Hubris

Grave Goods

March 21, 2014 /

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“‘I’ll be damned if I let someone like him touch you,’ I muttered, and wondered at the vehemence of my fury. Lightly, I dug, feeling around her bones with fingers, soft brushes, dental tools, and exposed her inch by inch.”—Helen Noakes

Waking Point

By Helen Noakes

Dreaming in the shade of hypotheses.
Dreaming in the shade of hypotheses.

“The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories . . . . Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration.”—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form—Six Lessons

Helen NoakesSAN FRANCISCO California—(Weekly Hubris)—3/24/2014—What I first saw was the dusty, smooth dome of her skull, delicate as a fine libation bowl.

Gently, I brushed the earth away, the earth that sheltered her for centuries. Her fragile features, her perfect teeth, her size, all told me she was young.

My first human find gazed up at me, her empty sockets more eloquent than any dark-eyed glance. I felt a tremor deep within. My brush hovered over her. And for an instant, I could not move.

Not far from me, someone exclaimed, “It’s a mass burial site!” and went about the business of digging with exuberant determination.

“I’ll be damned if I let someone like him touch you,” I muttered, and wondered at the vehemence of my fury.

Lightly, I dug, feeling around her bones with fingers, soft brushes, dental tools, and exposed her inch by inch. She lay in a fetal position, her arms around the bones of a baby. At her ears she wore turquoise bead earrings. The baby wore a bracelet of the same stones. They were laid to rest with love, and I unearthed them. With what right?

And then a thought, as soft and gentle as my unearthing: It’s time we came to light. I knelt at her side wondering if I were simply justifying a desecration. This site was Neolithic. She had a message. Human emotions have changed very little in 10,000 years.

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.)

9 Comments

  • Pam Gutman

    March 24, 2014 at 4:31 pm

    Hi Helen
    I was intrigued and engaged by these opening paragraphs. I knew immediately that it was an archeological site and the beginning of a mystery. I liked the main character–he/she was emotionally accessible and a person of integrity who you like. The language is lovely–but of course, your language always is…. I want to read MORE!! –Pam

  • evi psathidou

    March 25, 2014 at 2:05 am

    Helen, it is a moment of intense realization of self that you are describing…..a moment that is never forgotten….lovely writing…..thnx, xxxx evi

  • Helen Noakes

    March 25, 2014 at 1:34 pm

    Taryn, Pam Gutman, Eve Akel, Evi Psathidou, Despina Meimaroglou, Ted Czuk,
    many thanks for your wonderful comments and for taking the time to read. More? Did some of you say more? I hadn’t thought about that.