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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My life is…

I live my life dreaming of my life. It is like a mirror that is turned away from my actual self. I could never find words before for what I experience living my life, but now I see how its back is turned to me and I can only watch it from a dream distance, from afar that is beautiful. It’s neither disconnection nor a merging. It is two ends of the same string that never meet, but always observing in proximity of one another. It is neither unreachable nor allowing to meet as if a suspension is what I experience without ever knowing if it is permanent or temporary. Does it hurt? Not always. What does it mean? I hope or rather have faith in the two ends meeting one day and if it is never to be I know there will be a reason.

For now I live my life dreaming of my life or seeing others live it right in front of me. It makes me cry so, it makes my heart move in awkward positions, it twists me on the inside but also awakens something deeply felt inside. That is a sign that it matters, it has meaning, it is yearning to be completed and so for as long as there’s that craving of the soul and I can see the other end I continue in observation of the life that is my life but not yet.

When familiar is no longer working 

 When familiar no longer works you are ready for the next step, upgrade, adjustment.

I had an experience this month where I was left suspended in a vibration, which felt uncomfortable and unsolvable. No tools I have accumulated over the years could successfully be applied to that situation. I fought against it, resisted, projected my frustration onto external and that is normal human reaction when we are up against something that is problematic yet feels like it can’t be fixed. I understood my reaction well to that state as a natural push against something that I felt needed to be fixed or changed. Also to mention that surrender to a situation or a feeling state (one of my tools) also didn’t work.

In terms of elements, which I often use as a model when working with situations and parts of myself I couldn’t describe for the first time which element I was manifesting in my reality. That was the thing that really struck me as the elements always work for me in a simple way to help me understand what is distorted, what I am lacking and what needs to be introduced into the mix. Nah, not this time. There was suspension of all possible ways I have gotten to know to work for me so far in my life. I should also mention that my ‘magic’ seemed to have gone to sleep. There was access to that either.

I became curious about,firstly , what it was about that didn’t allow my known methods to work. It felt like there was an opening for something new to come in. I was meant to learn a new way, take a different step towards resolution and wholeness within myself. I was ready to engage with material completely new and it felt like there would be risks involved, super sharp mindful awareness in every moment and not abandoning myself under no circumstance, which simply only delays the process of learning and integration.

At this moment in time all I have is an awareness of the above having taken place. I am curious to what this will lead to. It feels like I am working through something on my way of becoming something new. Nothing is new within us, of course, there can only be something that we forgot or rejected perhaps. What’s coming up is more shadow work, I feel and whenever that happens I feel excited. Why? Because shadow work always leads to liberation, unleashing of what has been hidden yet can be used in a valuable way. It’s like fining a black box and feeling the excitement of opening it and not knowing what one would find yet it feels like home, you, a gift. And the work is to work out what that is.

I now remember feeling this way back in summer 2016 when all tools were taken away and I was forced to look at my physical reality manifestations. It forced me to get engaged with myself on a serious level, really look at myself in the mirror as the only thing available. I felt I didn’t quite get it that time and therefore, missed an opportunity to upgrade. Now I am being given the second chance and I am ready!

Always question how you feel, observe how you behave and what your thinking is like. Be with yourself always and whenever something doesn’t feel right stop and explore it’s meaning. It’s not that we are doing something wrong it’s about  becoming something new. Something is always growing within of us to be known.

Blessings!

The quality of ‘wholesome’

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‘Wholesome’ is a quality I associate with home, log fires, animals, living off the land, roots, families, simple life, good food and lots of laughter. I feel comfortable around people who possess that quality and who feel like ‘home’. They are calm, kind, full of humour and warmth. It is interesting to see how what you seek in life when you meet it in others you are instantly drawn to it. Someone once said to me while we had been discussing a relationship problem ‘how do they make you feel when you are around them?’ That was a revelation to me, as I never considered looking at it that way. I never actually considered my own feelings and what was best for me.  And now years later I go with my feelings and intuition always whether it is people, food, job or any choice or decision I have to make. This is non-negotiable to me and it has firmly become a way of life for me. I go with that ‘wholesome’ vibration and ask myself ‘is this going to be good for me?’ ‘how does this person make me feel when I am with them?

I have encountered wholesome people in my life in recent years more, as I resonate with their values and they make me feel at home with myself and the world. I want to be one of them and I feel I am able to be more and more. Yesterday the whole day was transformed for me after coming into contact with wonderful friends, who are just that type of wholesome people. They invite you with warm smile and welcome into their home, make you a hot drink and then tell you something funny, a joke or a silly story. They share something interesting they did with the children or while in the garden. It warms me all over and I realise that this is what I have been seeking all my life, that connection of acceptance and absence of conditions on how to be, what to say, what to do. I am allowed to simply be myself and drink that comfort in knowing people around me are genuine with heart-felt intentions. Here nothing is too serious and nothing that can’t be talked about openly.

In the last few days I have definitely felt a sense of belonging and knowing that I am exactly where I am meant to be. What a wonderful feeling and a new one for me. I have had glimpses of it with my home and my boys yet I have always resisted it and even fought against it unconsciously pushing it away, which resonated with my learnt script of ‘not meant to be happy and joy is NOT good’. (my joy is in the shadow post). Having done a lot of work and come to deep insights about various things I begin to see everything shifting in a direction that I love. This feeling reflects that sweet warmth within that says that I have everything I need and want. I am completely content with myself and the world. This is what I want and what I have been aiming towards. The feeling of home and peace in my soul, my most hungered for vibration for most of my life.

I love where I am, who I am surrounded with and I am beginning to love myself, possibly for the first time in my life.

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