“You’re getting dressed up.”
I love my martial coat, but the reason I love it is why I hate taking it on or off. All those damn buttons! “Yes. And if you can, I’d like you to come along with me.”
“As adornment?” I winced at Snake’s sincere question. Though he doesn’t ride my shoulders as a snake anymore, when he did it was never as adornment to me. I can see how it would appear as such to others.
“No. As adviser. I’m stepping into unknown and dangerous territory again.” The coat properly buttoned, I started adjusting the satchel’s strap to fit around my waist and hips. “I really don’t feel comfortable going alone.”
“You? Not comfortable? You’ve walked into various underworlds and challenged Powers, and you are not comfortable?”
“Quit Snake. Okay. I’m not comfortable. Because I might have to challenge myself. And I still have a lot of shit that I can’t deal with.” I cinch the satchel and pick up the hat. I note a slight tremor in my hand.
Snake grabs my wrist. He noticed it too. “You are afraid of nothing. Where are you going, and what makes you think I’m going to allow you to try if you’re so afraid you tremble?”
“Lord Asmodel has a summons on me. It’s not compulsory… yet, but it’s not something to put off for later.”
“Asmodel? Or Asmodeus?” He still has a grip on my wrist, but he is shifting from the four-armed naga lord to his human form. The shifting skin of his palm tickles my wrist. “What did you do to get so much infernal attention lately? Has Malphas been pimping you out?”
“Asmodel. His angelic aspect. And between you and me, I would feel much better if I was meeting his demonic aspect. I am well acquainted with Lust, and know shit about Patience.”
White robed, bronze skinned, emerald eyed Snake released my hand and took the martial hat. As he placed it on my head, fitting it neatly over the corn-rows, he cocked it slightly to one side. “You’ve overcome your fear of angels. Even the Jehovian ones.”
“Come on, Snake. Don’t bullshit me like this. You know damn well what I’m bothered about.”
“The color pink?”
“Bastard! Besides, I don’t trust that association.” I realize he’s not going move until I admit to him what he already knows. “The only association I trust is Asmodel being the angel of the Qabalah path of Vau.”
“Go on.”
“Which places him as the Angel of the Hierophant card. And you know I have authority issues already.”
“You are an issue. Go on.” He leaned against the table, smiling smugly.
“The path of Vau crosses the Abyss, from Chokmah to Chesed.”
He didn’t say anything, but just waited patiently.
“Crossing the Abyss means confronting yourself. And I can’t do that.” He smiled. “I know my limitations, Snake. I know them too damn well. I’ll panic and bail. Again.”
“You crossed it before. When you went to the ridge overlooking the Temple of Ra. When you watched Sekhmet destroy the raiders. Managed to put the event to verse, even.”
“Yea, well, don’t forget that I wasn’t the one to claim that was crossing the Abyss. I’m still not sure what [the person that spoke so strongly] saw in it that gave him such a strong opinion that I had. Which alone makes me doubt that I did.” The new boots fit the martial ensemble well. I ran out of clothing articles to stall with. “Are you coming with me? I’m ready to go.”
He wasn’t armored. He did have a blue cloth around his neck, which struck me as odd because he has been given to wearing all white when in human form. His wrists and forearms were also wrapped tightly in strips of pale blue cloth. I didn’t ask nor did he volunteer to explain. He looked me over. “You’re not ready. You need one more thing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I have my satchel, which means I have everything on those shelves.”
“You’re not going to be able to reach the shelves once we leave Chesed. Whatever you think you will need, will need to be on your person.”
“And what do you think I need?”
Snake smiled. “If I tell you, it will be useless and counterproductive. I’m your escort, but this is your trial.”
I slapped his arm in frustration. “Then why the hell would you tell me that I’m not ready and that I need one more thing!” My nervousness made me fidget. My sudden insecurity had me gripping the hem of my coat. Hands. I’m going to need something to keep my hands busy so I can sink the anxiousness. I gave him severe stink-eye and pulled a certain string of beads off the shelf. I rolled them up and placed them into one of the many coat pockets. Snake only nodded.
“Okay. You’re ready. I’m ready. How are we going to get there?”
I pulled the Thoth’s Hierophant card from a chest pocket. “He’s the angel of the Hierophant card. I’m going to use the card as a pass to complete the connection. He’s issued a summons for me, so the way is open on his end. I just have to accept the summons and move to attend.”
Snake stood behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Then, let us be off.” I held the card out and announced, “I am Weaver Far-Traveled. I have been summoned by Lord Asmodel to appear before him. Open the way, that I may pass!” The card flashed with a brilliant light that enveloped Snake and me and removed us from the lair.
