«WE ARE FORGOTTEN, SOUL. WE WERE LEFT ON THAT STEAMSHIP...»*

IN MEMORY OF SERGE GINGER

Marina Perepelitsyna
RUSSIAN SCHOOL OF GESTALT
February 2014

Yellow leaves fall down like tears.
Two tracks follow the carts.

Anna Prismanova

February 6 was the birthday of Serge Ginger (our compatriot Sergei A. Ginger), he would have turned 86. We consider him our Leader, though his ideas and memories about him were first brought to us by his disciples – Natalia Lebedeva, Elena Ivanova, Dmitry Ovechkin. At that time, in mid-nineties, any direct contact with Serge and his wife Anna in Paris School was unthinkable for us. But time passed. Ten years later, we visited Serge in Ecole Parisienne de Gestalt on a regular basis, thus becoming, perhaps, of the last of his followers. Our dreams came true – Paris, Serge and Anna, their welcoming home, and most importantly – the continuity of their ideas about Gestalt as a therapy of contact, which we passed over to our students in Russia and beyond, through towns and villages big and small.

Anna outlived Serge by only one year. And remembering Serge and Anna today one cannot but remember another couple.

Few people know that Serge’s parents – two Russian poets Anna Prismanova and Alexander Ginger were in exile in France, where they married in 1926. (I recommend very good articles about these two Russian expatriate poets by N. Vinokur and K. Pomerantsev).

In 1946, Serge parents took Soviet citizenship. And his father, Alexander Ginger, embraced Buddhism shortly before his death at the end of the 50s. In his "Tibetan song" there are lines which foresee the whole future life and multifaceted activities of their son, who gained worldwide fame as a Gestalt therapist, lecturer and author of books and articles about Gestalt, the source of which he also found in Oriental practices:

TIBETAN SONG

Praise to you, all six ends: East, South, West, North,
Zenith, Nadir;
may there be peace for all – for the angel, for the beast –
may there be peace.
I did it, I overcame the unshady road rise – here is the top of the hill;
hello to you, all six – from the top
of the rocky Earth crust.
Like all who stood before me on the mountain pass,
I stare down;
before descent – as well as those that were here –
I will put the stone of mine on a pile.
Praise to those living, to those who lived near, far –
praise to all who have put their shoulder
to the wheel of the Earth.

I cannot help appealing to his parents’ poetic heritage, because everything Serge did for Gestalt therapy development and spread in Europe and the world (he held his seminars even in Japan) had been foreseen in their poetic lines as a testament to their son – long, long before he had grown up.

Serge often remembered his father's poem "Torch" which tells about a torch relay runner. He always referred to it as a metaphor of his knowledge and experience transfer to his disciples, who, in their turn, pass it over to the next generations – so that this continuing relay of society humanization and resistance to technocracy goes on and on.

Leaving his autograph on my book, he wrote "To my granddaughter in the South ..." He considered those in St. Petersburg to be his children. And we, in Taganrog, had no objection – they are indeed our "parents”. But we keep telling our students about Serge, we happily quote, interpret (and sometimes misinterpret) his ideas – but we do stay faithful to our Leader – principled and honest, open and unselfish, ready to fight for the Idea and gentle as he was.

Thank you, Serge, the relay goes on... Your father's poetry, unfortunately, is known to very few people in today’s Russia. But it was loved by M.Tsvetaeva, Vs.Ivanov, B.Pasternak, and many others. The poems, many of which you brought back to us, trying hard to convey their content and meaning as accurately as possible, will now be always accessible for those who want to carry the torch on.

These poems can be a prayer or a call to a prayer; they remind us all about modesty and humility, acceptance of our Earthly fate and awareness of its being a part of the march of time and the inevitable generational change. And we, Serge, are thankful for each day, and we live our lives aware of our finitude and stay hopeful and faithful to the relay...

TORCH

A relay race is a unique performance ranked equal to no other;
it is a sight fit for the gods – and, the Muse,
is it not for you?

Oh the Muse, this vagrant tale –
it is for your voice.
If you tell about life of the world -
so you must tell about the flare.

Our staging posts are assigned for us,
exact locations are planned.
Under the heel are green glades
over the brow is holy emptiness.

On the places legally unchanging,
on the circle track yellow sands,
runners of four-member brigades
think of the glory for the group.

And when at the sound of a starting gun
the first arrow is shot -
the relay is clamped in the fist,
dense flame, yo-heave-ho!.

The receiver is waiting ahead -
body half-turned, tense hand ready.
He is full of fresh blood,
looking back, the body springing forward.

The one in the race now -
thunder in temples, racing mind.
One thought, an oasis in the desert:
I shall go, retire I cannot!

He is running, quite already dying,
dropping down to the mother earth;
silent are the viewers, sympathetic,
almost fully desperately watch.

No: the other, focus your attention,
swiftly get the solid torch by hand,
execute the sacrament of taking
over... Hush, oh muse, do hush, and tell no more!

Hordes of viewers - overwhelmed with rapture,
pierced with joy from chest through to the throat.
Brimming eyes with tears, hearts in their mouths,
lump in throat, of joy decisive throw!

He falls down on the grass,
He spreads his hands in a crucifix,
he sees himself in a coffin, in warm dismemberment,
in the earth’s putrid wombs.

We are all but guests at the earthly festival
to the ashes, we shall all go home.
The frame of triumph is square:
I, my son, my grandson and great-grandson of mine.

I want to see you, my great-grandson,
I do not want to die too soon,
I would like to live devoutly, live properly,
so as to age slowly.

I want to live as long as Titian,
ninety-nine years, local time;
but if I have to leave early -
leave this silly but enjoyable world -

I am not asking for mourning to follow,
I beg for no grief at all;
at the funeral feast plentiful
may I be remembered with laughter and cheering.

And when I'm behind the barrier,
I ascribe to honor me with kernel, with pole
and spear, and the disk and barrier -
even in the sixth generation.

I love you, abundant summer;
I am glad that you shall not die with me.
I will go away to give the relay
to the new servants of earthly joys.

1939

* Word-for-word translation
Translated by Natalia Kashirina