Winter with baba yaga - field notes
i’m so grateful for the stories we’ve been imbibing.
their lessons in humility. in helplessness.
there’s a moment when all will be lost, and all you can do is lie down and cry yourself to sleep.
best advice i’ve had for hard times. stay down.
there’s a moment when the beloved will get stabbed by your siblings
will flee wounded and crying over thrice nine kingdoms
will get married to a toxic liar
will curse you to literal hell in a moment of anger
their love for you disappears in an egg in a goose in a fox in an oak under the sea
But your love is what you got, in full-bloomer fragrant red flower, so
you eat the iron loaves and keep walking through the ice and hold onto that goddamn red hot iron and it makes no sense, you can’t fucking non-violent communicate your way through it, your friends and your sanity disapprove and
there’s simply something wilder and more weird at play.
waiting to see me broken or brave.
because there’s no contingency plan that includes in it : “and then while asleep the magical helpers come and make it all right”. but that is what tends to happen.
we are just past imbolc, the dark belly of the year
and yesterday i decided
to lay my integrity on the altar
just bloody take it already
my most precious compass,
the hardest thing to tear from my gripped white knuckles
i grunt and put it down,
cursing and bowed all the way to the ground
no tricks up my sleeve
plain old giving up
then morning sees someone
fold it back into my fingers
with a light kiss on the cheek
tonight is for loud songs and dancing,
i’ll toast this with carnival wine for a month
it started with the vow
to foster spaces of belonging
i continue to feed scraps of my hermit
into that anvil,
the pounding
splits my head
fucks up my digestion
curls me into a hibernating ball
hammers my bones
into a seaworthy shape cause
my hands are about to touch
the clay of more lives,
a bigger chunk of reality and
i’m getting knocked hard
to check if i ring clear
and while i crawl out of the first tunnel
it is all happening
written in the glow in their faces
the excited emails that say WHEN,
YES,
I AM COMING TOO
yaga snores with my braid between her teeth and
i’m running off on a lightning foal,
i gave butter to the cat
prayers to the door
and with plain old luck on my side
live to see another day.
#yaga #babayaga #archetypal #storytelling #hibernating #storytime #community #circle