoint
and it looked relatively easy.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
I mean living the good life this looks
like a fairly simple of course.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
So why can\'t I do it and so many
in the 70s begin to try this out

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
and find that this is enormously difficult
that this takes a lot of struggle

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
and different ways of reconciling those struggles and many people fail
and then they looked at the Nearings and say they\'re hypocrites right.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
They didn\'t really tell us the whole story.
I mean if they had then

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
we probably wouldn\'t have done this. This is all their fault. With
Helen and Scott a lot of people didn\'t read between the lines

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
and they put them in a place

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
where they didn\'t really need to be. If
the world thought they were wonderful

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
they were glad because it made it
easier to get the message across

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
but I don\'t think that changed in any
way what they thought about themselves

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
unless maybe

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
they worked a little harder at trying to be

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
what the world wanted them to be

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
then they might have if their lives hadn\'t been so
public but I don\'t think that was fake in any way

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
because they actually were that neat.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
Keeping up with the Nearing expose
just another form of the rat race

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
because they accept such a standard that you couldn\'t try
to do this unless you were going to drive yourself crazy.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
On the other hand I think you have to
recognize that the Nearings probably pushed

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
much of the principles and practices

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
that they were engaged in further
than anyone else was pushing them.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
Sometimes they like to be where it was
born and so they would integrate working

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
and lecturing with a trip to visit either

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
old friends and family
or for health reasons.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
When Scott was 99

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
Helen wrote to me and asked me to come

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
and stay with him while she went away because
she knew we had a close relationship

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
Scott and I. So I did that and
then I ended up living with them

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
in their house with them for
the next year and a half

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
until Scott died. And I did
get left out of the book

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
but in retrospect I can see
there\'s some reasonings behind

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
because that particular book her book
Loving and Leaving the Good Life

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
when she talked about her life with Scott

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
and about his death she
didn\'t get real personal.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
She didn\'t really talk about
her personal feelings

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
about what it was like to
lose a partner of 50 years

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
and she didn\'t get real personal

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
about my involvement.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
Scott and I were winding up our lives together and
we knew it. There were the physiological factors

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
to be considered how did he want
to be treated where and by whom.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
I knew he desired to stay at home not in the
hospital with life-saving apparatus all around.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
He would take no pills no drugs
and hope to avoid doctors.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
He had become less and less concerned with
continuing to inhabit a weakening body at 100.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
When he could no longer carry his part
of the load and take care of himself

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
he was ready to go on. I was at one
with him in this the way one dies

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
it seems to me should reflect the way one has lived
and I was glad to help him do it gracefully.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
Scott always had to have a
purpose in what he was doing.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
There had to be a reason for doing what
you were doing and it had to be justified

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
otherwise there was no point. I think Scott
reaches that point late in his 99th year

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
where he decides that he has no purpose anymore and
it\'s at that point he can make the conscious decision

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
that he will end his life and I think
that\'s the way Scott approached his death

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
and he would control it. As much as he
controlled his life he would control his death.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
So in the spring of 1983
Scott makes the decision

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
that he\'s going to stop taking salted food

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
and slowly he would take in less and
less he would be awake less often

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
like when I saw him he was sleeping a good part
of the day. He would do less and less work.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
He cut all the wood for the last
year and that fall but by the spring

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
he could have never have done
that to the point where by August

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
when they have the party for his hundredth birthday he really isn\'t I
don\'t think he\'s really conscious much of the time of what\'s going

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
on anyway later in that month he\'s worked
this process to its ultimate conclusion

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
but he\'d had complete control over it.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
A month and a half before Scott went
a month before his 100th birthday

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
while sitting with a group
at the table one day he said

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
I think I won\'t eat anymore. He never took solid food
again. He deliberately and purposefully chose the time

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
in the way of his leaving. It was
to be methodical and conscious.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
He would cast off his body by fasting.
He himself inaugurated

