Just in case you are prepping for epic feasts this holiday, check out this menu brought to Baba Yaga in the Fairy Tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful:
She brought her a pot of borsch and half a cow, ten jugs of milk and a roasted sow, 20 chickens and 40 geese, 2 whole pies and an extra piece, cider and mead and home-brewed ale, beer by the barrel and kvass by the pail.
Baba Yaga ate and drank up everything but she only gave Vasilisa a chunk of bread. “And now, Vasilisa,” said she, “take this sack of millet and pick it over seed by seed. And mind that you take out all the black bits, for if you don’t I shall eat you up.”
Facing Baba Yaga’s hunger is extraordinary. Within the power of this tale, I was able to face my own relationship with work and hunger, rest and risk. Not to mention reflections on all the mothers in my life, and the inevitable stepsisters that helped oust me into self-realization. Aka, I came face to face with all the archetypal aspects that make up the Heroine’s Journey.
This journaling experience, facilitated by author and storyteller Kate Farrell, offered the deepest experience to date as to how Heroine’s Journey stories could transform my life and life perceptions.
I am truly excited to announce that I will be collaborating with Kate on our first Woven Winter Retreat, “Telling the Heroine’s Journey,” where we’ll explore such tales in depth for personal discovery and connection.
The retreat will take place at my home in the historic waterfront of Suisun, where cozy, Baba Yaga decor abounds in this 1901 Victorian Craftsman! The retreat will be held February 23-25. Visit the Woven Website for Details and to Register!
The following comes directly from my journaling reflections that came from my time with Kate Farrell earlier this year. Please enjoy, and blessings be to any feast you have over the holiday this week!
There is no doubt that Baba Yaga’s hunger could easily swallow Vasilisa (if she were not with her mother’s blessing). It could also swallow me. I have an immense hunger for life and being and doing all of its possibilities, purposes and personages.
With literal eating, I am a “finisher” - I always finish whatever is on my plate. It’s not because my mother shamed me into doing so, I literally want every drop to be appreciated.
I hunger for every opportunity, every chance, and I reached a point this year where I realized this desire to fulfill was potentially killing me. I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities of life, because I genuinely want to do and be them all. I am perhaps by definition, a life-aholic.
How can I, too, survive on the proverbial chunk of bread? How can I ask for help to sort out the seeds? Not all of these seeds belong to me in this lifetime. These seeds will bury me. Not all of these seeds can be planted, nor can they all sprout.
I wept with the realization that I cannot, in fact, do and be it all. It was like the realization that came forth from the Barbie movie monologue delivered by America Ferrera. I realized this in a sort of dark night of the soul during one of the epic storms of 2023. I was sick for the second time in a second month, and felt as though my work was falling apart. I surrendered into bed…
“Do not grieve and do not weep, but close your eyes and go to sleep. For morning is wiser than evening” Says Vasilisa’s doll.
I slept through all the work.
I slept through the next day.
I awoke to prepare a presentation
And slept again
And slept soundly through the night
And the Sun rose and work did not see me for days.
I came face to face with the illnesses that had threatened to consume me
I disintegrated the voices that compelled “Work! Work! Work!”
From the Skull blooms roses.
These are the seeds that were planted.
That some seeds thrive is because others have died.
That is the difficult truth of Baba Yaga.
Not all seeds become fruits, not all eggs become fetuses, not all fetuses become people
And so it is
I will go today and trim the suckers from the rose bushes. Even a ruthless trim, at the right time, helps the blossoms to burst into bloom.
I will look at each commitment anew and allow the eyes of the skull to decide…\
Such a powerful post with a strong voice of deep knowing—of cycles, hunger, and seeds. I am touched, honored that insights from the tale of Baba Yaga illuminated your life by tempering it. Even Baba Yaga needs to sleep, though her snores can make the forest tremble.
I'm looking forward to co-presenting with you next February to breathe new life into the old tales!