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Kate Lyon: An Obituary
Carroll Scholar Kate Lyon died suddenly at her home on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand on the Morning of Monday 30 July 2007 aged 54 years. Kate is survived by her much loved husband John Anthony and son John Charles.
Kate died doing what she loved best, striving and learning.
Kate was, and remains, a renaissance figure. Her knowledge and interests encompassed a phenomenal range. An accomplished musician and illustrator, a social worker in the true meaning of the term, a brilliant and innovative educator, a skilled and respected researcher, a writer on a wide range of subjects ranging from mythology and history to advocacy and social exclusion. Kate was also an accomplished designer and writer of technical manuals for the New Zealand qualifications Authority, preparing learning guides and programmes on subjects as diverse as Problem solving skills and Civil Engineering.
Kate's, artistic and technical qualities made her a much sought after web site designer in which capacity she promoted and exemplified the philosophy of accessibility for all, no matter what the level of skill or disability.
Kate was illustrator and collaborator with John Tufail on a series of four books on advocacy (the 'Books of Speaking Up') published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers under the Titles, 'Introducing Advocacy', 'Rules and Standards', 'Listen Up! Speak Up!, and 'Advocacy in Action'. More recently she published in her own right a set of six life-learning resources (AB Books, NZ) under the title, 'The Hero's Journey'.
It is the mark of a truly good person that, when a person is truly in need, help is offered without thought of reward, financial or otherwise, or limit of time or commitment. Despite her huge talent in so many fields, Kate Lyon did not die a wealthy person, precisely because she allotted her time first and foremost to those in need. It is ironic that, though Karl Marx does not feature in Kate's extensive library, his epigram, 'From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,' exemplifies her outlook on life.
Kate was a seeker after truth. It was primarily because of this that the two great passions of her life were mythology and the life and works of Lewis Carroll. She venerated Lewis Carroll as a seeker of truth and saw mythology as the primary pathway to truth. She made no secret of the fact that she felt that Carroll shared this insight.
This is both ironic and illuminating, because, until Kate first began to reveal these insights to the Carrollian community, Carroll's use of myth had been largely ignored. Where it was acknowledged it was largely from a perspective of misunderstanding and, often, lack of knowledge of the nature of myth and Carroll's grasp of myth.
Kate's first formal excursion into the field of Carroll studies was her monogram on the significance of the 'White Stone' in Carroll's life. Kate, uniquely among Carroll scholars, recognised immediately the significance of Carroll's adoption of the White Stone as a marker of significant days in his life.
This, in itself, was a major contribution to Carroll scholarship, yet it received little acknowledgement and led to virtually no debate - a mark, less of the intrinsic value of the contribution, than the lack of understanding by the vast majority of Carroll scholars of its true import.
For the next several years, Kate continued to reveal insight after insight into Carroll's use of myth in the whole range of the Carroll Canon. In 2003, she presented a paper on Carroll's use of myth in the Alice books to the Third International Conference of Carroll Studies held at the University of Rennes, France. Again, scholars appeared unprepared intellectually for the depth and breadth of Kate's research and understanding.
Since then she has released a number of articles, primarily, but not wholly, on Carroll's use of mythology.
Although the mythological aspects of Carroll's works were always her primary concern, Kate always held the larger picture in mind and sought always to understand Lewis Carroll as a 'whole Being'. This led her into deep and revealing excavations into not only Carroll's life, but of those who most influenced and were influenced by Carroll. In turn this led to new and challenging insights into Carroll's views on religion, his position on the theological disputes of the day, and complex and radical interpretations of the Bible and the thirty nine articles.
At the time of her death Kate was working on two major works and several monogrammed and papers (Kate was always slow to publish as she needed to feel that what she was offering was 'the whole' of a particular subject as she saw it).
The two major works Kate was (is) working on were a major study of the role of mythology in Carroll's life and a collaboration with John Tufail on the text and illustration of 'The Hunting of the Snark'. It is a major commitment of those who love her (and, one hopes, those who strive towards deeper understanding of Carroll and his works), that both these works will be completed and published.
No celebration of Kate's life can be complete without mention of the one thing that exemplified her above all other things. He capacity for love. Love, Agape, Arahanui, permeated her life and her works as sap permeates the trees she so much loved. This love was returned tenfold by those who knew her. The love bond between Kate and above all, her son and husband, was tangible to all who entered the home (and many who didn't). It was a magical, almost translucent entity that turned a home into a temple.
Kate died of a ruptured aorta. Her enormous heart swelled and burst. Metaphor and fact, there could be no more apt way for a person whose capacity for love was so encompassing and endurable that even her great heart could contain it no longer.
John Tufail
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