“Not all angels.”, sniffed the terrifying messenger, kir wings of fire barbs and offended eyespots winding tightly around the multitude of pouting mouths that covered every inch of glowing skin. “Not all angels are terrifying, and I’ll have you know I have never intentionally caused any mortal to defecate in their clothing as a result of my appearance. Mortals are just weak that’s all.”
My animated shadow and I just looked at each other. I gestured towards the screaming mouths in the angels feet and the five joints on each finger that bore inward pointing thorns that were used to rip apart the firmament so kir could make a properly dramatic appearance.
“Well, you are dreaming.” My shadow smirked.
“Yea… but… fucking seriously?” I wasn’t terrified by the angel. And to be honest, I think that was more upsetting to the angel than my observation that angels are terrifying. “And I’m supposed to be sent screaming by mere body horror? Next you’ll be saying I’m supposed to faint at the sight of blood when I have my period. Fuck this. I’m out.”
I flipped off both my shadow and the angel as I turned to walk out of the dream. My shadow laughed and quickly caught up with me, sliding kir arm around my waist and teasing me more about the angel’s defense.
“What’s next? Angel’s Right Activists?” My shadow laughed even louder and we both forgot about the angel we were abandoning.
“You should treat me with respect, you know! I serve a mighty god and he will smite you for your impiety!” The angel’s voice boomed over the landscape, buckling the borders of the pocket universe.
My shadow and I stopped, looked at each other, and slowly turned back to the now very angry, very inflamed angel. “Your kind were made to worship and adore! Know your place!”
My eye twitched as my shadow tightened kir grip on me. I wanted to teach the angel a thing or two about what my kind were capable of. My shadow was trying to speak but the fountains of laughter only allowed kir to keep me firmly in place.
“Jesus Fucking Christ. I should be pissed enough to tear apart the world, but honestly, I’m not fucking surprised. I’m going to have to make a bucket to hold angel tears.” The initial surge of anger having passed, all I could do was join my shadow in bubbles of mirth.
The not intentionally terrifying angel, having failed to terrify me by its existence, or dominate me by assertion, folding kir wings around kirself even tighter and harrumphed out of the pocket universe.
I collapsed against my shadow, and the two of us sunk to the ground in shrieks and peals of impious, unafraid, and defiant laughter.
Having recovered from the asschapped angel, I walked out of that dream and into a library. This pleased me because I could use the setting to connect to various Over Yonder information sources. I went to the Occult and Magical Studies section to find the shelves had been nearly completely cleared.
“Oh dear. I don’t know if to hope you’re with them, or to warn you to leave if you’re not.” I recognized the small, shy woman with the oversized round glasses as the library attendant. Her appearance was precise and familiar, which concerned me. If she was who I thought she was, then I’m in a certain private library. And if she is, and she is concerned, then there is much reason to worry.
“I come in peace, but offer my services to defend your library if needed. Or to rescue any books if necessary.” I bowed formally as I spread my open hands in yielding.
“Oh, you’re so sweet. No, it’s nothing of that nature. It’s just a group of academics came in and… well… academics! I’m going to be chasing their echoes out of the stacks for years! You’d think professional scholars would know how to behave in a library.” I heard sudden shouting and the pounding of fists on a table. “Children! Oh. Sorry, dear. I’m complaining and forsaking my own duty. Was there a particular book you were looking for?”
I scanned the shelves and noted the subsection I was looking for was completely empty. “Yea. My timing sucks. I wanted to read up on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trimestigus, Kabbalah, and or tarot. Specifically, how the major occult societies map the tarot to the Tree of Life and why. But that shelf is completely cleaned out. I think I’d have better luck on the Internet knowing how academics tend to hog books.”
The petite woman sniffed her disdain at the mention of the Internet. “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again! Not in my library!” She pouted in a cute and aggressive manner that allowed me to recognize when I saw her before. Yes, she’s the person I thought she is, and her presentation is intentionally made to appear safe and non-threatening to me. This woman that looks a third of my size could kick my ass into a grease spot on the ground and not make a single book shudder from the percussion. “Was that your only field of study today, sweetie?”