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
his own technique for dying that
the body itself give up its life.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
I acquiesced. For a month I
fed Scott just on juices

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
when he wanted any liquids then he said I
would like only water yet he did not sicken

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
he was still lucid and spoke with me
but his body was extremely emaciated.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
The life force in him was lessening. A week more
on water and he was completely detached from life

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
ready to slip easily into that good night.
His body had dried up.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
Now it was withering away and he could
track fully and peacefully retire from it.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
Slowly gradually he detached himself
breathing less and less fainter and fainter

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
then he was off and free like a dry leaf
from the tree floating down and away

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
all right he breathed seeming to testify to
the all rightness of everything and was gone.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
I felt the visible pass into the invisible.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:10.000
[music]

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
I\'m always ever since childhood been
interested in what happens after you die.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
I was interested in (inaudible) and dying
and death and apparently Scott was too

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
and we centered our interest on
that together. We read about it

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
we talked about it and we
sort of planned for it

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
and of course we planned first discussed
it because he was so much older

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
he probably would go first

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
and he decided that when he became more or
less helpless and his body was worn out

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
and sickening that he would not later on

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
in a feeble way that he would
not go to a commercial home

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
that he would stay at his own home and
that he would die in his own kind

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
and (inaudible) direction and so he did.
And I moved.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
She remembers it as being
short and quick and no pain

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
and

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
and the fact that it
wasn\'t exactly like that.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
I don\'t know I guess

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
I don\'t have a real big
problem with it except

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
for the people who read her book
and can\'t read between the lines.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
My life was not over and done with so a chapter
ended when Scott comrade and love of 53 years

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
quietly breezed away his
life at home in Maine

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
three weeks after his hundredth birthday.
He went with dignity purposefully

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
fasting after long and a good life.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
I had to pick up the reins I had
been hold loosely in his head.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
When Scott left I had to carry on alone.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
He had had me to help him at the
end of his life and I now face

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
the end of my life without him

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
but I decided to carry on as if he
were there to keep the place open

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
to let people come to see the
gardens, to even help me

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
but not to live with me.
I prefer to live alone

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
if I couldn\'t live with Scott.
She kept open house

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
and did many many lectures up
right up until the time she died

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
and found that that was something
that was fulfilling for her

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
even though it was strenuous at
times she did feel fulfilled

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
by having a job to do.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
First winter that I was alone
I answered all those letters

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
and telegrams and wires and cards by hand

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
sort of (inaudible) the whole experience
and then got on with my (inaudible).

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
And there were several stages Helen
went through of recovering herself

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
first by learning what she\'d been for Scott

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
and writing about that in her memoir
what they had been for each other

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
and beginning to understand what their life had meant and was
still meaning for other people which gave her a sense of

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
accomplishing something worthy

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
and being engaged in a service to those who wanted
to learn how to live more mindfully and consciously.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
I don\'t think Helen either
was quite as surprised

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
as she used to pretend she was

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
that people kept coming and were interested
because Helen had been so equally involved

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
with Scott and in all the ideas
that I always thought that

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
it was just perfectly natural for her to carry
on. If she showed any reluctance at all

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
it\'s because there\'s an awful lot of work,

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
daily work in maintaining the
homestead and growing your own food

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
and getting your wood and everything and
it\'s pretty difficult to do it alone.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
It was far harder for her once
Scott was no longer there.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:38.000
[music]

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
Helen is this amazing transformation

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
which really you could only describe
in one way sort of as a blossoming

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
but really in a deeper way too it\'s an identity transformation. She
finds herself in a way that she just had never found herself before

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
because Scott was always determining
what that identity would be

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
and that\'s the Helen that we know in
last decade (inaudible) in her life

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
and it\'s actually a wonderful
transformation this woman who comes alive

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
in her 80s and 90s (inaudible) life advice

