Initiation and Meeting the Baba Yaga

The Baba Yaga is a complex and scary crone in East Slavic and Russian fairy tales. She’s a face of the earth goddesses and the fierce wildness of nature.

Are some of us meeting the Baba Yaga right now?

There’s a lot of chaos right now as institutions, laws, and norms of behavior that order our societies are attacked.

Chaos that has a parallel in escalating natural disasters and other earth events.

Is this a collective initiation? What might we see if we understood this time as an initiation through forces much greater than the actions of a cabal of greedy sociopaths?

These are scary times and they are ripe with opportunity. There’s no avoiding it. Let’s make something beautiful.

Transcript of Initiation and Meeting the Baba Yaga

Hello and welcome to Myth Matters an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity and consciousness. I’m your host Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide beautiful crazy world of ours, I’m glad that you decided to join me here today.

I want to continue the exploration of the Baba Yaga that we began in the previous episode. If you haven’t listened to that one, Fierce wildness and the Baba Yaga, you  might want to go back to it but it’s okay to start here.

The Baba Yaga, or rather, a baba yaga, is a potent figure in many fairy tales from Russian and East Slavic culture. She’s a scary old witch, a complex crone with roots in the pagan goddess tradition. Jack Zipes, a scholar of fairy tales, suggests that the Baba Yaga “transcends definition because she is an amalgamation of deities mixed with a dose of sorcery.” 

Depending on the story, the Baba Yaga may help you or try to eat you. There may be one Baba Yaga or several and if she is killed, well, that state won’t last long! 

 In the previous episode, we explored some of the complexity and paradoxes in the Baba Yaga. Today I want to think about her role as a threshold guardian and initiator. As a figure who instigates or facilitates an initiatory experience.

This is worth thinking and talking about right now. The loss or degradation of meaningful initiation rituals, of rites of passage that are communally practiced and collectively sanctified, is a feature of modern life in the dominant culture. The myths, rituals, and visions don’t play the same role in society as they once did. There’s much to lament: a loss of social cohesion, bestowed meaning, belonging. 

And yet, the potential in our notions of individuality and freedom as many of us live it today is beyond many of the old meanings and socially prescribed roles. Many people don’t want to be given a path so much as they want to be blessed as they create their own. Maybe this describes you.

There’s a lot of chaos right now as institutions, laws, and norms of behavior that order our societies are attacked. Is this a collective initiation? Are some of us meeting the Baba Yaga right now? I think so. What might we see if we adopted this perspective? How would it change the way that we participate? Would we see the creative potential in this moment and accept the need for radical change, for transformation, if we understood this time as an initiation brought to us by forces much greater than the actions of a cabal of greedy sociopaths? 

The tools and practices of rituals like initiation, and the deep significance of this type of experience, are still known to us. It’s part of our psychospiritual soul DNA. We could employ them now.

So, let’s look at the Baba Yaga. Meeting with a Baba Yaga is a transformative event. You’re not likely to forget her or what transpires. She’s unusual, unpredictable, and frightening to look at– many call her hideous. The Baba Yaga lives in a strange hut that moves and twirls because it has chicken legs. She flies through the air riding in a mortar, rowing with a pestle, and sweeps her tracks from the sky with a broom.

If you meet a Baba Yaga, you are either on a life-changing quest or you have been sent to her territory by someone who means you harm. In many of her stories, the Baba Yaga asks her visitor, “Did you do a deed or are you fleeing a deed?” This is how she determines the nature of the quest and circumstances that brought you to her. She designs her tests accordingly. 

A Baba Yaga often appears as a threshold guardian. You need her help and/or to learn a lesson from her in order to survive and succeed in your quest, and she herself is a face of the mysteries. The Baba Yaga guards and holds hidden wisdom and meeting her is an initiation. What is the nature of this initiation? 

One more bit of information about initiation and the Baba Yaga in her many stories, before I tell today’s story. Initiation and other rituals of transformation take place in liminal space, a zone between the known and the unknown. In liminal space, the old structures, rules, meanings, and knowledge are temporarily suspended.Anything can happen here. The liminal is a space of possibility where understanding and being can morph and transform. A Baba Yaga lives deep in the forest or on the edge of the sea, in places far from the world of human civilization. Her home is symbolically located deep in the heart of the unfamiliar and unknown that is a liminal space.  

Now, let me tell you a story. This one is called “Baba Yaga II,” which perhaps means “told in various forms for a long time without a defining title.” My source is a collection titled Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the Easttranslated by Sibelan Forrester.  I invite you to relax and let yourself enter the space of this story Note the details that call to you or the questions that arise. These can be openings for further inquiry, portals into the place the Baba Yaga occupies in your life right now.

