MAPS

explore the stories behind the story of

The Ash Girl

facts, truths, images, links, treasures, and juicy bits by chapter

Reader Map

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

MAPS: Chapter 0
PROLOGUE 9insights PROLOGUE 9insights

MAPS: Chapter 0

The Ash Girl opens in the North African region now more commonly called The Horn of Africa. In 1886 modern day Eritrea and Northern Ethiopia were a part of the Abyssinian and Nubian Empires. Why would the Greek Goddess, Artemis, be hunting so far from home? We might say that gods and goddesses as storied forces of nature know no boundaries of place; we might also look to historic record.

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MAPS: Chapter 2
Novel, Myth, Blog, Map, Online Novel, Greek Myth 9insights Novel, Myth, Blog, Map, Online Novel, Greek Myth 9insights

MAPS: Chapter 2

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.

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MAPS: Chapter XIII
Novel, Myth, Blog, Map, Online Novel, Greek Myth 9insights Novel, Myth, Blog, Map, Online Novel, Greek Myth 9insights

MAPS: Chapter XIII

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.

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