Alchemy
This is a couplet from a Ghazal (A poetry form: Traditionally invoking melancholy, love, longing, and metaphysical questions, ghazals are often sung by Iranian, Indian, and Pakistani musicians. The form has roots in seventh-century Arabia, and gained prominence in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century . . . from poets.org) by Rumi translated here. Other translations exist. This one found me.
Chapter XIV is pure alchemy. So perhaps that is a fine place to begin.
ALCHEMY I learned the bit that I know of alchemy via 3 sources:
# 1 the U.S. public ‘ether’ wherein Alchemy is old quack nonsense about turning lead into gold
# 2 the Thoth Tarot scholars (particularly Du Quette) who offer pieces relative to the symbology on the cards
# 3 the book “alchemic active imagination” by Marie-Louise von Franz, a brilliant scholar, analyst and student of Carl Jung; much admired by Robert Bly and much respected for her study of fairy tales and myth alongside my man Joseph Campbell.
We will get back to #1 and #2.
#3. Franz describes (in luscious detail) how alchemy is the child of Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy, which gave us the base elements of modern physics—concerned with matter, space, time, energy—and Egyptian chemical-magical techniques, e.g. mummification; a combined ‘religious’ rite and scientific process that manipulates matter and implores the spirit world to transmute the human individual body into the collective Godhead after death. (Franz notes that the Egyptian worldview about life and death was African, not European as we Westerners may incorrectly assume.)
Alchemy evolves to include practitioners across many cultures seeking the answers to healing the human body (including the integral spirit) by manipulating matter in various ways. The hypothesis being if one understands how the process of life-death-life and change in general works in nature, therein lies the secrets and power of the gods (God, Godhead) to be used for healing—and, in general, to turn death on its head. (Hence #1 wherein much matter to manipulate is metal—which must be done in accord with the aligned astrologic phenomenon to be effective—lead to gold being the most extreme example.)
#2. The process of putrefaction is central to alchemy and ATU XIII depicts the decay of matter and the release of the Atum, the mana, the quintessence. ATU XIV then, is the ART of stirring the cauldron in which that process occurs, invoking the rites, and brewing new, amalgamated forms. So picture the whole of ATU XIII in the pot on ATU XIV (which Frieda has emblazoned with our friend Raven, who plays his mystical part, and the skull bone, which represents the material part) and the rise up (toward unity consciousness | highest form of the individual) is depicted in the rainbow of ‘mana’ following the upward bound arrow and forming into a unifying mantle or cloak.
Next, we can return to a quick glance at the Wheel of Wholeness to comprehend that the whole STORY is about the amalgamation of the human and divine back into One consciousness. ALL of the major arcana represent essential principles and functions of this transformation but XIII and XIV are the truly messy bits. The parts where we really need to start STRETCHING myth mind to get a glimpse in our feeling life, if not our intellect, about that which is tough to put into words.
This is where the Oldest Living Catfish comes in.
We were talking about the Hero’s Journey (in Consilience Posts X-XIII). Departure. Initiation. Return. We are STILL at the part in which the quester is invited to risk their life. This time in the underworld—the muck. And the test is administered by The Oldest Living Catfish, a form of the Dark Mother—or death bringing (dangerous) aspect of the Divine Feminine.
Now you may be wondering out of WHICH left field the Catfish scene showed up in this book. It is lifted (verbatim in parts) from the aforementioned fairytale The Maiden King (the actual tale is called The Maiden Tzar—it being Russian) whose synchronicity with this story was eerie, remarkable, and falls in that category of myth-meld phenomenon Campbell talks about (in which the same bones of story arise on different continents in the same period provoking the question: how are they so very similar?). The Maiden King is ultimately about the reunification of the paradoxes of human and divine, masculine and feminine—it’s about the RISE of the Divine Feminine to achieve unity consciousness.
This catfish bit is an homage of sorts, but also, like much of this story, didn’t feel so much like a choice as a request from the one who chose me to tell it, which I could refuse but . . . why would I? (And risk being eaten for lunch by the One Who Glubs!)
So it might be fun to hear a bit of Robert Bly’s take on this scene in the original fairytale (which I may have tucked behind one of the secret doors on this site!) (I was going to net this out for you but it’s just TOO GOOD as is. My annotations are from about four years ago and I am JUST noticing the cross reference to the Egyptian rites that I reference above and Bly even draws on Marie-Louise von Franz! Dang, I love when that stuff happens, don’t you?!)
Note that the Catfish is one form The Dark Mother takes and Baba Yaga (a staple of Russian fairytales) is another. Also certain goats, but we will come to that in the next chapter.
Okay, so the one who was Asmeret (from here on out referred to as Ara) passes the initiation test and is FREED into a new, intermediate form. An eagle-ray of all things. (Another choice, not a choice thing.) A water-bird. A fully present, entirely sensual being—note the first person present tense in this scene—such that we are in the experience, not in the story.
Weeks pass as I play in the waves, leaping high in the air, crashing back into the ocean until I am spent, then drift for days on the currents barely wafting my fins.
So they (we can now also practice with the pronouns that serve as marginal but well-intentioned metaphors for un-gendered, un-specified beings) have the experience of being an animal. Which, in my humble opinion, might do us all some good.
But eventually they are called back to their path. Araaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And RISE, transformed.
Now this is good old fashioned baptism that has many flavors across many of the BIG mythologies (aka religions) but this one comes with a few notable effects:
They are a new kind of TRILOGY (Borromean Rings) which can be described by the (re)unified pairs: masculine with feminine; human with guide or HGA (Raven); and material with ethereal (Tree and Eye of Ara tattooed in liquid metals) with the body as the ‘third thing’ that binds them together.
The conscious, personal MEMORY of before has been subsumed, let go, to make way for a new identity to emerge.
The HAIR has changed. Shaved off for the leap, it’s now long and flowing with streaks of metal throughout. Changes to hair are notorious markers of initiation, transformation, and transmutation, both formally and informally, across space, place, and time. Hair is also a charged topic as we struggle with systemic racism—I hope the hair references in this story are respectful and honor both the source of this story and those reading it.
Amplified now, the SYMBOLISM of every movement, character, and object is multi-layered and connected by blood and sinew to story traditions all over the world, which may be unpacked more over time, but for now I will continue to reference The Maiden King and urge you to read it if you are intrigued.
Notably these 3 objects in myths of this gene-pool, including of course the Thoth Tarot, are objects that the Divine Feminine (which is taking back her lost power) has imbued with her love of the world, thus are sacred and ask us to accept them as gifts, as signs, and as an invitation to PRACTICE RADICAL SELF-LOVE: The Tree | The Hare(s) | The Orphic Egg (snake’s egg)
Asmeret, Asmara, and Raven are not the only ones undergoing an Alchemic re-union . . .
Ara and Hyena are now bound to one another: Goddess and (Holy) Guardian Animal.
Tree drinks the ‘elixer of the goddesses’ that comes off the Red Sea (where Asmeret’s body lays in the muck) and leaves out for the first time in centuries.
Frieda becomes a Tiger Lady story in her new village (ahhh we can see so clearly in her story how a myth is made—for the record, Frieda Harris did move to India—the rest is part of the myth) and perhaps shape-shifts into a Tiger at Will. She dies, turns to ash, then her ashes are mingled with those of Helge and a song is sung for them in the Norwegian tradition as they sink into the sea . . .
And Charlotte, having finally completed her initiation task of flying Helge and Frieda home, is given the name The Ash Girl! What?!?