“Baba Yaga II”

Once there lived an old man and his wife. The old man’s wife died and he took another wife, but he had a little girl from his first marriage. The new stepmother did not like her. She beat her and thought about how to get rid of her once and for all.

One day, the father went away somewhere, and the stepmother said to the girl, “Go see your aunt, my sister, and ask her for a needle and thread to sew a shirt for you.” But this aunt was a Baba Yaga, a bony leg.

The girl wasn’t stupid, so she stopped by to see her own aunt first. “Hello, auntie,” she said. “Hello, my dear. Why are you here?” “Mother’s sent me to her sister to ask for a needle and thread to sew a shirt for me.”

The aunt told her what to do. “My dear niece, a birch tree there will whip you in the eyes. You tie it back with the ribbon. The gate there will squeak and slam you. Pour some oil under its hinges. The dogs there will tear at you. You toss them some bread. The tomcat there will scratch at your eyes. You give him some ham.”

The girl set off. She walked and walked and walked and she got there.

A hut was standing there, and Baba Yaga bony leg was sitting inside waiting. “Hello, auntie.” “Hello, my dear.” “Mother sent me to ask you for a needle and thread to sew me a shirt.” “Good, sit down here for a moment and weave.”

The girl sat down at the loom, but Baba Yaga went out and said to her maid servant, “Go heat up the bath house and wash my niece and be sure to do a good job. I want to have her for breakfast.”

The girl overheard this and she sat there, neither dead nor alive, and all terrified. She begged the maid servant, “My dear girl, don’t lit the wood as much as you pour on the water and carry the water in a sieve.” And she gave her a handkerchief.

Baba Yaga was waiting. She walked over to the window and asked, “Are you weaving, little niece, are you weaving, my dear.” “I’m weaving, Auntie, I’m weaving.”

Baba Yaga moved away again, and the girl gave the tomcat some ham and asked him, “Is there any way to get out of here?”

“Here are a comb and a towel for you,” said the cat, “take them and run away. Baba Yaga will chase you. You put your ear to the ground, and when you hear that she’s close, throw down the towel first. It will turn into a wide, wide river. If Baba Yaga crosses the river and starts to catch up with you. You put your ear to the ground again, and when you hear that she’s close, throw the comb. It will turn into a thick, thick forest. She won’t be able to get through it.”

The girl took the towel and the comb and ran out. The dogs in the yard wanted to tear at her, so she threw them some bread and they let her pass. The gate wanted to slam on her, so she poured some oil under the hinges, and it let her pass. The birch tree wanted to lash her eyes out. She tied it back with the ribbon, and it let her pass. 

And the cat sat down at the loom and started to weave. He didn’t weave as much as he tangled things. Baba Yaga came over to the window and called up, a”Ae you weaving little niece? Are you weaving, my dear?” “I’m weaving, Auntie, I’m weaving, dear,” the tomcat answered in a hoarse voice.

Baba Yaga felt something was strange and she raced into the hut, saw that the girl had run away, and started beating and scolding the tomcat. Why hadn’t he scratched the girl’s eyes out! “I’ve been serving you for so long,” said the tomcat, “you’ve never even given me a bone, but she gave me some ham.”

Baba Yaga threw herself at the dogs, on the gate, on the birch tree, and on the maid servant. She started scolding each one and pounding them. The dogs told her, “We’ve been serving you so long and you’ve never thrown us a burned crust, but she gave us some bread.” The gate said, “I’ve been serving you for so long and you’ve never even poured water under my hinges, but she poured oil.”

The birch tree said, “I’ve been serving you so long and you’ve never tied me up with a thread, but she tied me up with a ribbon.” And the maid servant said, “I’ve been serving you for so long and you’ve never, never given me a rag, but she gave me a handkerchief.”

Baba Yaga the bony leg sat right down in her mortar, pushed along with the pedestal, swept the tracks away with the broom and set off to chase the girl.

The girl put her ear to the ground and heard Baba Yaga chasing her and already getting close, she up and threw the towel. It turned into a river so wide, so wide. Baba Yaga came to the river and her teeth squeaked with malice. She went back home to her bulls and drove them to the river. The bulls drank the whole river dry.

Baba Yaga set off again in pursuit. The girl put her ear to the ground and heard that Baba Yaga was close. She threw the comb and it turned into a forest thick and terrible. Baba Yaga started to chew it, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t. She couldn’t chew through it, so she went back home.

In the meantime, the old man had already come back to their home, and he asked, “Where on earth is my daughter?” “She went to her aunt’s,” the stepmother answered.

