MAPS

explore the stories behind the story of

The Ash Girl

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9insights 6/21/20 9insights 6/21/20

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.

9insights 6/21/20 9insights 6/21/20

MAPS: Chapter 3

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.

9insights 6/15/20 9insights 6/15/20

MAPS: Chapter 4

Names are a ritual we are all familiar with. Names are little myths all in themselves . . . if you recall one of the 3 purposes of myth from Joseph Campbell - to give us a metaphoric way to refer to that which eludes explanation through our limited sense.

9insights 5/21/20 9insights 5/21/20

MAPS: Chapter 8

The Ace of Disks has long vexed me. Aces are hard enough, the best most can do is explain them something like, “Aces include all of the suit but only in the sense that it represents the seed or the source without any of the attributes.” Huh?

9insights 4/21/20 9insights 4/21/20

MAPS: Chapter XII

You may recall the Greek myth Tree offered early in the book about the first generation of Greek Gods (Zeus et. al.) calling a council and murdering their parent’s, the Titans (Hestia abstained). This bit of treason started the world clock (the death of Chronos) and was accompanied by the act of creating humans to quell the boredom of a perfect peaceful planet.