…
Darkness.
Utter darkness.
It was not just a darkness of sight, but a darkness of knowing. It wasn’t a complete darkness though. There were… glimmers…
I knew that I knew nothing. I knew that I should know something. But what that something was, I knew not.
I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what I was. I didn’t know if I existed, or if I was just a ripple of darkness folded in over itself. I did not know I was utterly terrified. I did not know what terror was. There were many things around me, but I did not know them.
I see. But I did not understand what I saw. Colors and shapes moved about me in random directions, turning on random axes. I knew the names of the colors, but did not know what the colors were of. That is white. That is blue. That is the kind of black that can be seen. That is silver. That is… wait… I know that.
I reached out and took hold of the multitude of little things bound together by string. As I touched them, I knew them. Beads. These are beads. And they are made from horn. And they keep my hands busy. They give me something to… I knew there should be a word to follow. As I struggled to find the proper word to follow, I remembered all the words. Language. Ideas. Abstraction. Simile. Sounds and symbols and representations and metaphor and…
“Focus.” I spoke and the realm around me suddenly fell into emanations my senses could perceive and process. I gripped the beads tightly with both hands and kept my sight on them as gravity suddenly asserted itself at my feet. The multiple disconnected floating abstractions reunited with its proper neighbors. I felt a slight chill around me as the realm remade how it presented itself to me. Unnecessary air filled my useless lungs because that is what I expected my body to have. I felt a weight on my shoulder. I turned my head to look, and saw a bronze-skinned hand emerging from tight blue wrappings.
“Welcome to the Abyss, Weaver.” Snake withdrew his hand and smiled at me. I felt like I had passed a test. I was crying, but I don’t understand why. I had the taste of terror in my mouth, but was ignorant of what was I terrified of. I didn’t know, and I felt panic trying to creep across my soul again. I gripped my hands and felt the beads press into my palm again. The sensation brought my focus back to the fore and the panic receded.
I wiped the tears from my face. “Really? Seriously? Well, fuck. Ha!” I was dressed in my formal martial garments. The hat planted firmly (but still cockeyed) on my head. Snake was still in his white Berber robes, with the strange flashes of blue cloth peeking from within. I realized the way my voice was echoed back to me was strange and unusual.
I look around and find Snake and I are on a narrow bridge hewn from black stone. There are no railings to prevent us from falling off the four foot wide path. About twenty feet behind us the bridge connects with the roof and parapets of a tall tower. The darkness around us conceals the details of the tower and what the tower is built on. Before us, the bridge extends past the limits of my sight, appearing to merge with the darkness in the distance. Below us, the darkness abides. Above us, the darkness conceals. But where I stand, I am able to see myself and Snake clearly despite no obvious source of light.
“Ah. Look. It’s a visual representation of the Abyss.” I chuckle even as fear turns my stomach again. Involuntarily gripping the beads and feeling their texture in my hands keeps me calm. “Pretty neat, if I may say so. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go beat my terror into a corner.” Snake chuckles while I use the beads to keep myself focused and calm.
“The way back is not barred? I don’t know why I’m surprised. Ah well. If this bridge is the representation of the Path of Vau, then it would stand that Lord Asmodel, as the angel or guardian of the path, would be at the halfway point of the bridge. Yes?”
I peered along the length of the bridge, but saw only darkness.
“But how long is the bridge? If this is the Abyss we’re crossing, it could extend for hundreds of miles.” Snake sounded concerned. Which was unlike Snake. I whirled to face him, and sure enough, he was smiling smugly.
“The bridge is as long as it needs to be. My fear will only make crossing it take that much longer. I can not carry fear with me.” I thought of when I watched Death in the form of Sekhmet. When she glanced up at me, I knew I was as good as dead myself, but I had no fear of it. I cheered her on then, and spoke her praises. I needed to be that level of fearless again. “To fear is to fall. I will not fall. Therefore, I will not fear.” I gripped the beads tightly, turned towards the embracing darkness, and began walking forward.
Snake followed behind me, a few steps away so as not to crowd me. Not even ten steps away, the echoing sound told me the tower of Chesed was no longer behind us. I continued forward, having wrapped the beads around my hand to keep them comfortably pressed into my skin. The further we walked, the better I was able to focus on the reason for coming here. Lord Asmodel had requested my presence, and I was going to answer his summons.