A little later, the girl herself ran up to the house. “Where were you?’ asked her father. “Oh, dad,” she said, “it was like this. Mother sent me to my aunt’s to ask for a needle and thread to sew me a shirt. But my aunt is a Baba Yaga, and she wanted to eat me.”

“How did you get away, daughter?” “Like this” said the girl and she told him the story. When the old man found out all about it, he got angry at his wife and shot her, but he and his daughter went on living and living well and earning riches. And I was there. I drank mead and beer. It flowed down my mustache, but didn’t go into my mouth.

That’s the end of “Baba Yaga II.”

Here are some of the things that I notice about the story and what these details suggest to me. The Baba Yaga in this story is a predator, a cannibal. What you learn from her will be hard won! And she’s stingy and cruel to those who serve her: the maidservant, tomcat, dogs, gate, and birch tree, so, we have the additional message of “don’t do as I do.” Learn from the negative example, or maybe, learn what is correct for you as a human to do because the Baba Yaga, after all, represents a transpersonal force. She makes the rules.

As I mentioned in the last episode, the Baba Yaga probably evolved from ancient earth mother goddesses and is one face of her Crone aspect, existing alongside the Maiden or Virgin, and the Matron or Mother. These three faces or stages in the life of a female are distinct and yet united. They are descriptions of the reproductive life and of the possibilities in relationship life. These images are also metaphors for the depth and breadth of experience. The Virgin, for example, is young, pure, innocent, inexperienced. She belongs to herself and knows relatively little about relationships and other people. 

The crone or elder aspect of the goddess understands all of nature, the natural world and human nature. Human society. This is her tremendous wisdom. She’s been around. In her book Mother Russia: The Feminine in Russian Mythology, Joanna Hubbs  describes the crone as “a withered flower pod brimming with new seed.“ The crone Baba Yaga is the realization of potential. She contains all of the others as she has already experienced all other forms.

I think this is the source of the Baba Yaga’s complexity and what links the earth goddess as crone to the earth in all of her complexity. The Earth is beautiful, peaceful, abundant. The source of life. And it is unpredictable, harsh, and violent. The abundance is a bountiful harvest and it is also an impersonal proliferation of forms, creatures eating and eating and reproducing and dying in staggering numbers. 

Annie Dillard writes of this in her amazing book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. “Nature is, above all, profligate,” she writes. “Nature will try anything once […] No form is too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque.” I encourage you to track down her book and read what she has observed about water bugs, toads, and various insects.

This is the Baba Yaga, mother of multitudes, with her long yellow teeth and claw-like nails, her stringy hair, and tits so long and saggy that she can toss them over her shoulder. The Baba’s cannabalism reminds us that “life feeds on life,” as Joseph Campbell says. This is the way that it is. Life and death take place regardless of merit. Hunger doesn’t distinguish between the good and the evil. We can participate with more gratitude and less cruelty, with more awareness of the tension that we put on the web of life. I think this is essential. 

At the same time, we can’t change the fact that each of us lives through consuming other living beings, and we can’t change the fact that we will die. Meeting the Baba Yaga moves these truths from the realm of concepts to immediate, visceral experience.

The motherless girl with a hateful stepmother is a common motif, pointing to the potential for nurturance and destruction in mother and woman. The villain in the story is the stepmother who puts the girl in harm’s way. And dad married this woman. He stands with his daughter at the end of the story and yet you sense the tangled family dynamics, the pretending and the blindness, right, that is common in families. 

The acknowledged existence of the Baba Yaga and her presence in the family once the daughter returns to tell her story, clarifies the relationships and loyalties. The young woman is changed and this brings change to the people close to her. Which is how these things work, right? Why our transformations and efforts in that direction are gifts to others, even if they don’t see it that way at the time.

The girl is savvy and resourceful and brave, all qualities highlighted in Baba Yaga stories as necessary to survival and maturity. What is the nature of her initiation? What has she realized that has the power to change and preserve her life?

First, and this is huge– her inner resources. The young woman was terrified and she managed to act and to get away. She wasn’t paralyzed. This is an experience and a discovery that she won’t forget. You might want to sit with this for a minute and search your life for experiences that have shown you your capacity to survive. Initiation forces us to confront our fears of becoming the people we need to become. Have you been here before?

In addition to her inner resources, the young woman also finds help in the larger community. The tom cat who is willing to take her place at the loom and the others who let her pass. She’s helped because she honors the principle that governs these relationships: respectful reciprocity. The central importance of reciprocity is known to those who recognize that we live in a community of conscious others, that everything is kin, a child of the same earth. 

