Before she was…


The draw to the hut was strong. My body ached with the need and desire to go there. 

‘I will come and stay for a month,’ I turned to him and said running my hand across a wooden log, the cabin was made from. I was there, but I was not, not fully, not like I needed or wanted to. 

‘I will stay with you. We can go fishing and berry picking.’ He wiped mosquito off his cheek. The stickiness of the summer evening on my skin felt strange and it smelt strongly of jasmine. That place was ripe with everything nature, just like in my childhood. I wanted to drink it in. 

In the cabin there were people. They looked happy going about their business. I remember being overcome by jealousy for their fortune of being able to stay there. It was like I was there, but I was not. From my dream I observed it all. I was just a visitor in that place, but in my blood, I knew it as my home from long ago. The ache of wanting to live there rose again. 

There were several rooms: a hall, a big lounge, and an attic. Each room had its purpose. A child joined me and began following me everywhere. It was a small boy but had a girl’s name and looks very pretty. I sat on a sofa and a young woman came and covered me with a blanket. A young man, who showed me around appeared to be in charge. The place felt pure, kind, yet it held secrets, codes, treasures to be discovered. I became very curious. 

‘Where can I find her,’ I asked him. 

He turned away fiddling with a piece of wood in his hand. 

‘I should not really tell you. May be just leave it. It has been a long time and you do not know what it will lead to.’ He looked at me with understanding and warmth. 

‘I do know what you are saying. I do. I just wondered if she was around.’

And then he said, ‘She is around, all around. She is right next door.’

‘Left, or right?’ I asked. 

He looked right but meant left. Somehow, I understood that. 

Once outside everything was lush green with rowans lining up the road on both sides. Late summer. Berries were beginning to redden. I took it all in. It smelt like rich soil and home. I was home. And then darkness. I plunged into it suddenly and it felt comforting. The thing about darkness, you might not be able to see anyone, but no one can see you either. I always found that comforting to know. I took my shoes off and walked out of the gate and looked where her house was. It was large and beautiful. Luxurious with big windows. I felt scared. Night summer air intoxicatingly alluring. I took another deep breath. 

‘I could not possible go in that house,’ I thought. So imposing and grand, not what I expected, and it was right there, next to the house I stayed in. 

Next, I walked back through the gate and stood on a bench lined up against the gate to peek into the windows next door. I knew I should not be doing it but could not help it. Curiosity took over. And then I saw cats, lots of back cats. They were the size of dogs. They roamed the boarder scowling. They began moving towards me as soon as they spotted me. I froze in terror. They snarled at me, and one sank her teeth into my leg. I felt sharp pain. They withdrew.

I ran into the house, but someone followed me in. I turned around and there she was. Young and beautiful, simply dressed. Her hair colour I recognised, as my own, when I was a child. Decorative small earrings, nothing out of the ordinary apart from her face. Intensely kind, shining from within she was. I felt her goodness, but also darkness all at the same time. She was both life and death. She took my hand in hers, which felt clammy and cool, but not unpleasant. I froze, fascinated, honoured, and humbled all at the same time. Then she told me her name… It was her, before she was her.

It was one of those significant dreams, which I have not had for some time. I am grateful to receive one last night. Dreams are products of our psyche. They are from us, about us and for us. Over my lifetime I learnt to recognise various categories of dreams. This one belongs to a ‘telling’ dream that contained several messages for me and reflected aspects of my own consciousness that should help me moving forward. It was fairy tale like with vivid landscapes, vibrant colours, and strong smells. I touched objects and people with intent and purpose that remains with me now on waking. I love sensory dreams like this one and it just had to be recorded. She was there, the young version of her, before she became her… 

Happy Yule, everyone!

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Approaching the Hag

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What of her in these times of destruction and division? She is angry and she is hungry. Furious at humanity and hungry for punishment and resolution. 

The forest is on fire and the walls around her dwelling, which is now a fortress, are higher than they’ve ever been before. 

The horsemen are dressed in black. Their armour heavy in readiness for destruction of its own kind – complete elimination of nature and all that is human. They are ready to carry out her will. 

