Hubris

Georgia On My Mind

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Recalling this, I sat in silence for quite a while, looking out at the Pacific through my rain-swept window, and it seemed somehow significant that Georgia chose to leave this world at the close of 2021 – a significance that is floating about in my mind searching for words to define it. Perhaps Georgia’s spirit will gently lead me to an answer as she always had in life. Or perhaps her wisdom will allow me to see that the significance of our entrances and exits from this realm of existence must always remain a wonder that cannot be defined.”Helen Noakes

Waking Point

By Helen Noakes

Noakes-Guernica by Pablo Picasso
“Guernica,” by Pablo Picasso.

“Think about it, I said. We all had to come out of the dark to sing.”Sarah Winman, from Tin Man

Helen Noakes

SAN FRANCISCO California—(Weekly Hubris)—1 March 2022—On December 24, 2021, I lost a dear friend, but I didn’t know it. The name on Caller ID that day was unfamiliar, and I didn’t pick up. It was her son calling to tell me of her passing. While I know Georgia’s son’s name, the name on the ID was not his but that of one of his relatives.

I didn’t find out until December 26, because, for the first time in many years, I was able to spend Christmas just the way I love to spend it: quietly, surrounded by light, music, immersed in a book, and completely disengaged from the world.

My departed friend, Georgia May, was a beacon of light, a beautiful soul, wise and exemplary in her acceptance of the tragedies that befell her in her life. She smiled through the pain of her physical ailments, her mind sharp and inventive even in her nineties.

Georgia was a Jungian psychologist who, with a friend, spearheaded Joseph Campbell’s series, Mythos, later acquired by Bill Moyers.

She edited her husband’s, Rollo May’s, books. Theirs was a love story that made one believe in love stories.

Georgia’s deep love of Rollo illuminated her life even after his death. It’s because of this that I mourn her passing but do not grieve. For somewhere in my deep sense of knowingthat knowing centered in the heart rather than the mindI feel that she’s joined Rollo’s spirit and is fulfilled.

I shall miss her terribly. I’ll miss our long and wonderful talks about art, myths, life, beauty, sorrow, and so much more.

Georgia’s wisdom and compassion infused our exchanges and so did her seemingly endless empathy. Her insights into psychological dilemmas were stunningly accurate.

She would laugh that wonderful laugh when I’d point this out. And we agreed that empathic healing emanates from a depth of experience with the trials we’d endured, of the pain we, ourselves, had suffered.

Her son, Stuart, who called on December 24th, and whom I consider a friend, is a poet whose poetry reflects a deep understand of the human condition I believe he inherited from his mother.

After I called Stuart, I recalled my last conversation with Georgia. We discussed the subtext in my writing, its roots drawing from the violence I’d witnessed and experienced as a child. I mentioned that I believed the art of each period in historyand I included writing in thisnot only reflects the artist’s history but also taps into the consciousness of the artist’s times. Their work is often prophetic, and a resolute record of the ethos of their eras.

Always the good psychologist, Georgia asked me why I believed this. It was her way of directing me towards clarity. I knew this. She’d done it so often before. I thought for a while and replied by quoting Sarah Winman’s book, Still Life: “Art versus humanity is not the question. One doesn’t exist without the other. Art is the antidote.”

Georgia asked me to repeat the quote, and said she liked it very much. Then she asked if there was a piece of art which I felt reflected our present. Immediately, I replied, “It’s a painting from the last century, which, tragically, will always be relevant: Picasso’s Guernica.

“Interesting,” Georgia replied, softly.

And with that one word she led me to see the root of the recurring theme of all my writing, a deep-seated need to remind anyone who might read what I write that, if we’re not careful, Guernica will continually be relevant to every period in our future, and the future of our children.

Recalling this, I sat in silence for quite a while, looking out at the Pacific through my rain-swept window, and it seemed somehow significant that Georgia chose to leave this world at the close of 2021a significance that is floating about in my mind searching for words to define it. Perhaps Georgia’s spirit will gently lead me to an answer as she always had in life. Or perhaps her wisdom will allow me to see that the significance of our entrances and exits from this realm of existence must always remain a wonder that cannot be defined.

All that matters at this moment is the immense gratitude I feel for having known her.

Helen Noakes is a playwright, novelist, writer, art historian, linguist, and Traditional Reiki Master, who was brought up in and derives richness from several of the world’s great traditions and philosophies. She believes that writing should engage and entertain, but also inform and inspire. She also believes that because the human race expresses itself in words, it is words, in the end, that will show us how very similar we are and how foolish it is to think otherwise. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)

6 Comments

  • Eve Akel

    What a wonderful heartfelt testimony in her honor, Helen.
    The Greeks, always at the passing of a loved one, say
    Live a long life to remember her and keep her memory alive.

  • Deborah Ruth

    Helen ~
    What a sad loss. I loved your valuing Georgia for, among other things, “her seemingly endless empathy.” That tender quality seems missing these days. And I loved your statement that “the significance of our entrances and exits from this realm of existence must always remain a wonder that cannot be defined.” The word, “wonder,” reverberated for me. Thank you for this gift of words.
    Love, Deborah

  • Nancy F.

    Dear Helen, A beautiful tribute to your friend. I am so sorry for your loss, Helen. Strange, this morning I was thinking of the painting and the town Guernica. Thanks for sharing this.
    Love,
    Nancy

  • Robin Bradford

    A wonderful tribute to a lovely friend. Sorry for your loss but what an experience to have this person in your life for such a long time.

  • Diana

    Dearest Helen, how lucky you were to have such a friend. But the reference to Guernica is so horribly a propos right now. Reenacted with even greater fury and inhumanity than in Spain 80 plus years ago. Brought chills up and down my spine