MAPS: Chapter 2
Artemis No Virgin!, Oxford Genius, The Harris | Crowley Letters, and Circular Stories
“Artemis’ eyes in that blue-black-blue body, could it be her imagination? Athena’s head hurt. Suddenly recalled the twins born to her sister, the virgin. Harrumphed. Athena was the only other being in the worlds that knew about them, strategically keeping her sister’s secret. Was it possible for Artemis’ descendants to have that skin? She willed the vision to come, though seeing the past was not her gift. Artemis and Orion had occupied the bodies of a human couple from which the twins were conceived, somewhere further down the coast of the Red Sea. It wasn’t advised, letting an occupation result in a child.”
- CHAPTER 2 | THE ASH GIRL
VIRGIN GODDESS? SCREW THAT.
What if Artemis and Orion’s affair was consummated and resulted in twins? And if so, what happened to them? There is a fine literary tradition of plumbing much told stories from under-represented points of view. In one intriguing example, The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood set about to right the injustice of hanging Penelope’s maids in Homer’s The Odyssey on a bullshit accusation and not one word from the maids. When I looked at Artemis’ myths I was struck by a couple of things (even metaphorically) that felt like breadcrumbs to something important to re-story for our times, not only as a way to right any injustice to the mythos of Artemis but also to highlight the ways those ancient stories shaped our (western) culture in ‘done with that’ ways: First, the myth of the exalted virgin that creates pathological idolatry and obsessions and; Second, that Artemis and Apollo witnessed the rape of their mother and then murdered her attacker. The aftermath of this traumatic event is swept under the mythological rug because, apparently, such trauma had no impact on her life? Or who cares? When I let Artemis speak, she had much to say on both matters, some of which you will get to hear for yourself in future chapters.
A word on the theme of occupation in The Ash Girl. We have already seen Frieda occupied by some unseen force that paints the tarot cards with her hands. Now Artemis and Orion occupy humans (folks who have never uttered their names) and through them have children. Both acts are metaphoric (have I beat that drum enough yet?) and fraught with questions of personal agency, the nature of humans and beasts to stake out and claim new territory in the name of survival and expansion, and of course the topics the likes of colonialism, war, and genocide. I didn’t set out to write about these subjects, though I care deeply about them. What I can say as a writer who is created by what she creates is that I am mired in the complexity of the concept and consequences of occupation (in its myriad forms) as my viewpoint shifted from character to character and context to context. It left me without a stand, yet offered me the desire and material (the story) to stay in the questions.
THE HARRIS | CROWLEY LETTERS
“I haven't written in as those Swords are plaguing the very devil with me. I can't get on–I've just finished the 8–now 10-9-2-8 are done also nearly finished 3 but I keep on first with headache & frightful fatigue, then fall down & cut my leg then burn my thumb then your furniture aerial raid & the folk what fixes the gas stove so that I am constantly driven to brandy or lying on my bed. So I don't get on altho I feverishly wish to. Today I can't work–left eye hurts like mad, it will be all right tomorrow.”
—Frieda Harris to Aleister Crowley
The correspondence that traces the co-creation of the tarot images between Frieda and Aleister gave me insight into the dynamic of their relationship and, at times, the experience Frieda had with the cards as living forces in her life as she painted. (The Ash Girl takes many liberties with the timeline, however.) See the letters transcribed here. Some of the most important mysteries she wrote to Crowley about as she painted became central to the story . . .
“However the Princess (of Disks) is now on the stocks. I wish she would not insist on being pregnant. She just will, so now I have let her get on with it. She chatters to me about being mixed up with the Virgin Mary.”
—Frieda Harris to Aleister Crowley
Oxford Clarendon Observatory
Oxford appeared in the story, as many places did, through a hunch on my part that was later confirmed with little serendipities that all added up! Once Helge was on the faculty there, I began to look up his ‘contemporaries and colleagues’ and others came looking for me. The top 3 geniuses (in my opinion) that created their work in the same story time as Professor G, and I imagine influenced each other greatly, are: C.S. Lewis (author, the Chronicles of Narnia), J.R.R. Tolkien (author, The Hobbit), and Edwin Hubble (the extragalactic astronomer and observational cosmologist).
For more about Oxford during WWII, this is an interesting bit.
CIRCULAR STORYTELLING
Fairytales and myths have a circular quality, events and spells repeat 3x, and destinies tend to repeat as well. As in our times when it is difficult to break a familial cycle of alcoholism, for instance, in The Ash Girl, Athena replays a version of her own birth mythology (see Map Chap0). Athena realizes that the Princess of Disks will take her place on the High Priestess throne and she conspires to change the Princess’ story, first by changing the color of her skin and hair in the painting, then by occupying the Aunt of the baby born in the Village of Ash (who she believes to be the foretold Princess of Disks) and bending her Will to help ruin the girl.
WHAT’S NEXT?
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