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.

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When pain finds a home within your soul

In psychological circles this is referred to as pain addiction. This is real, lived experience for many. It is a state of being where separating pain from anything that we encounter in life becomes impossible. It merges with our being in a way that becomes familiar, safe, even sweet and impossible to imagine not feeling it. It becomes one of the personal signature of an individual, which brings all sorts of distortions with it. The process of unravelling is needed, deep diving into dark places, but mostly reintroduction of the light into a personal experience, as the light often goes into a personal shadow.

This is what it looks like when I tap into that part of myself still present although it no longer affects my life in ways it used to. It is now fully in my awareness and I know this character well, hence able to communicate with it and meet its needs if and when.

Ugly, dripping poison from its finger tips, so wrapped in its own pain it is second nature. This creature outgrown the most excruciating suffering that it feels at home with it, it’s learnt not just to be with it, it is inseparable from her being. It is very old, with bent and crooked limbs, long nails and grey hair or is it fur – both. It is animal-like with human eyes and deep intelligence. There is kindness somewhere there, but it is not apparent. It wants to be bad, it thinks it is a good thing, as it will fill up the cup of pain even more. It seeks the ritual and any opportunity to refill it. Like an addict it is constantly in search of the next fix.

Grown into my flesh it wears deer-skins and smells of wet mud and berries. Like an animal it claws into me holding on with a scowl scary and disturbing. 

I know it well and these days all that is needed of me is the acknowledgement it is there when I begin to feel its warm breath on the back of my neck. It is often present around my shoulder/neck area. It is very warm, sometimes feeling like a burn, but it also shows me some compassion these days and often sweeps away mud and moss pieces when it feels it made a mess. It is a child and an old creature all at the same time. It is deeply broken, but not unlovable and it likes to spread itself on rocks (I love rocks) and roll off them into a wet grass.

I often work with clients in ways of looking at different parts of them. I would ask when they begin to describe an energy that takes over them and affects their life. I seek to bring it to life with my client in a way of seeing what it looks like, what it sounds like and what is its behaviour before moving to what that part of us need. Many find this very useful and become curious about what else is within them that affects their everyday behaviour. When we make those characters real it is easier to relate whether we choose an object representing it, or we do a drawing or find a drawing that most reminds us of them or we relate to them through colours, sounds. However we connect with parts of ourselves it is about becoming conscious/aware of what takes place within our psyches and why.

Summer and exposure

As summer energy begins to spread through the land in its blooming attire we have an opportunity to come out, lay bare, expose.

Summer is a time for outer expression, exploring potential and examining inner and outer in its full spectrum. As nature steps into its blooming coat, so do we seek opening up and exploring. This is a ‘Full Moon time’ in its energetic signature, if you like, where things have built up within and without and it is time to show ourselves to the world and to ourselves, warts and all.

My trip to the island of Skomer on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales made me see parallels between how nature comes into its full potential and how it is an opportunity for us to expose all that had been hidden, open up to a more authentic way of being. The insight came through my own experience of fully exposing parts of myself that might not seem favourable, ugly even, yet while in nature I felt it almost necessary to go with whatever was manifesting within and it felt safe. This experience was new and I suspect there will now be more chances for me to ‘show myself’ fully. I have been in ‘hiding’ during summer months for as long as I remember, yet, perhaps, the time has come to make changes in ways of expression and authenticity.

With exposure comes acceptance and an integration follows, which is an important part to bringing us back to whole, back to ourselves. Was I scared I won’t be accepted or be judged? In the moment I didn’t think, I simply was in a state I was in. I did and didn’t enjoy it, as one would expect, but with exposure and real experience comes such clarity and awareness, which is so useful. On reflection when an opportunity comes for an exposure so does fear for not being accepted for who we are. As a society certain traits and behaviours might be looked down on, but there is also a chance that people that you surround yourself with will sit through that ‘exposure’ with you and become curious about sides of you they might not have seen before. If they manage to hold the experience and still feel the same those are the people that are meant to be around you, furthermore it gives others an opportunity to do the same, i.e. becoming more ‘exposing’ of themselves, accepting of others and freer as a result. We are all dark and light, beautiful and less so, hard and soft and the ability to be present with it all makes us stronger in knowing ourselves and connecting even deeper with others. We often fear alienating others and seek to conform, hide and comply, but we all know what that feels like. Sooner or later all of our inner pieces that are yearning to be exposed will spill into an ugly mess.

I felt inspired watching nature in its most open state, in its full blooming capacity. Nature doesn’t think or waits to be exposed it just does it regardless every year. Summer is the culmination of that energy manifesting everywhere. With exposure comes danger, as beauty can be just as threatening as ugliness. On some level we are threatened not just by others’ beauty, but by our own. We often do not see or realise our own beauty and potential, so we remain hidden and silent. ‘Be brave’, summer would say, bloom anyway even when someone might step on our blooming heart or cut us down mindlessly without a second thought. The song we sing might be our last, as we take flight into the summer air, but sing anyway, the more beautiful the better. Exposure of the body, mind and spirit is so necessary and summer is a powerful time to explore ourselves in our most vulnerable, naked state. There is a potential to be fully empowered.

I learnt the only way to be authentic is just that – expose. Summer allows that space and a perfect opportunity to seek acceptance from within. If we can stand our own shadow energies, watch it unfold, manage to contain it post-exposure and still be ok, we become more whole. This process is of freeing ourselves from the thinking that is harsh and judgemental, often coming from within. Take inspiration from blooming flowers and singing birds, vulnerable, but free in knowing they are blooming even if just for a short time. Nature is accepting of itself, it is not critical, shy or seeking approval. It just is. What greater example is there of authenticity of being.