A stray thought unnerved me. “What if I’m dead, and I’m walking away from the living once and for all?” It was a silly thought, one that went against all I understood and believed. But it struck me deep, tripping up my spirit and my footing. I fell into the darkness.
I will not fear. I felt a thing between finger and thumb. I will not fear and I will keep my focus. The thing between finger and thumb gained weight, and I felt other things connected to the one trapped in my hand. I will not fear. I will keep my focus. I will admit I am sometimes very afraid of things I should not be afraid of at all. But I will not flee from it. I felt my body and clothes on my body. I felt the necklace of beads hanging from my hand, my thumb resting on the first bead after the knot. I felt a cold hard surface under my knees. I felt Snake standing behind my kneeling form. “I will not fear for the sake of fear.” My voice sounded strangely solemn in my ears.
I could feel Snake smiling behind me. “Then stand, and do not fear.” His words sealed me back to the bridge. I stood up and realized I was crying again. My face was soaked with tears. When I turned to face him, he only smiled gently at me. I wiped away the tears, nodded and turned back towards Chokmah.
“Did I miss anything?” I was trying to joke but my cracking voice betrayed my still unsettled spirit.
Snake reached around and tapped my chin. “Yea, you have a tear hanging right here.”
I turned and gave him stink-eye but was laughing just the same. “Smart ass.” The humor settled me enough that I could continue. I took a deep breath, gripped the beads tightly again, and continued across the black bridge.
Several times stray thoughts tripped me up, causing me to fall off the bridge. Each time, I was able to recover myself with the help of the beads. The beads themselves were inert. They held nothing magic or spiritual within them. All they did was give me a physical focus for my attention, something solid to feel in my hands. But that was all I needed to begin the process of focusing my spirit and rejecting the false causes for fear that was distracting me from my goal. “I will not fear for the sake of fear.” became my mantra.
I did notice that every time I recovered myself and brought myself back to the bridge, the beads would have advanced in my hand with my thumb resting on the bead consecutive from the one before. The string has 108 beads. It wasn’t long before I was at the twentieth bead. I quit counting at that.
The level smoothness of the bridge was interrupted. A podium of black stone rose about two feet from the walking surface of the bridge. On this podium was a grand black throne of hard wood. Draped over the throne were black and red cloths. Seated on the black and red cloths was an entity in the appearance of a man in robes of black and red, with a black crown on his head, and two grand black wings with white tips coming from his back. In his right hand, he held a large empty bowl. In his left hand he held a plain black rod upright. His eyes were closed, but I knew he was watching us.
So much for pink. I was amused and wary. I wondered if I was encountering the spirit of the hidden sephira of Daath. Some regarded Daath as the completion of the Tree of Life. Some regarded it as a false sephira, that trapped the unwary and those impure of soul. I greeted the throned figure with respect anyway.
“I am Weaver Far-Traveled.” The figure remained motionless. “I have been summoned by Lord Asmodel. But having never met him, and having little knowledge about him, I will not recognize him on sight.” The figure cocked his head at me, but kept his eyes closed. I quit trying to use proper words and spoke my concerns plain. “I am advancing on what little I know and ask that I be brought into his presence if you are not him.”
“And what do you know?” The figure spoke, rattling my bones with the intense bass of his voice.
“I know he and Asmodeus, the Demon of Lust and the Ruling Power of Golachab, are one and the same. I know he is the Angel of the path of Vau, which crosses from Chokmah to Chesed, and as such, he is the Angel of the Hierophant card, and the Angel of the house of Taurus. I know he is the Angel of Patience. And I know he has summoned me. And that is all that I know of him with any sense of faith.” My mouth felt dry. I worried that I was being tested again.
He held the bowl so I could see it. The formerly empty bowl now held a small amount of something like water in the bottom of it. Fear of being judged gutted me and I fell.
When I returned, I noted I was at the 53rd bead. (The string has marker beads dividing it into halves, thirds, and sixths.) I apologized for falling and for being afraid. I felt Snake behind me and I was ashamed that he was witness to so many of my failures. Shortly after, I was at the 54th bead, halfway through the string.
“You lack patience.” I wanted to laugh at the figure’s pronouncement. I only nodded and agreed. “You will not be able to continue without patience.” Well, fuck! I smiled instead of laughing. It makes sense, after all, that the Angel of Patience can only be approached by those having patience. The rest of us are beggars.
I did not turn away. I had a summons to fulfill. “How then, Crowned and Throned, may I develop the patience I need?” I felt Snake look at me oddly, but I did not turn my head to meet his stare.