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
Helen who\'s become in a very sort of
ancient sense this shaman like priestess.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
She\'s a religious center of this
larger community and in the culture

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
where we don\'t value older people anymore she\'s valued in
such a way that a number of people would express to me that

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
they knew Helen and felt
really deeply about Helen.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
They saw her very infrequently but would say to me that
if Helen weren\'t around I would really feel a loss.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
I mean we don\'t have people like that in our culture anymore.
So she ended up in this very unusual sort of situation.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
This reserve elder of the community
and it wasn\'t a local community

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
it was a wide community. I never have taken

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
the outside of life too seriously.
I\'ve always felt a connection

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
to the meaning and purpose of
life this is a day in school

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
and I\'d like to profit by it
I\'d like to learn from it,

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
I\'d like to contribute but the
real life with a capital L

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
is behind all this scenery

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
and I\'m anxious to get
there and experience that

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
but I still have to live my day in school.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
So as long as the old body can continue,

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
as long as the brain can still
do a bit of vocalization

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
I\'ll stay here but I\'m on my way
somewhere else in transition

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
and in a sense

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
I don\'t think while I see around
me too seriously it\'s beautiful

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
I appreciate it but it has a deeper
meaning than what shows on the surface.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
Scott in his autobiography
making of a radical

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
wrote very clearly about this continuum
of the life force and he believed

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
as strongly as Helen did in something
like reincarnation that when this body

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
that they were in ceased they did not
whatever their essential self was

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
capital S if you like to do it that way would
persist would continue in some fashion

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
and that for them removed all
sense of fear about endings.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
They really fully believed that
like a snail leaving its shell

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
and Helen referred to her body as a shell

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
when this ceased it was only this physical material thing
that ceased that they were still on a journey back toward

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
whatever God is

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
and toward participating in that being more
manifest in life. We never have used the word God.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
I never used the word God but

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
the whole of manifestation

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
is an… is an experiencing

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
by some great things

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
and some great purpose

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
and I ally myself with that and I wanted
to participate in that experience

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
and I want to add my mite
to it but my mite is not

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
my mite is not separate from the purpose.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
It\'s part of it and whatever
there is that people call God

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
is a growing thing,

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
an evolving thing and
it\'s just as important

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
that little dandelion there
on the grass has its life

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
and manifests as it is that I
or some greater being manifest.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
[sil.]

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
Life is all a tremendous unity and a
learning unity and an evolving unity

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
and we\'re part of it

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
and we\'re lucky to be
part of it and it is us

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
and we are it.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
We\'re lucky.

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
They were both comfortable with the term cosmic consciousness.
Scott had come to the relationship trying to find a way

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
to bring cosmic consciousness to his work,

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
his social science and politics and economics.
Helen came with the theosophical teaching

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
about brotherhood and living in
service to your fellow humans

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
and that was really the work they were trying
to do all along. That was the base work

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
how they lived the good life
that we know of now was a way of

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
practicing living in a way that would
honor what their belief system was

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
in this larger sense of their being
continuity of the life force.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
We were always interested
in what lay behind life

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
and what life was for and
what life is leading to

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
and we thought that death was
certainly a part of the process.

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
So I separately before I met
Scott and he before he met me

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
was interested in the subject of death.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
We even joined the mortuary society here

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
in Maine in Auburn we paid $65

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
each for our future cremation so that

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
when Scott had died I already
had made the arrangements

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
and a friend, a neighbor here in

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
(inaudible) had made a
nice wooden box and Scott

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
stipulated the size and
said no (inaudible) on it

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
and he wanted to be put in these work clothes in it and
driven in the back of the truck to the crematorium

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
which I did

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
and it didn\'t seem as if I were leaving started
to all it was just leaving an old body

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
and he stayed with me in all aspects

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
but being such physical. I\'ve
already I feel pretty well

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
thoroughly detached from physical events

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
and happenings and daily doings.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
I\'m partway there myself right now. I
wouldn\'t mind if I win tomorrow or today.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
I don\'t mind how it comes

