Edge of the Abyss
Once a year she startled awake, gasping for breath.
Chapter 6 drops us into Asmeret’s story on the morning of her twentieth birthday. (Robert Bly says of fairytales and myths, “these kind of stories move very fast.”) The last day, and last chance she gets to choose the path chosen for her in the cards and fulfill the prophecy. This is the gist of The Maiden King, the old Russian fairytale that I discovered had so many parallels . . . your divine destiny comes and calls for you a few times (the mythic 3x) and then, well, you are out of luck. You missed the boat and just gut it out the hard way for the rest of your life. This is the choice Asmeret faces, and perhaps we all face, when that last call comes.
She wakes in the branches of Tree, which we can understand as the ‘upper world’ - the world that we live in (most of the time) but even this space is somewhat liminal, between worlds, as the Tree does what trees can’t, floating over the beach and sea on a very thin slip of dirt (you may need reminding that this is the same Tree whose ‘origin story’ Grandmother taught Asmeret and they told together when she was almost five.)
So Asmeret has a job to do this day, before sunrise of the next, and it has something to do with the cards and some coins (you may also appreciate the reminder that when Frieda was initiated at age nine in the Goddesses’ cavern there were no coins to be found, but Asmeret has come by some . . . yes, you will get to see how). So she travels ‘below’ to the ‘middle world’ - a room suspended between Tree and the sea made up of a tangle of roots. Here she stows her belongings (including books), and here she performs rituals she has been taught by the Witch of the Woods. (Did you catch that the witch is Hestia, who stationed herself with Raven in the witch’s hut north of The Village of Ash when Asmeret was very young to keep an eye on things - keep her alive until it is time.)
It’s time.
Asmeret has had many many chances (as you will some to see) to accept who and what she is and get on with it (for everyone’s sake) and she hasn’t. So by morning what the goddesses know about the prophecy times out and the whole world will be in the dark, again. What does she need to do? Asmeret has built up a narrative of who and what she is that is filled with self-blame, shame, and deep sorrow. She has not had the Will or capacity (including the much needed support of her village) to see herself as powerful and good. The cards and her guides are giving her that chance now. And as you and I can attest, it is damn hard to go back to the most painful experiences of our lives and face them.
There is grace in accepting all that we are and have done; none of us are benign creatures in this world doing no harm. AND with wise guides and some tricks from the art of re-storying we can see, honor, and love our divine aspects in each of those moments.
You may have wondered why Asmeret is re-telling her most terrible life events (and then the terrible thing happened) as a mythic story for her daughter, Theia, in the third person (Princess Asmeret). It’s a psychological ploy that helps you detach (care deeply without succumbing to being re-traumatized) from the story so you can see it and participate in it from a different perspective. Start to integrate what you can and shift and shed the old story that is holding you back. The modern version of this is called Narrative Practice or re-authoring (all grounded in Narrative Therapy) and I am a huge fan of the practice, which I have used for myself, and offered to clients, over the course of many years.
As you are tempted to work on your own story, you may try to shift out of first person and into third for a bit. Try it on. See how it fits.
So Asmeret is under Tree, all of her guides and ancestors are present, and she is starting to do the really tough work of remembering and re-storying her life. As she does a portal opens (to the ‘under world’ - the lowest of low, which in this story is also the highest of high) and she gazes into the darkness where chaos meets khaos.
Just as Grandmother had a stream of visions as she transitioned to ancestor, so Asmeret has flashes of memories of this life as she stands on the edge of transitioning to whoever is next for her . . . please don’t stress about remembering the names of the breadcrumbs . . . ghost, fortuneteller, the little black dog. All will come clearly into view in time. HOWEVER if you want the visual of who is who so far, don’t forget, you can always access the CHARACTER MAP for the chapter.
And so, dear readers, we will follow Asmeret’s quest starting at zero, her own birth, and (most likely, as this is a myth) circle back to the edge of the abyss.