He moved the bowl again so I could see within it. The amount of fluid within it had increased slightly. I had a glimmer of understanding, but it did not remain with me long enough to germinate. “You focus on your beads so as to not focus on fear. But the beads are not why you are here. Why do you not focus on what you are here for?”
“Because I know the beads. I know their feel and their weight. I know them almost as well as I know breathing. They are predictable and almost immutable. I know them, and this knowledge forces away my fear. I do not know Lord Asmodel. I have told you all I know of him, and most of that are assumptions based on flawed sources. There is much more room for fear to flood over me if I were to focus on Lord Asmodel than if I were to focus on the beads.”
“You wish to meet Lord Asmodel. You are in his realm, on his path, yet you do not recognize him. Meditate then, on him, and learn the patience you need to continue.” The figure moved the bowl back to his lap where I could not see the contents. I bowed in respect to him and turned to Snake in silent askance. Snake only nodded.
If only I knew how to meditate on something I do not know! I have knelt on riverbanks and dwelt on the passing waters. I have lain below trees and dwelt on the growing of leaves. I have been buried and dwelt on mycelium. But these were all things that I had a working knowledge of beforehand. I have not tried to dwell on the knowledge of a person since my Christian days. I know how easy it is to confuse the vain wishing for the reality. This way lies self-reinforcing madness.
I knelt before the crowned and throned figure and held the necklace of beads with both hands. My thumb still at the 54th bead, I tried dwelling on the nature of patience by what the stereotype of Taurus represents. The patience of the planted seed, the patience of the long-range plan, the patience of the steadfast, the faithful, and the sure. This is the only type of patience I know.
“Why are you here?” It is a different voice that speaks. It sounds like a small child. I hear it in my head. I find myself unable to form complete sentences. “Asmodel”, is all I can whisper.
I find my thumb is at the 55th bead.
I resume my meditations on patience. The cold hard stone stops bruising my knees. I forget how to breath and cease. I forget I never needed to breath and don’t worry about breathing at all. I hear myself murmuring but I do not recognize the language I am using or the meanings of what I am saying.
“Why are you here?” Another different voice. I whisper, “Asmodel.”.
The string advances.
I forget Snake is with me. I forget I am kneeling. I forget the bridge is below me. With each forgetting, I lose a layer of physical knowing. With each forgetting, I gain a knowing of patience. Of the rotting body in the ditch. Of the mantle rock melting into magma. Of the dedication of the heart muscle. Of processes that do not require, nor have, conscious thought.
“Why are you here?” “Asmodel.”
A sudden brightness pours over me. I suddenly feel flesh and air and clothes and cold stone bruising my knees and Snake standing behind me and beads in my hands. I look up to see the throne and the one seated on the throne is gone. The podium remains however.
A voice speaks from the podium. “Remember, for you shall have to answer when you return.” Return? Oh, I do feel the Waking world starting to pull at me. The brightness above the podium congeals into a figure. I look and look and look and am stunned into stupor by what I see. I glance at Snake who only nods solemnly.
The figure is a depiction of a brown haired, white skinned, Jesus with a golden spiked halo around his head. He is in swaths of red and green cloth, appearing as if he had just stepped out of an icon. He pulls the cloth over his chest to the side and reveals a glow on his chest. The glow intensifies and becomes a beating anatomically correct heart wrapped in thorns with a flame rising from it.
I smile. It is a familiar image. One I have seen countless times. Jesus revealing his sacred heart is a comforting image to many that I know. I memorize the appearance of Jesus. Even down to the sandalled feet barely shown by his floor length robes.
The image of Jesus smiles at me. I’m glad to be able to remain with hate or fear. He moves his hand and pulls his robes to the side, revealing the length of his body. I almost choke in sudden stupor and immediately question if I am ignorantly dead after all.
Jesus is wearing a black lace underbust corset. I note the lace makes a visually lovely contrast against his pale white skin. He is also wearing black lace panties, with a matching garterbelt. The garterbelt is connected to a pair of black lace hose that extends to stirrups on his feet. I note the robes are of such length that I never saw the hosiery until he pulled his robes to the side. Jesus has a nice leg.
“Is this blasphemy?” The question materialized in my head disconnected from any presumption of voice. I started to stammer that I was not the right person to ask, and that I did not have the right to answer when the light from Jesus’ halo flashed and blew me out of the dream/vision.
I woke up and sat up in bed, the image of Jesus with a Flaming Sacred Heart and in full hosiery still vivid in my mind. “I don’t know!”, I muttered to the walls. “And I’m the wrong person to ask.”
Great. More homework.