Baba Yaga’s Garden

When the bucket seems half empty
Instead of half full
Enchanteur comes to Baba’s Garden and
Calls the wild mother.

Heather Blakey September 07

Marie and I were standing in front of the House of Bones last night.

She looked over at me and shook her head, ” this is no good for you Anita ” she warned me ” there’s much danger here for you. “

I nodded and reached out for the door handle and she snatched at my wrist ” Ask who’s house this is before you go in, bring her a gift and don’t eat anything she offers you. “

” I’ll remember. ” I said.

” Anita, don’t fall asleep in this place either. Go in awake or go in asleep. But don’t do both. Otherwise you’ll get lost. “

I woke up and found that it was just after three in the morning I spent some time wondering about Marie’s warnings. Funny, she should be warning me about a writing project…a blogg.

Funny.

Almost as funny as the little doll I found on the pillow next to me when the sun came up. Even funnier was the message carved into the wall above my bed.

Beware the House of Baba Yaga…
Marie L.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

I rode my horse through the wood. With me was the magical bag that the Enchantress had given me, all its articles intact, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking of the doll I had found lying next to the bag. She had no face, no features, was merely a blob of felt and a bit of yarn. Very primitive. I’d stuffed her in the sack along with the other items. Frankly, my energy was low, and I’d begun to tire of the entire journey, life, all of it. These phases hit me once in a while, and unlike my cheerful little Katy who runs beside me and wags her tail, I have another travel companion. This black dog walks silently, menacingly, and lies close to me, almost too close, when I sleep. I feel suffocated by its attentions. Katy had long returned to my home in Kansas, missing her bed and her biscuits, so I travel on with this other dog, also familiar, but not welcome.

As I enter a clearing, I see a woman standing under a tree. She is young, slightly dirty, and has wild hair. She gestures to me, and I slow.

“A ride to the village, Mistress?”

I can smell her unwashed body and I’m sure I look uncertain.

“If you take me, Mistress, I’ll tell you something you want to know. I’ve the gift, y’know.”

Sighing inwardly at what is likely a lie, I nonetheless allow her to climb aboard behind me, noting with distaste the dirt and sores on her hands as she clasps them around my waist. We ride on. I do not speak. My companion tries to draw me out, but my answers—short, terse, unfriendly—silence her. Still we ride, and I glance down to see the large black dog running at my side. I wish for a moment that I could ride off a cliff, fall into nothingness, part ways with the black dog once and for all. I feel an emptiness; a void, deep within my chest. Suddenly, I feel cold steel at my throat.

“I can accommodate you, Mistress,” the girl says, “if that is truly what you wish.”

My astonishment at both turns—her perception of my thoughts and her immediate threat to my life—is great. I feel the blood running through my veins, my pulse throbbing at the base of my neck, just near the edge of the keen blade, which nicks me as my horse jumps over a log. I feel the hot breath of the girl, and expect her hand to reach for my bag, to snatch away all the magical gifts I had been given. I look to the dog. Its teeth are bared, breath ragged. I think of…nothing. I surrender to my fate, leaning back into the girl, allowing my hands to fall free of the reins. Tears course down my cheeks, and I sob, openly.

“It is as I thought, my dear,” the girl said, only now her voice was cracked and rusty, that of a crone. I twisted in my saddle, feeling the blade yet again. “Ye don’t even know who ye’re fighting, do you?” She reaches for the reins, urges my horse to a halt, and slides off. I see that she has changed. Before me stands a crone, all angles and wrinkles, almost toothless. I lie across the horse’s neck, limply watching her for signs of her next move.

“Life is tricksy, my dear. So are ye, and I, and all of Her creation. I thought to bring ye back to the fight, make ye see what ye hold dear, close to the heart. But instead, ye surrendered yourself—an unusual choice, but an honorable one. There is much to learn in surrender, mistress. I shall not take ye this day, it is not your time to go downriver. Instead, I shall leave you with this blade, and this wisdom: It is important to know just who it is you’re fighting. Is it outside ye, or are ye fighting that one that looks out the mirror at ye?” She handed me the blade, turned, and walked into the forest.

I hardly knew what to do. I placed the blade inside my belt, mounted my horse, and rode on. In the distance, I saw the dog, running parallel, but so far from me he was a mere shadow.

by Karen Roberts

This morning, before rejoining the journey after an absence of too many days, I turned my Sage Woman: A Year on the Goddess Path calendar to October and wonders of wonders, the featured Goddess of the Month turned out to be Baba Yaga. I couldn’t believe it … here I was getting ready to make my way into Her realm and here She is showing up in my real life hide-away in Apache Junction, Arizona. Is this a message? I like to believe that it is, though what it is I don’t know.

The message of the month begins with a prayer to Baba Yaga:
Blessed Baba Yaga
Help me grow old
With wisdom,
Power, and veneration.