I normally ask folks not to call me terms of endearment like that. However, she’s the Librarian. And the Librarian can do whatever the fuck she pleases in her Library. I’d rather piss off a death god than annoy the Librarian.
“Well… Yea. I need to find out about Mother Mary.”
“Which one?” She smirked as I despaired.
“Um. Okay. It’s one of those rabbit holes. Alright. Lemme start from the surface then. The Roman Catholic Mary, mother of Jesus. I suppose I need to know how she developed from the person to the… well hell… I really don’t know what she is. I guess she’s like a super-saint, but she doesn’t have the same… saintness?… like the others. Help?”
The Librarian scrunched her face as she sighed. “That is on the other side of the academics. We’ll have to walk past them to reach those books. If your inquiry into this Mother Mary also involves Kabbalah and tarot, then we may have to rescue those books from the academics as well.”
“I’ll be brave. I’ve been at Black Friday midnight events. Not a problem.”
The academics were seated at a series of tables where many of the nearby paths converged. Books were open and laying on other books as they shouted past each other in attempts of verbal dominance. The Librarian rolled her eyes as we approached.
“Weaver!” Fuck. “Get over here! Help me settle this shit!”
I looked at the speaker but didn’t recognize him. “Not my circus. Not my monkey. Besides, my lack of recognized authority will only hurt your position.”
He quickly cleared away books to make a place for me to sit. I heard the Librarian hissing at another of the academics some threats that if any of the spines of the books are cracked, they will be mended by the cracking of the guilty party’s marrow. I knew the threat to be a legitimate one.
The academic, a bald man with twice as long a beard as what should have been on his head, laughed at me as he pulled me beside him. “She’s done it. She has willfully crossed the Abyss four times. She knows.”
“Whoa there! I don’t know shit and I have the writings to prove it. What the hell are you claiming I know when I’m in the Library to find out?”
He ignored my protestations and rolled out a large map. The Tree of Life was inscribed on it with labels in many different languages. He pointed to the path between Chokmah and Chesed, and the path between Geburah and Binah. “And these two are those she consciously walked.”
One of his opponents crossed his arms in a posture that declared victory. “Bullshit. Vain dreams and dangerous wishing. No one can cross the Abyss consciously.”
“She did!”
“Prove it!”
A book was thrown down over the map. It was opened to a dogeared page that made the Librarian’s eye twitch to see. “Here. Her own words! Read them and tell me that there isn’t something there!”
His opponent picked up the book and scanned the open page. “She could have collected these tells from reading the works of previous masters. And she is a woman! No woman can even approach the Abyss, much less cross it. Her gender alone invalidates her account.”
I was angered, but not surprised by the dismissal. I was reminded of what Dionysus demanded I cut off me in sacrifice to him, and I found the god’s request more than justified after the fact. When the misogynist closed the book and threw it roughly on the table, the Librarian roared to silence the clamor.
“The Collected Writings of [Weaver Far-Traveled]”, was gilded on the book in silver leaf. The spine was two inches thick. The page in question, the one referring to my posts on the Path of Cheth and the Path of Vau was only a quarter inch into the book.
If all my public posts so far are only a quarter inch into a two inch book, what the hell have I yet to do?
The book’s title distracted me from the resumption of the academic’s antics. I was nudged back into awareness and a card was shoved into my hand. “Hey, put this in place, would you. We’re trying to finish your map of the Tree of Life based on your writings but you weren’t clear with where this went.”
It is the Rider-Waite-Smith Emperor card. “Where is the Star?”, I asked. If they have placed that, then a decision was made without me.
“Uh, we don’t know yet. Everything is waiting for the Emperor first.”
I look at the table. The Fool, Magician, High Priestess, and Empress have been placed already. “You’re going by card order. I’ve only experienced two cards. The Chariot and the Hierophant.”
A robed and veiled academic coughed to catch my attention. “Three. The World.”
I turned to look at the deep voiced speaker. The veil covered all but kir eyes. “How the fuck do you figure that?”
Ke turned so kir body’s posture returned my stare. “Little Miss Saturn. You didn’t write about the trip from Malkuth to Yesod, but you did post about the descent.”