All of the others, all of our companions here, have the capacity to help or hinder. And they all want and deserve respect. The contrast between the behavior of the Baba Yaga as initiator in this story, highlights this choice in attitude and shows us the power of the practice of reciprocity. The young woman would not have escaped Baba Yaga’s hut otherwise. 

Who gave her this instruction? The presence of the two aunties, the human one and the Baba Yaga, is interesting. The girl has someone she can turn to for advice, an elder female relative who is the good “mother” so to speak, the counterpoint to the stepmother. There are people in the world and elements in our human psyche that do us harm and those that support us in our journey. One aspect of this care between generations is handing down wisdom.

The human auntie gives the girl the information that she needs to survive the tests of the Baba Yaga “aunt.” There are people in the world who have met the Baba and been initiated into her wisdom, who know the value in such an encounter. We need to recognize these people, ask for their advice, and use it to make our journey, to meet our destiny. These people are living and breathing in the material world. They are among the spirits of our ancestors. They are in each of us, part of our psychic community and inner wisdom. Initiatory experiences often reveal all of these resources.

No one can tell us what has to be earned and learned through first-hand experience. Initiations are experiences that you have to go through and be changed by. The young woman had to learn the logic of the Baba Yaga world to outwit her stepmother. Disobedience wouldn’t have brought about the needed change in her situation. You must meet the Baba to learn something of what she knows. 

The true aunt didn’t try to prevent the meeting– and in truth, could she have done so, if this part of life? She told the young woman how to meet the challenge posed by this initiatory experience and sent her on her way. One day, the girl in the story may be an aunt, or grandmother or strange crone in the woods for another person on their way to meet the Baba Yaga. Where are you in this story? Are you receiving an initiation or capable of assisting others who are on their way?

I’ll talk more about initiation and the Baba Yaga in the next episode as there are many more stories that offer good food for thought. I have one more reflection to share with you but first— a big welcome to new email subscribers:  Kate, Joya, Ju-ying, Jen, Joseph, Luiz, Dajana, Kathleen, Patricia, Meagan, Tracy, James, Quinn, and Gege. Welcome!

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Now, back to the mystery of the Baba Yaga and the initiation she offers. 

In the last episode, I noted her fierceness. The fierce wildness of the Baba Yaga which is the fierce wildness of the earth, the urge to live. A Baba Yaga mediates the boundary between life and death. She brings us face to face with the challenge of death. She initiates us into the mysteries and rules that govern earth- based life and guides our spiritual transformation. 

I wouldn’t attempt to reduce a figure as complex, mysterious, and powerful as the Baba Yaga to one message, one meaning. I hope that you’ll sit with this story and the Baba and see what emerges for you. This is where she’s taken me right now…

I wonder about the activities of the earth, the storms and fires, the increased contact between humans and the Others– like the whale who briefly swallowed a man a couple of weeks ago and spit him out unharmed– and the new diseases like avian flu, incubating in our unspeakably cruel factory farms. These events are the context for all of the rest of the disorder in my mind, the exploitation, fear, and grasping for wealth and power. And I wonder, are these earth events unfortunate side effects of our actions? Are they signals and instructions from the earth, or both? 

Is there an invitation here, in this time, to remember and practice reciprocity, to re-establish our kinship with the rest of the natural world? And are the answers that we need to our current dilemmas found in the wisdom of the Baba Yaga and the rest of her children?

I take a breath and remember that Earth life isn’t an idyll in the Garden of Eden and yet it’s perfect. This life requires hard work and devotion without guarantees of success and security and still there are rewards, there are gifts, and reasons to meet the challenges. There is joy and beauty and love. The limitations, difficulties, and suffering affirm the value of life. The contrasts create the highlights that bring us alive. Truly alive, present, tingling with the sensation. 

We grasp the gift of being here through experiencing the spectrum, if we are wise. If we open ourselves up to the magnitude of this moment and the incredible fact that we are here, my friend. This is our time. This is our time. And what will we make of these circumstances?

I want to close with a passage from Annie Dillard, who speaks to the riddles of our material and spiritual existence so eloquently. She feels like the good and true aunt! And as I’m still feeling my way through this material and the questions that I’m raising with you, I can’t say, oh, this is what I’m getting from this excerpt, but it feels related. This is also from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

 “Thomas Merton wrote, ‘there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.’ There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. 

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

That’s Annie Dillard from her Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I wonder about those gaps, my friend, and this notion of liminal space, and our willingness to accept the initiation that is presenting itself.

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. We can realize the visions that we hold, my friend, if we grab them and move towards them.

 And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Take good, good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.