The Russian fairy tale, “Vasilisa the Wise,” is one that I revisit over and over again, it provides a rich context for reflection on intuition and inner guidance, and the need for initiation into the mysteries.
Here’s a link to listen to the Myth in the Mojave podcast. Scroll down for a written transcript of this program.
Meeting the Baba Yaga
Will the chaos and conflict, the emerging truths and challenges of these days, result in cultural transformation and renewal? Or will we settle into a new definition of “normal” and fall back to sleep?
I believe the answer to this question rests with our ability to actively engage with the archetypal feminine and the Great Mother, and that fairy tales like “Vasilisa the Wise” offer us clues about how to proceed.
In this program you will meet the Baba Yaga, and remember that cultural transformation includes you too.
Transcript of Myth in the Mojave Podcast Meeting the Baba Yaga
Aired October 19 2017
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Myth in the Mojave, 30 minutes of storytelling and conversation about mythology and why it’s important to our lives today. I’m your personal mythologist and storytelling guide, Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
Crazy world indeed. I’m simultaneously dismayed and overjoyed every time I look at the news, get online, have an extended conversation with a friend, you name it. Any way that information comes into my world these days is a mixed bag. I’m constantly asking myself, “Is all of the seeming chaos and the opportunities and challenges that are present going to result in the type of cultural transformation that I’m longing for, or will we simply be uncomfortable for a while, maybe make a few shifts in position, and then settle back into some new normal? Are we rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic or witnessing the emergence of something new?”
The transformation that I’m looking for and the possibilities that I’m seeing in current events all revolve around the feminine. I believe that the kernel, the central kernel of our time is the reemergence of repressed and denied feminine values of the archetypal feminine. This includes feeling and emphasis on relationship and interdependency, a focus on process over product, for example, understanding what it means to be in service to life. This includes belonging to the earth, mother of us all, honoring her mysteries and complexities and grappling with the paradox that life depends on death, accepting the fact that we too will be eaten and recycled.
The archetypal feminine, as an awareness, a posture, or a psychological state is common to every human being, and in the archetypal realm, we are not talking about social cultural constructs like gender. Gender is one of our notions that appears to be changing and becoming more fluid. Who knows what possibilities are contained there, and yet, when we talk about the change that’s underway and the focus on the feminine, the archetypal feminine and the earth, it’s obvious that we also have to include, after millennia of patriarchy, the shifts in the lives of women.
Along with this resurgence, even eruption of denied and repressed feminine values, we are witnessing changes in the lives of those of us who identify as women and with the life experience of women today.
What is being articulated in women’s lives, how it’s expressed, who is taking charge of its expression, its meaning and significance? All of this is being vigorously debated right now, and I think it is of the utmost importance. The way my process works, my means of engagement with my personal response to what’s going on in the culture, my reception of news, my understanding of the world and our times is through story. Today, I want to tell you a story that has been my constant companion for several months now. It’s a story that I have been called to tell women and men over and over again in groups and in one-on-one situations. It’s a story about the feminine that I believe we all need to consider, and women especially.
I want to tell you a fairytale with roots in Russia and Eastern Europe called “Vasilisa The Wise” or “Vasilisa The Beautiful.” I invite you to relax and sit back and listen to the story. As always, note the moments that particularly grab your attention or speak to you. This is your way into your own exploration of the important things in this story.
“Vasilisa The Wise.”
Once upon a time, there was a merchant and his wife, and they had only one child. A daughter called Vasilisa. The three of them were very happy together until Vasilisa got to be about eight years old, and then her mother got sick. When it was clear that her mother was going to die, she called Vasilisa to her bedside and said, “I love you. I’m giving you my blessing and this doll. I want you to keep this doll with you always. Consult it whenever you need advice or comfort. Take care of it, and keep it secret.” Having passed the doll and this advice off to her daughter, the merchant’s wife died.
Some years went by, and the merchant remarried, and he married a woman who had two daughters of her own about Vasilisa’s age. For a while, all four women got along fine, but as the years went by and the girls grew up, the stepmother slowly started to get very hostile towards Vasilisa. About this time, the merchant needed to leave the country on business, and he was going to be gone for a long time. During his absence, the stepmother decided that she would move the three daughters to another house. She picked a house on the edge of a woods. On the edge of a woods where it was rumored that the Baba Yaga lived.
The Baba Yaga was an old witch, a scary old crone, and the rumor was that anybody who crossed paths with her was immediately eaten like a chicken. This situation suited the stepmother very well for it was her hope that if they moved close to the edge of the woods, one way or another, Vasilisa would one day cross the Baba Yaga’s path.
One evening, the stepmother gathered the three girls together and said, “You’re not getting anywhere near enough work done, so I’m going to give you each a task, and I want you to work all night and try and clear away some of the work that’s built up here. So one of you will embroider, one of you will knit, and one of you will spin.” Having assigned these tasks then, she lit a candle, put it on the mantle of the fireplace and went to bed.
Each of the girls started working and for a while, they were diligent at their tasks, but then the candle started burning down. One of the stepsisters took her knitting needle to clear the wick, but she actually drowned it, and the candle was rendered useless. They were left in the dark.
“Well,” said the stepsister with the knitting needles, “I don’t need light. I can see by the light of the moon flashing on my needles.” The other stepsister who was embroidering said, “Well, I don’t need light either. I can see by the light of the moon flashing on my needle.” They turned to Vasilisa and said, “You, Vasilisa, are the one who will need to get us fire. You are going to have to go and find the Baba Yaga and get us fire.” They jumped up and grabbed Vasilisa and pushed her out of the house and slammed the door behind her.
Vasilisa stood out on the doorstep thinking, “Oh my God. Now, what am I going to do?” She definitely didn’t want to make a journey into the dark woods in the middle of the night to go and find the Baba Yaga, so she consulted the doll. The doll said, “Don’t be afraid. