Death Re-storied | The Frontier of The Abyss

ATU XIII DEATH deserves to be Re-storied for our times. The Thoth deck took this on explicitly. Harris and Crowly laid the groundwork for contemporary readers, mystics, and makers of Tarot decks not to fear the Death card, or instill fear in their clients, but to take the metaphor into one’s bones and face the grief and the glory of re-making one’s self out of light and dark and ash and heart. Let’s take a look at the Death Card re-storied over time.

Left: Death card from Pierpont Morgan Bergamo deck, commonly known as the Visconti-Sforza deck, commissioned in 1450 by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. Right: Thoth Tarot deck by Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley. The bones and the snake have survived almost 500 years of interpretation. (Click here for more on the ancient origins of the Tarot.)

Contemporary versions of ATU XIII visually move even further toward the connotation of Death as transformation and rebirth. Left: Soul Cards tarot Right: Star Spinner Tarot

I thought it might be useful to hear directly from a few of the experts on the Thoth Tarot to get deeper into the Re-storying of ATU XIII (and of Asmara and Asmeret) . . .

Lon Milo Duquette

“The Hebrew letter assigned to death is Nun, which means fish. The fish is one of the most revered symbols of tenacious life and resurrection in the traditions of Western Civilization. Dead fish decay quickly and smell terrible, but the secret to life is in that stinky stuff.

The Death card of the Thoth Tarot is the antithesis of those found in traditional packs. This is no stiff grim reaper standing on the Earth, indiscriminately mowing down people . . . This Death is vivacious and flexible . . . instead of mowing down the living, he uses his scythe to stir up bubbles of new lives out of the seemingly dead and decaying sediment.”

Akron | Hajo Banzhaf

“The card shows the dance of death that embodies the eternal cycle of the ‘dying and growing’ principle in its interplay. We see a kneeling skeleton wielding a scythe and harvesting all the withered forms that have fallen through fate’s woven pattern. The separation of the mortal threads lets bubbles rise up out of the muddy cesspool where new life is germinating. It climbs up on the threads of time like shining cotton swabs, continuously expanding itself into new formations of time and space.

And in a nod to Norse mythology this: “Odin . . . could take astral trips (skrying) into distant afterlife worlds if he changed his form before doing so. His body then lay there as if it was asleep or dead. However, he himself had turned into a bird or a wild animal, a fish, or a snake.”

Angeles Arrien

“Death | Rebirth symbol represents the universal principle of detachment and release. It is through letting go that we are able to give birth to new forms. Cutting through the old binding patterns allows us to let go of the old (the Piscean fish) and give birth to new or unexpressed parts of ourselves (the Aquarian fetus-like figures).

She goes on to describe the three symbols of Scorpio (this cards astrological aspect) as important aspects of Death and Rebirth:

Scorpion: protecting and taking care of ourselves during times of change and letting go.

Snake: letting go of old identities in order to be able to express new ones.

Eagle: over-all vision and perspective is needed in order to become even more of who we are. “The bird within our nature is the spiritual essence that is always free, vital, and irrepressible. It is the part or our nature that prompt us to let go so that we can give birth to greater parts of who we are.”

I have worried at times about telling a story that APPEARS, if not understood in a mythic way, as romanticizing or endorsing suicide, particularly in these delicate, dangerous times. On the contrary, the Death card and Asmeret and Asmara’s journey are an invitation to deeply examine what is essential in our nature that may have been lost or suppressed and now wants to be enlivened and exalted.

It also calls us to doing the tough Work of letting go of what no longer serves, unpinning oneself from the expectations of others, and gestating—making from the elemental aspects of self and the (quint)essence remaining—the identity or identities that carry our gifts to the world in ways that are nurturing, life-affirming, and feel true.

FRONTIER OF THE ABYSS

It’s worth unpacking what just happened in The Ash Girl a bit more, after all we (and one million goddesses give or take) have been waiting a long time for Asmeret to take that leap into the abyss.

In circular storytelling tradition, Chapter XIII spins back to Chapter 6 —Asmeret is making her preparations beneath Tree. This abbreviated excerpt may be enough but you might also enjoy re-reading the entire scene before you move on to Chapter XIV.

“She lit four small pyres, one in each of the four sacred directions. ‘Beacons,’ the witch had advised, ‘to find your way back again.’ Her hand shook as she touched the firestone to the dried grasses and animal dung. Flinched at the blue-white flames that blazed cold instead of hot. It should have been a relief to the building heat of the day but it filled her with a terror that had no name. She had run from her strangeness all of her life, now she was out of road and out of time.

The rim of the wheel, made up of the remaining twenty cards of the major arcana, started to spin, slowly at first then faster until it was only a dervish of color and sound and light. The red leather pelt began to vibrate, breaking apart into dust, sifting through the fissures spiraling out from a hole opening in the floor below the three spinning rings—growing larger as she watched. The princesses and princes teetered on the rim of the hole.