I remembered the post he described. At the time it seemed to me just a delightful conversation had between me and her during freefall. Nothing of importance about falling back down to earth in a dream, I thought. But now, after all I’ve seen since then…
“Well, fuck.”
“Here, you’re using the wrong tarot deck to hang cards with. That’s a common deck. Use this one.” The speaker wore [a certain headdress] on his head. He was holding out a large size Thoth tarot deck.
The speaker that had handed me the Emperor card slapped the Thoth bearer’s hand away. “There is nothing wrong with common when she knows what is uncommon about it. Let her use the symbols she is comfortable with.”
“But Waite was wrong.”, declared the Thoth bearer.
“And Crowley is full of shit!” The retort was quick and sharp.
And the table erupted once more into volleys of words, accusations, table thumping, and shouts of magical reprisal. I felt like I was overseeing a kindergarten recess.
“I can’t use Crowley’s deck for my personal studies. Not anymore.” My quiet reply stunned the table into a deafening silence. “I, uh, heh. I had to cut that off of me. It was getting in the way. I didn’t understand that at the time, but now I do. I can use his words and teachings when divining with his deck, since those are the words that frame and the hues that color the window, so to speak. But I can’t use his Thoth to be the primary light in my lantern. Not for my personal paths. Not anymore.”
The academic that had handed me the RWS card stood a little taller and a lot more smug. The academic with the oversized Thoth tarot squeezed the deck with a vibrant simmering anger. “And I can’t depend on Waite’s deck either.” The Thoth academic allowed himself to smirk at the sudden deflating of the academic next to me. “It’s not because of what is common or uncommon, but how that deck relates to me. Waite’s meanings are not authoritative for me. They are a start, but how I have been reading the cards has differed over time from his teachings. Not to mention the misogyny and racism of his time. It pervades all of this teachings and while I can see through the filter of his era, it does not apply to my era. He laid the foundation of my understanding of tarot as cartomancy, but I have had to dig that foundation up and lay something more substantial afterward. Sorry.”
I handed the RWS Emperor card back to the academic that gave it to me. Leaning over the table, I placed both hands on the map of my Tree of Life and claimed ownership of it. “Well, since you guys have made this all about me, I’m going to take advantage of the opening. I came to the Library to sort out this very question. That the Tree of Life is a viable paradigm for me is well determined. If I was walking paths along it before I even knew what the paths were, then this is something open to me. But my map is incomplete, as you all have noted. The Emperor card has not been hung because I have not settled on whose map to take and make my own. I thought it would be Crowley’s Thelema, but as we all have noted and read, that has been removed from me.”
“Esteemed Scholars and Knowing Folk, if you have been reading my exploits so far, as far as the Library will allow you to read, then you know of the solution to the puzzle of the stone and the deck. I do believe, that solution will be the same answer to this puzzle before us. The jasper in question is the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trimestigus, and the red wrapped deck is the Hermetic Tarot deck. However, there are two Hermetic tarot decks. Granted, the original Hermetic Tarot comes in a red box, which would match the red silk of the dream. But I do not know about the history of that deck. Is it a Golden Dawn deck? If so, would I be taking back on the misogyny and racism that I rejected of White?”
I patted my right hand, and an apparition of the red boxed Hermetic Tarot deck appeared there. I patted my left hand and a different deck, in a black box that shimmered with iridescent rainbow hues appeared. “But there is another Hermetic deck, recently released. The Hermetic Kabbalah Tarot seeks to be a tool for the hermetic student, and displays a lot more information than the Hermetic Tarot. I’m not in complete agreement with some of the cultural mashups, but it is more open than the red box tarot. And it’s three times the price. Heh.”
“But how do I vet these decks? How do I vet the information I’m given. As you detractors among us have already pointed out, I deviated from the script a long time ago. I know some things are intentionally blinded to the public, and that some things must be personal revelation and personally experienced. That which I had trusted before turned out to be a handicap. And then there’s the issue of religion and spiritual beliefs. I am not a monotheist. I have seen and experienced too damn much to be able to accept those structures as my own again. How can I use these tools then, if their basic assumption is based on this?”
I pointed to the circle representing Binah. It glowed with a brilliant and soft blue light. Marian blue. “You guys are hogging the books I came in here for, so you might as well help me out with this conundrum as well. Point blank, I need to know all about Mary. I don’t exactly have a good relationship with any maternal figures in physical life or Over Here, so I am at a great disadvantage here. If Mother Mary is my manifested world’s representation of the Tree of Life’s Supernal Mother, then I really need to know fucking why, really fucking quick. I know modern hermeticism is balls deep with Roman Catholic references, and while I can work around that, I’m not exactly thrilled with the prospect of placing myself back under Christian paradigms and leashes. I will not be remorseful for not be incarnated in a non-white body. I will not be despairing that I was born with a vagina, or that my meatsuit’s self identity is female. I will not throw away all I have gained with other non-Christian entities because someone in the upper realms found his dick and called it good. Do I make myself clear?”
I looked around the tables at the thirty odd academics that were surprisingly listening to me. Some of them smiled with barely concealed pride at my boundary marking. Some of them scowled as I had just viciously rejected the source of their power. Most of them just nodded in quiet recognition that we each have to find our own way.
“I take it you have had some unpleasant experiences?” The academic that questioned was sharing an inside joke at my expense. The feral growl that answered chased the grin off his face and elicited a fear reaction from him before he recovered himself.
“One could say that. Would you like a demonstration?” I caught my rage before it could surface fully and allowed it to only change my teeth into sharp fangs.
The academic learned his lesson quickly. “No. That’s okay. So… ~gulp~ Before you can determine what this Mother Mary is to you, you have to finish framing your Tree of Life and decide which paradigm you are going to use with it. Until then, trying to understand her and her relationship to Binah will be like trying to learn several different languages at once without a teacher to guide you.”
“Or worse, the lot of us!” I didn’t see who threw that rejoinder into the tension filled air, but I was thankful for it. The group laughter that followed shattered the tension and released me from the aggression I didn’t know I was clenching with my teeth.
An academic with the most beautiful manicured nails reached over my map and picked up the apparition of the red box. “Well, if your dream showed you a red wrapped hermetic deck, and the Hermetic Tarot is in a red box, then you should obtain it. Obtaining a physical representation of the Emerald Tablet is not necessary if you understand the various translations of it. However, you seem to be a very tactile person. Touch is as important to you as imagination. A physical deck will help you focus on the Tree of Life without other people’s interpretations getting in the way.” She placed the apparition closer to my right hand.
The robed and veiled male academic that pointed out the third trip on the Tree of Life stepped closer and picked up the black box of the Hermetic Kabbalah Tarot. “I agree with my associate, but disagree about the choice of decks. Sight is equal to touch with you. If anything, you are a hedonist about the senses. The elaborate drawings and scenes of the Hermetic Tarot will be distracting as they are based in the same misogynist and racists underpinnings that you rejected from Waite’s teachings. However, this deck is just the necessary information. You need no one to imagine the scenes for you. I know this deck is three times the cost, but you only need one, and you do keep your tools well.” He placed the black box next to my left hand.
“I would also like to point out,” he continued, “that both decks transmit the same centuries old information. You can not escape the misogyny completely. You can only be aware of the differences between masculine and feminine and seek what the old masters of before were trying to convey in the language of their time. You have identified the filter, now reverse it.”
He leaned in close. It was impossible for him not to be overheard, but it was clear what followed was strictly for me. “And as far as Mother Mary, remember she is using the cultural filters that you know so you can recognize her and approach her. Remember the lesson of [that thing].”
Oh. Shit. Wait. Who the fuck is this guy to know about [that thing]?
He leaves before I can grasp him. I turn to see where he went, but he has already departed from the Library. Behind me, the Librarian is threatening another patron with severe mental harm if he dogears another page again. The academics have started arguing amongst themselves about which tarot deck I should use for the Tree of Life and why. Their gibbering reminds me of trying to read Internet forums and gave me a headache.
I remember the tome of my words and look for it as I roll up the map of my Tree of Life and tuck it under my arm, but it has already been claimed by another reader. “No cheating, Weaver!” The librarian was cheery in her admonition. “You have many readers, you know. Your books are always in demand!”
“Idle entertainment for them, I am sure.”
“No. What you write is very important for others. And yourself.” Her answer was strangely somber, sober, and hallowed.
I looked at the Librarian. A walking stereotype of the small and mousy book addict but capable to rending apart worlds. There will be no repeat of Alexandria on her watch. She has read every book in here, and is the caretaker of more knowledge than I can pretend to have heard of. She smiled to reassure me.
“I write in an isolation chamber. My bitter and harsh demeanor has chased off those I had wanted to have conversations with, and has silenced those that have remained. Entertainment. A diversion. Nothing more.”
“The volume containing your Internet postings would say otherwise, Weaver Far-Traveled. You have many more words in you. And it is a privilege to watch your manifestation continue to unfold and drip them across the pages.”
“Don’t you mean bleed?”
“Ah. Yes. The best ink does come from blood.”
“Hey. You wouldn’t happen to have poetry too?”
We started to wander away from the academics at the table. They had found a new reason to bicker and argue among themselves. I had been forgotten that quickly. “Any particular style, era, or poet in mind?”
“I know you’re not going to allow me to cheat by readings works that haven’t been written yet in my perspective. I just want to know the thickness of any volumes by [a certain writer], and where I’ve caught up in those books.”
“That’s cheating.”
“You let me see such for mine.”
“I let you see such for one of yours. You can’t see all of [kir] volumes.”
I laughed until the full understanding of those words sunk in. I felt a wave of emotion surge from a vault in my heart I thought rusted shut. “One. One of mine. Then. [A certain statement.]” Tears began flowing silently from the assertion.
The Librarian stopped at a rack that was covered in darkness. “Metadata can sometimes tell more than the actual content. There is much I can not reveal to you at this time. But here is what I can show you.”
She pulled a book from the wall of impenetrable obscuring shadows. It was titled, “Impious Songs of Conquering Nightmares and the Poppy that Bloomed Anyway”, which didn’t surprise me. It fit the author. The Librarian would not release it to me, but turned it in her hands so I could see the thickness of it. An inch and a half of pages alone. A sturdy cover that was polished smooth by the repeated handling of adoring readers. The bookmark, which was meant to track my personal progression in this book was only about twenty pages in.
I understood the implication and it made me so happy I started crying in earnest. I nodded my thanks to the Librarian and she smiled as she placed the book back on the dark shelves. I wanted to ask her now many more books were written by that author, but to be honest, I have been granted so much already. To ask anything more would be so arrogant it would place what I have already learned at risk. I remember the lesson of Orpheus.
Besides, it would be much more enjoyable to watch that book being written. That is an experience I want to hoard for myself.
I choked back my tears and bowed deeply as I fumbled my thanks to the Librarian. She walked with me to the Library’s exit. At the door leading back to my realm was a plain pedestal. The black granite held a statue about 18″ high at my chest level.
The Black Madonna was smiling the bliss of the patient and the loving. I studied the carving, then formally bowed my respects to her. The Librarian waved farewell behind me as I left the Library and the dream.
I exited the Library and walked down a long hall that I knew to be the path back to the Waking. It was so dark that not even my dead eye could see, but I knew this path well. I needed no light. As I walked along, I reflected over what I had learned in the Library and on the interactions of those external to my life but quick to speak as if on authority on it.
On remembering the tomes and their implications, once more my heart broken open those rusted doors and unbidden tears ran down my face.
“The fuck is with all this crying. This isn’t like me. There is nothing to cry about. I know a thing, a good thing, an encouraging thing. That’s all. Nothing to get fucking emotional about.”
I wiped my eyes in vain to stop the tears. “I’m not an emotional person. I am the embodiment of rage and fire, not oceans of sympathy.”
The portal that marked the border between this liminal dreaming state and wakefulness was a vertical oval of brilliant white light. Next to that port was the pedestal and statue from the Library, but this time, it was on my right side.
I was surprised to find that I was not surprised to see it here.
I realized this was the key to unraveling the mystery of Mary.
This Black Madonna.
I bowed my greetings to her, and entered the portal to wake fully at last.