MAPS: Chapter 3
Doors in the Sky, Tarot Exhibition, Quantum Tarot Reading, and Divine Breadcrumbs
for a CHAPTER 3 Character MAP see the blog. In future releases you will find it here.
Charlotte sees Helge as The Prince of the North in her favorite book of fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Illustration by Kay Nielsen.
Helge was named for my maternal grandfather, Helge Harold Bly. I hope the professor captures the essence of the gentle, intelligent presence he had in my life as a child. His sisters are honored in namesake, Gert, and the (fictional) youngest sister, Kristine, is named for my own sister, Kristi, who has always offered all that she has to whomever is most in need, especially the babies. (The real Kristine was named, Violet)
My grandpa, Helge Harold Bly, holding me with my sister Kristi and brother Randy beside.
Doors in the Sky
Doors between worlds are everywhere in The Ash Girl . . . door in the floor of an attic, the door to the goddesses’ cavern in your dreams, a god and goddess slipping into the body of a man and a woman to experience, briefly, the pleasures of flesh and bone. And the door that releases the cagebirds of our beliefs* when a piece of writing, a story whispered in your ear, a piece of music, or a painting arrests your ability, and desire, to think and critique. This state of attention has been called ‘aesthetic arrest’ attributed to James Joyce by my guy, Joseph Campbell. The secret door Helge pursues is someplace in the Northern sky where, as a boy, he watched an aurora born while playing where land meets the seas.
- *a bit of wisdom and words from J.R.R. Tolkien
I invite you to lean into that space where myth meets what you thought was reality.
THOTH TAROT EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
(Partial Inside Cover***)
Frieda Harris finishes painting the tarot with Aleister Crowley by 1941 but her work is not done. She plans exhibitions and raises money to fund the making of the 78 paintings into cards. She even wrote the accompanying booklet that describes each exhibit - her shorthand interpretation of every card. (This is the very same “TAROT Book of Thoth” Ben has on hand when he interviews Frieda at the Randolph Hotel.)
But is the destiny written for Frieda in the cards fulfilled? Certainly she has lived into her name, Soror Tzbaba Sister Host, as the goddesses occupy her to paint and play. Yet, the cards have not found their true reader; have not found their way to Africa (as Frieda strangely feels compelled to make happen). And a sign of what the prophecy of the four tarot princesses really means is working its way into Charlotte’s mind . . .
*** “ . . . the exhibition of the Thoth Tarot which premiered in 1941. The first show was to take place at the Nicholson and Venn Galleries, but this was cancelled shortly before the supposed opening. Crowley was infuriated by this, and told Frieda Harris to remove the part from the catalogue where the name and details of the Galleries were mentioned. Therefore the title page of this catalogue appears clipped. The exhibition premiered shortly after at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford.” - from the website http://www.tarokki.fi/ (the link to the full .pdf is broken and I can no longer find it! If you do find a link please let me know.)
Divine Breadcrumbs
wherein sometimes the signs are actually, well, signs
"Donec Rursus Impleat”
Until It Should Fill the World Again
- Somerville College motto
“Charlotte's attention dropped from the plaque to the professor sliding along his track. Until it should fill the world again. She would ask him this too. What is it? The word tapped at her brain like a woodpecker with a rhythmic insistence, drilling through her layers of thought taptaptaptaptaptap reaching a part that sent a jolt down her spine making her shift in her seat. It, it, it. Where had it gone? Why had it gone from the world and what, exactly were they to do until it returned? Charlotte eyed the Professor and resolved that today she would get through to him somehow, make him see her.”
-CHAPTER 3 | THE ASH GIRL
When this image of Heddy Lamaar in the Peacock Gown came to my attention, I immediately thought of Frieda’s feathered cape for the exhibit of her thoth tarot paintings in Oxford in 1941. (I have no evidence of what Frieda wore to that historic event, but she is storied to wear something like this in the myth, The Ash Girl.)
Charlotte’s Somerville College has an incredible story itself. Click on the image to explore their history blog.
THE PRINCE OF DISKS (EARTH) | BEN
My friend, Jul, asked me, “So where are the gods?”
There is a line or two in The Ash Girl that allude to the goddesses, alarmed by the state of the worlds, calling the gods together to find solutions. “No thanks, we’re good” was their (paraphrased) answer.
Now this book (as my sister Kristi pointed out, with appreciation) is NOT a man-hater manifesto, instead you will find the Princes coming (as is the law of their world) when the Princesses call up the mountain (See Consilience Post 2), to the mutual, equitable, and unifying interest of both.
And please, keep top of mind as you read (this book or the tarot) that Prince is a metaphor for the masculine aspect of every human, and the Princess for the feminine.
THIS on the Prince of Disks from Angeles Arrien:
“(they) forge ahead like Taurus, the Bull, to implement structures and forms that are solid, abundant, and beautiful.”
QUANTUM TAROT READING
“ATU VI | THE LOVERS, sat between them. Ben reported what he saw. It pictured a wedding. A king with blue-black-blue skin held the hand of a queen with blonde hair and flowing orange robes. Twins, just walking age, one fair-skinned, one dark, crossed arms at their feet. A red lion and a white raven attended the children. Presiding over the marriage loomed a figure in a hooded, red cape, its face obscured by a Möbius strip, which looped endlessly through its outstretched arms.
“What does it mean?” Ben asked.
“I think it means a thousand and one things,” Frieda began. “I’ve never been tutored in reading tarot cards, but I made these, so this is what I believe. I think the picture rearranges itself, just a little, so that at any moment in time it shows the one who has pulled it exactly what they need to see.”
“So I need to see a wedding of an African man and a white woman?” Ben asked, a little bit irritated, a lot confused.
“No,” Frieda laughed, “First, not all dark skinned people are African. Second, you’re looking at it like a reporter. Objective. Literal. You need to see it. Let it breathe. Imagine the picture as a whole story in motion. It’s a part of your story. You have to find yourself in it.
Ben didn’t get it. All he could think about was Charlotte. He looked at the picture and it was them. The skin color of the man disappeared.”
- CHAPTER 3 | THE ASH GIRL
Ben looks and sees beneath the paint, the symbols, the color of skin, to connect heart-to-heart with the story that is his. What his ancestors, guides, and god(desse)s need him to see and believe.
One way into the cards as a reader-becoming is to study the guidebooks and even memorize that deck’s system of divination. Another is to look at the cards that come up with the third eye, feel with the sixth sense, and listen from a place of Silent Still Readiness to the voice of the abyss.
One or the other may work best for you, or a combination. My path followed a circular route . . . I first learned all I could from books, then set them aside and wrote my own guide—see and say what comes in the moment even if it is a shockingly new way of reading those cards (trusting the gift), now I find myself drawn back to read and share with clients the verbatim narrative of my favorites on the Harris | Crowley Thoth Tarot: Angeles Arrien and Lon Milo DuQuette. Using a music composition metaphor: Their way of scoring those 78 notes is Classic.
So many musicians carry messages for me from my story muses . . . I thought I might share some of them as we go. This one came to me 3 times today (NOT on repeat in my playlist) and you KNOW how I feel about the incantation x3!
Are we human or are we dancer? Close your eyes and listen for the answer.
And one last new section to MAPS! Showcasing the IMPACT and rise of GODDESS ENERGY everywhere!
Thank you to my Mom, Carole Schwinn, for passing this on to me. If you have a link to share in this section of MAPS, send to me via CONTACT
WHAT’S NEXT?
For your personal quest, book club, or gathering of friends, QUEST(ions) are offered here.
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