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
and I don\'t mind how soon it comes.
It\'ll either come through an accident

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
or my feeling feebler. You can hope
for me there I go before a hundred.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
I don\'t know it\'s all old
ages this way or not

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
or if I really am preparing
and really am half over there

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
but I have to jerk myself

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
into existence to stay here

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
and I sincerely hope that it\'s not too long

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
maybe one or two more years and then
the darn body is still quite strong.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
The mind is softening and forgetting

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
and you kind of notice today

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
but (inaudible) and I am not
attached to this at all.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
And I am more than half way over there.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
(inaudible) say more or less the same
thing to an interviewer when he came

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
he said don\'t be bothering me.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
I am preparing to die and
that\'s the cases even though

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
my body is fairly fairly
strong, fairly well.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
Clearly Helen was ready to go she means it and to
everybody she was recoverable with the notion of dying.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
She clearly had it planned in terms of

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
what she wanted to happen when she did
die, who she wanted to have around there,

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
what exactly the ritual would look like

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
and it was played out pretty much
exactly as she had intended.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
I think that actual event itself
will always be a mystery.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
The days before she died she was terribly tired.
She taken on a great deal of responsibility

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
for a number of visitors who were coming and not just visiting
but staying in the house and her voice was very tired

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
and she was very tired and very
frustrated with not sleeping well.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
On the day that she died she called here
and let us know how tired she was and that

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
she was going to run away from home basically and
spend the afternoon in a movie theater in Ellsworth

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
which was a half an hour from home. We were anxious
about that because Helen hadn\'t driven for a long time.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
Her eyes were failing it was a gray day. The roads were
wet. It was just the wrong kind of day for her to drive on

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
but she really needed to be away from home so that
she would not have to deal with too many visitors

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
that afternoon because she was so tired.
The phone call came from a friend

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
that Helen had been in a car accident and was at
the hospital and had either died or was dying.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
The accident itself involved
speeding and slippery roads

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
and she ran into a tree and Helen didn\'t
believe in wearing seatbelts. Broke her neck

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
and to the best of our
understanding died instantly.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
Three friends of Helen\'s had been summoned who lived
closer by and where they are at the hospital.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
The good thing was that the young man who was on
the service the emergency service that day knew

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
who Helen was and knew that she would want not to
be resuscitated that she would be want to let go.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
And the only – there was no sort
of huddling at the hospital

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
to figure this out. They
knew and they carried it out

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
with such precision that it had to be
something that Helen said that she wanted

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
and they\'d they would all and
they were all disciples enough

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
that they would carry
this out no matter what.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
We were just the women who hung around her and
just sort of took care of some of her daily needs

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
and stopped in to see if she needed anything at the store and
things like that. So you know we just happened to be her attendant.

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
In the day it happened I got a phone call

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
and all I could think of well I actually called your house
Diane and your daughter said that you went up to the hospital

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
and so I went up to the hospital
too just I wanted to be

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
where everyone was and where Helen was
and I got there and everyone had left.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
In fact they said in the hospital they
have all gone out the Harborside.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
In death as in life grace carried
Helen and carried the day

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
because the young emergency
room doctor knew Helen he knew

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
he was aware that she would not want to be held in a
hospital and we were allowed after paperwork was signed

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
within the hour of her death to kidnap her.
So we put her in the car,

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
drove her home and began then to
deal with how to let her public know

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
that she was gone. Then we got
home that\'s okay it\'s pouring rain

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
now we have to take a ride of the car and
first we had we spent it seemed like

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
we spent a lot of time doing like this
stuff to get ready and it\'s ready

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
and it was like but Helen is out there.
We really do need to bring her in now.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
We cared for her. We washed her

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
and clothed her and laid her out on

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
one of the benches in her living room had
some you know beautiful Guatemalan cloth

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
and beautiful flowers and herbs

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
and pictures of Scott and her parents

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
and people that she loved and then
we had a maybe a six-hour silent

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
kind of meditation where people could come

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
and pay their last respects to Helen.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
[music]

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
A neighbor had made a wooden coffin

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
and we put her in that and drove her

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
to Auburn to the crematorium where
Scott had also been cremated

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
and we delivered her body there
and then her ashes came back

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
and we spread them around the place
like Helen and I did with Scott.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
[sil.]