The rest of the message of the month reads as follows:

The Russian Crone Goddess, Baba Yaga, is the archetype of a witch flying through the air in her magical mortar and pestle. She is the one who stirs things up, keeps the adventure moving forward, and presents challenges along the spiritual path. Remember the tales of the witch deep in the forest, whose cottage should be approached with great caution? Baba Yaga dwells there and she wants to teach you about setting boundaries, about listening to your intuition about what is and what is not safe, and about respect for elder wisdom. As the wild autumn moon rides high in the tempestuous skies, watch for Baba Yaga and feel your own wild magic answer her call.

Courtesy: 2004 Amber Lotus Publishing
2004 Sage Woman

Quite a coincidence, don’t you think, my returning from a trip to Minnesota to find Baba Yaga waiting for me to turn the page of my calendar?

Vi

My journey began long before I knew I was looking for something. One night I received an email asking me if I was ready to embark on a journey. I had no idea where it would go. It started with a list. Tired of carrying the weight of my life, I packed lightly with only what would fit in my little backpack. At daybreak, I met many travelers who were ready for such a journey as this.

I found a hidden door in a tree and was whisked away by a night ride in moonlight. Mysterious gypsies drew me with a silent call in the night. Some kind of enchantment made my dreams deep and meaningful. Before long, I woke each day excited to know what would happen next. The journey to an island brought memories I didn’t know I possessed. Ancient knowledge was revealed to me. How can my life ever be the same now?

I learned to proclaim who I am. I am no longer the invisible child! See me! Hear me! Understand my words! Slowly I have come to realize my own truth. That truth is to be free. Unburdened by my own past and my parents past. Just let it go and find what’s around that next corner.

I have met celestial beings. I have met wee fairies. I have met warriors of great strength and feminine mystic. I have met talking donkeys and talking dolls. I have met known hell raisers. I have been reintroduced to friends of old who knew me long ago.

And now I have learned to be open in a completely new way. My heart feels lighter than I ever remember it being. I have let go of old cryptic ideas. I have found a new road. The Silk Road. It winds through space and time; thoughts and dreams; mystery and magic.

Somewhere along the way I met myself. The child, the girl, and the woman I want to be. I was stunned to discover that I needed to make some changes. To hold my own hand and say, “Yes! We can do this.” Brick by brick I had to tear down my own walls and find an inner world rich with ideas waiting to be discovered.

At last, I am in an distant land with no water and no road. I have finally come to the last door. The one that was hidden away for safekeeping, so no one would find that brilliant light. The key is the secret that I hid in my own heart. It was a prisoner there that I bound tight. And through my journey the ties loosened. And fell away, until I could feel an ache of joy and freedom coming close. The key that spilled from my lips opened the door and released my spirit. Away I flew with magic wings. I saw a wild fire burning. The fire of my anger, my regret, my invisibility burning, burning, gone!

Baba Yaga has led me on a very interesting journey over the last day or so. In reading her story and struggling to write about my visit to see her, I decided to make my special doll. What a surprise this turned out to be!

To understand my surprise, one would have to know that I love colour and things more on the ‘pretty’ side. My doll has a very earthy feel, is rather shapeless and has a lovely big double chin. So I dialogued with her, telling her that I was surprised at the way she looked and wondered how she could help me. She replied that she would know what I had to do, so that all I had to do was to ask her in trust.

I was then led in a very mysterious way to read some words of wisdom in my book, ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves’. These are the words that struck a chord with me:
“……A wise woman keeps her psyche environ uncluttered. She accomplishes such by keeping a clear head, keeping a clear space for her work, working at completing her ideas and projects…….because it is Baba Yaga’s hut that Vasalisa sweeps, because it Baba Yaga’s yard, we are also speaking of keeping unusual ideas clear and ordered. These ideas include those which are uncommon, soulful and uncanny.
……to cook for the Yaga one lays a fire - a woman must be willing to burn hot, burn with passion, burn with words, with ideas, with desire for whatever it really is that she loves. It is actually this passion which causes the cooking, and a woman’s ideas of substance are what is cooked. To cook for the Yaga, one will arrange that one’s creative life has a consistent fire under it. Most of us would do better if we became more adept at watching the fire under our work………the fire bears watching, for it is easy to let it go out. The Yaga must be fed. There’s hell to pay if she goes hungry. So it is the cooking up of new things, of new directions, of commitments to one’s art and work that continuously nourishes the wild soul.
…..Women’s cycles according to Vasalisa’s tasks are these: To cleanse one’s thinking, renewing one’s values, on a regular basis. To clear one’s psyche of trivia, sweep one’s self, clean up one’s thinking and feeling states on a regular basis and especially to cook up a lot, to feed the relationship between oneself and the wildish nature.”

My doll is now called Clarissa and she has pride of place on my table where I do my work.
posted by Leonie Bryant

Baba Yaga
waiting in her
chicken leg house
with bones as
pickets with skulls atop
deep in the forest
awaiting her next
victim

Baba Yaga
traveling in
her mortar chariot
guided by the
pestle oar
clearing the path
with a broom
of human hair

Baba Yaga
controls the
night and day
the rising sun
and the stars
in the sky

Baba Yaga
set me my task
cleaning the house
laundering clothes
sorting the seeds
from the dirt

Baba Yaga
wicked witch
or wise old
crone
ancient goddess
of birth
and death

© Megan Warren 15/8/2004