The lowest of the four tarot princesses bows her head, crowned with the spiraling horns of a greater kudu. She stands on the edge of this life and the next staring into the abyss.”

Two additional tarot cards are worth making explicit now. Remember that Asmeret is the Princess of Disks, and she has been descending for many years through the various states of her soul, intellectual, emotional, and physical aspects (all four suits of the Tarot minor aracana). Now she takes the last step down to go up and begin her ascent. A path that will take her back UP through the suit of Disks. Specifically, she crosses the abyss from the material world to the spiritual realm. (Or from the Primary World to the Secondary World—in the Tree of Life, by the way, that path across the abyss is The High Priestess).

Two minor arcana cards represent this step: The 4 of Disks and The 3 of Disks, respectively.

The 4 of Disks came up so often for me in the early years of reading and writing this work—personally, it represented the ‘door in the floor’ that I piled boulders on to keep shut. To me it was like Pandora’s box holding the hardest emotions I knew I was susceptible to (as Asmeret is); born to feel and carry the sorrows of thousands of years of human experience. At the time I didn’t have the capacity to handle all of that. I hadn’t fully acknowledged or started to learn how to use my gifts (it’s still incredibly hard, I would say the door is maybe only 25% open). When I went to Africa I remember telling people who asked WHY? that I needed to wake up, to crack open the door in the floor, to come fully alive.

Beneath Tree, as Asmeret lights four pyres (in the four fortress towers) as ‘beacons’ for the return, she is preparing to walk through the back door (at the top of the card) into the Spirit/Secondary world, from whence she came at her birth.

Here is the bit in Chap XIII that intersects with the excerpt from Chap 6:

He stood before her. Anbessa, Father, abo. She reached out to touch him, then pulled back.

“Ask him,” her grandmother urged.

Asmeret stood still for a long time, watching the image before her waver between Anbessa, small in stature with scarified cheeks and a lion with a massive, shaggy head and three golden rings emblazoned on his forehead. When her father stood before her once more, eye to eye, heart to heart, she handed him the last coin with these words: “I know you left me to save my life.”

Red Lion slipped through the hole in the floor.

A flash of gold light filled the room from below. The hole closed.

Confused, Asmeret stopped. Listened.

Thunder. But not thunder. Hooves and paws. Galloping in a circle overhead.

“Hurry, Asmeret, please.”

When she had finished making her final preparations, Asmeret climbed out of the cavern, up the tunnel and into the pre-dawn light. Asmeret looked around. She was alone.

She walked to the edge where the roots spilled over into the sea and called in a lost language she’d heard once in a shamanic trance, that translates, roughly, to this: “I’m ready. Come for me.”

Now you might see the tunnel she crawls through as the (re)birth canal; as the door of the fortress that leads to the headwaters of the sacred rivers and the ocean of spirit. At once, the fortress is her earthly space of ritual and protection beneath Tree, the Cavern of the Goddesses’ from (and into) which the four sacred rivers flow, and the womb of the Great Mother. Now THAT is a multi-layered metaphor! (If your head hurts, that is your ancient myth-mind waking up!)

It may also be helpful to note that the 4 of Disks is called Power by Crowley, and calls us to set boundaries for ourselves—this is our power to put guards on the ‘front door’ of our personal house or fortress, only allowing in that which nurtures, serves and supports our highest purpose.

The 4 of Disks ascends to the 3 of Disks—crossing the abyss—where the Soul Work (Crowley named this card Works) of gathering your vital energies into form is done. A derivative of the Death card with the emphasis on Rebirth NOT toward individual, separated, lost human beings (descent), but toward a consciousness of unity (ascent). Toward One.

For a little closer read of the symbology of these two cards and for a little foreshadowing (and just for FUN) here is a gorgeous rendition of the Sea Goat: the patron beastie of Capricorns and the foundational astrological aspect of the 3 and 4 of Disks. I will let you, dear readers, ponder the image and how it relates to the rest of the story we know so far. If you feel so moved, I would love to hear what comes up for you.

GAGA ENERGY RISING

I have been trusting that a gorgeous Goddess Energy Rising bit of video will find me in time for each release, and last night, about 3am, THIS streamed out of my iPad and into my aching Goddess soul—the Lady Gaga ushering us through that universal divine portal of music and inviting us to touch that place where we are One.

If you think of her as a Pop Princess in a Meat Dress, I believe she deserves to be re-storied in you.

Finally, the epigraph on the Threshold page of this site also serves as the epigraph for this Chapter and the rest of the book:

View the CHAPTER XIII Character MAP

Place yourself on the READER MAP . . .

where in the world is the Ash Girl on its quest?

WHAT’S NEXT?

For your personal quest, book club, or gathering of friends, QUEST(ions) are offered here.

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