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
It was a good thing you know.
She didn\'t suffer

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
and she didn\'t have to spend any time
at the hospital. She was always saying

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
that she didn\'t want anyone
to have to fuss over her

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
or take care of her. I don\'t think
that she would have been enjoyed

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
the dying process

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
the way Scott death was.
His was a number of months

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
of us caring for him

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
and Helen would have been much too impatient for something
like that. But there was a great deal of concern that

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
that she might have committed suicide because
there was clearly nothing wrong with the car

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
and people just wondered if she would
have done that. For two reasons

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
Helen at least two reasons Helen wouldn\'t have committed
suicide one that in if you believe in reincarnation

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
to kill yourself is to deny God the opportunity to have
the time he\'s going to have with you in your lifetime

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
to have whatever that transcendent experience
might be of passing when the time is ready.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
It would ruin all her good karma whatever
she\'d gather to have committed suicide.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
That was not something she would have ever considered and she
would certainly never have chosen a tree to kill herself against

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
because it might have harmed the tree. It turned out
that it didn\'t there was no harm caused to the tree

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
but those was simply not a package
that Helen would have put together.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
I never thought that she committed suicide.
No. I think it was just her time.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
Every entity every act is a part
of the great manifestation.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
Every living thing has its notes,
its song, its contributions

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
through every moment of its existence as
we live our lives we leave our marks.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
Whatever the world may be
like a hundred years from now

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
it will be influenced in part by what each
one of us has been as done and thought.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
So the marks of my parents, my
brother, sister, my longtime love

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
and husband Scott Nearing and I myself have made
together and separately have helped shape the world,

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
have influenced other lives
and the lives of you

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
who may read these pages
or hear these words.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
We think of all the people
who\'ve read living the good life

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
and the effect that has had how many human
beings in their life get a chance to influence

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
in a very positive way especially if
you think of what we understand now

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
about the world of its resources and the fact
that we cannot continue to consume at the rate

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
that they were actually in
a way reacting against.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
The effect they have had on making
people realize that there is a good life

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
in living more simply. Oh yeah I think.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
That\'s an enormous accomplishment. Years
from now when you and I are long gone

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
there will be this couple or wisdom
which in a really deep sense

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
represents a way of living which steps
outside of the cultural framework

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
they were living in. In
a really powerful way

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
which says that there are certain
principles which always transcendent

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
which are really important principles
which we must live our lives

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
by you know every day. Perhaps
there\'s only one sin separateness

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
with the blessedness of love making all the
whole I feel that life is such a unity

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
that love which what\'s happened still
exists it is there on the record.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
Love once felt has its place.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
Love I had for and received from Scott the
love for and from (inaudible) women and men

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
I know is still vibrating in the world.
Everyone who feels

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
I love adds to the (inaudible) the love
that has been felled all through the ages

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
everywhere all through time order shining
what an eternal process in presence

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
love is the source of the goal and
love the method of attainment.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
A network of loved crisscrosses the globe.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
The delicate shining lives form a tenuous
web from one end of the world to the other.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
There are so many threads of love in
the world so much love going on for

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
and from so many people (inaudible) take it up and
do a given love is the greatest of life\'s rewards.

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
There seems never an end

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
to the loving that goes on forever and ever.
Loving and leaving are a part of living.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
[sil.]

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
If somebody else had written a
book I might have liked it myself.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:55.000
[music]

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:53.000
[sil.]