Story Time
Once there was a story and no one to tell it.
Chapter 5 LEAPS in time ahead to 1945.
“BUT that is 3 YEARS,” some early readers cried. “I wanted to see Ben and Charlotte fall in love, the proposal.” Frieda trying to explain to Charlotte who and what she really is in a way that won’t make her descent harder than it already has been. All of that happened between the lines on the page, within the words that this telling offers and you have the power to re-appear it. Because.
This is your story too, it has chosen you as one of its readers.
Because it contains something your guides need you to see, hear, and live into on your path now and you must do the work to discover what that is. Every One this story chooses will read it differently.
Tree knew the story, and gave it to me.
LEAP! The illuminating poet and mythmaker, Robert Bly, explains what I want to convey about this kind of story and how it leaps so beautifully (with mystery) in his book, Leaping Poetry.
. . . read this excerpt first and I will try my best to bring it around to your experience of The Ash Girl and Chapter 5.
So TIME isn’t the only leap Chapter 5 takes. You landed right in the middle of a bright afternoon in The Village of Ash, where Asmeret (the infant girl born out of the Chaos | khaos of Chapter 2) is with her Grandmother, sharing a bit of storytelling. The beginning of the story, and this chapter are mirrors . . . “Once there was a story and no one to tell it.”
This phraseology is ancient.
Cousin Robert sheds light on this SIGNAL to humans to shift into STORY TIME (in his book The Maiden King, which we have already dipped into):
“. . . an old Persian storyteller might say, ‘At one time there was a story and there was no one to tell it’ . . . In other words, stories were in existence before human beings.”
A profound assertion. Let that sink in.
He goes on to explain that this is a THRESHOLD for a reader to cross. We are entering another world, where all bets are off. Including your notions of time and space. And he offers this warning, which is implied in the signal phrase (which we hear very deep down where our myth mind is still alive and alert) “If you, as a reader, adore literalism, you may as well close the book now—you’ll argue with our sallies so often that it will be bad for your health.” (I LAUGH OUT LOUD at that every time—it’s SO TRUE) and Chapter 5 is asking you to re-up for the ride - it’s about to take you into much deeper non-literal territory.
Look if you have gotten this far we can assume that you are willing to entertain (or at least be entertained by) goddesses and a bit of tarot magic, but Chapter 5 LEAPS into deeper Story Time waters. Specifically:
In Asmeret’s world mythic stories are the heart of the people, they create the world that the village or clan lives in. And while Grandmother is a storyteller (and a reader of bones) she is also living in a time when her people are in transition, losing some of their ancient stories as they make needed shifts from hunters to gatherers and attempts to live off of soil made of salt and lava. And so the storytellers (and bone readers) lose the power that comes from the belief and nurturing of their community. Stories aren’t a pastime, they are PAST TIME (as in beyond time); the source of being, identity, and belonging, and as such a telling is sacred. Grandmother is passing this story and gift on to Asmeret. Is this story about Grandmother - real events - or her grandmother or hers? Is it a story spun from air and a guess about how the world works that was moved orally down through the lineage? Is it a story about Asmeret? Grandmother thought the story was about Tree, but now wonders . . . (for more on this see MAP 5)
Charlotte has leapt into the Dragon Smoke! She has moved so many times now (as she flies The Amelia as a lone WWII WARRIOR) between her conscious and unconscious, the realms of her mind that she knows and the realms she can barely fathom, that Chapter 5 finds her descending into madness. In DESPERATION she has ‘grounded’ herself. Clings to Ben (The Prince of Disks | Earth) as her lifeline as she contemplates suicide. The Princess of Air has become The Princess of Disks. (We all have all four princesses in us, its about emphasis, activation, intentionality, and circumstance . . . )
And in the SAME CHAPTER we LEAP with Charlotte as she makes the turn. Hits her bottom. Steps into the Abyss. She gets out of bed yes, and back in the air, yes. But she doesn’t fly The Amelia. She joins perhaps the LEAST mystical organization on the planet—the military—and takes on a very concrete (and noble) mission YET her plan is to end her life once it is done. Disappear. Be gone. And then. We witness the turning point. The Ascent. She LITERALLY flies up the mountain, to the City of Clouds (calls to her Prince - in this case Anbessa, Knight of Disks) and hears her true name. Chooses to keep going. Embody her true nature at a next level of being. (Robert Bly suggests this LEAP in art takes place in the center, and while we are a third of the way through The Ash Girl (had you begun to wonder how many chapters?) we are, indeed, in the center of Charlotte’s part.)
One last bit about Story Time. Perhaps you follow the dates of the story with rapt attention. My friend Jen (who is mystical to her BONES asked for a timeline), I get it (there is one - a very big complicated one). Every single date has significance, aligned with historical world events (generally WWII) or story events (July 9, the birth of the twins) AND I ask you to hold the timeline with a soft heart and soft eyes. Because.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy!
Once you cross that Threshold, you are in what J.R.R. Tolkien calls The Secondary world where ogres and fairies and Princesses rule, and an ancient myth-making Tree know its own birth story and gives it to Grandmother, who gives it to Asmeret, who gives it to me, and I give it to you. And none of us abide by calendars or clocks very well.