She’s furious and in mourning for humanity that is no longer… yet there’s an opening, a small one, a loose panel in her fortress wall for those, who are still aware of their soul; that element that remains unaffected, pure and unchanged. Hope it is not, but a connection to what they are from the root. She thinks of those, who have some memory of where to go to become whole again. However faint the memory is by now, it is still there and she smells it. 

I feel small and insignificant in the face of all reality and such is my preference during these years. Resignation and tiredness are part of my day-to-day and only participation in watching it all burn remains. Hopeless anguish. Despite it all I wait for the time to rise again when the voice can be heard from the depth of the forest summoning the brave and crooked; open anew to learning; in eternal love for what remains of nature external and within. Even if only one tiny flower can be saved, it will be worth doing. If only one soul can be awakened, it will be worth the work and hardship. As one wise human said: ‘For as long as there is birdsong, we must listen.’ 

And for now, we scream, we rage and we sob until the sky above is cloudless once again and there’s renewed stillness in the heart.

Pagan Dawn article

I set out to write Baba Yaga: Slavic Earth Goddess at the time when the collective was screaming with pain and fear and the call for making unconscious conscious was becoming ever stronger all around. My work with Baba Yaga intensified a few months prior when she was not just coming forward more but staying around for longer. That is unusual for an elusive and highly private deity. Yes, to me, she’s beyond literary and cultural archetype and a folklore figure. To me she represents the world in both its dark and light manifestations. She is the ultimate alchemist and magician of the highest rank.


Why now, I wondered after seemingly eternity waiting for her to speak? It was time she disclosed a path for collective to take, if unafraid and prepared. It was time for her to whisper, if not speak openly. Feeling overwhelmed and deeply honoured I began to listen to what she said and in that discovering who she really was beyond her collective labels.


The book was born that speaks of Baba Yaga in ways of who she really is. My journey was only just beginning when in 2020 she stayed around for longer than she, perhaps, wanted. She first appears around Samhain and remains throughout winter dwelling in dreams and shadows and post Ostara she begins to loosen her grip on the Earth and allows the Maiden to step forward. This time she stayed for longer to bare witness to events that unfolded and to offer assistance and wisdom, however, unheard of, to myself in writing the book and to the world in its state of chaotic fear.


Apprenticing into her magic is a difficult task, perhaps, one of the most difficult tasks one can undertake as once on the path turning back has serious consequences and if staying transformation is inevitable and profound. 


Baba Yaga is a world-famous character with which we are familiarised from early childhood and she stays for many of us in our consciousness for the rest of our lives. This speaks of her power and universal appeal, but why? I believe that is because her mysteries are deep and limitless. She inspires questions and sparks endless curiosity, yet she often remains as a static archetype of a scary Crone who lives in the woods and devours children. She continues to live in fairy tales that tells stories over and over in the same way they had always been told. In our consciousness she does not evolve and that is also for a reason. She’s full of darkness and darkness is a place of immense fear and avoidance for us humans. So, she remains hidden via the narrative and via our lives, as who dares look darkness in the face? Now we are faced with it in all areas of our existence. “Facing the demise of what is familiar and precious and becoming wild again is the quest of brave and raw ones. Are you one?” The thing that I discovered was just how much she resents repetition and lack of evolution and her imprisonment in the collective hive mind infuriates her. As I began my relationship with Baba Yaga, I discovered the light behind the darkness, kindness behind hatred, the well-hidden nuances of this folklore figure, her character, spirit, attributes, and magic. 


She calls for a revolution and evolution, for rediscovery of spirit like never before. She is hugely relevant today to all of us individually and the world. For the first time in very long, perhaps, she is willing to offer some wisdom, however unnatural it might seem, as she is private and does not come forward unless there is someone truly ready on the other side. Are we ready? Many of us are. She can offer perspectives on balance, climate change, beauty and aging, motherhood, belonging and connection, partnerships, and gender roles. She is the world, the Earth, nature all wrapped into one energy that is immensely powerful and important and to know her is to know the deepest, the most meaningful and profound truths about yourself, others, and the world.

Baba Yaga book – author interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

in Eternal Haunted Summer magazine

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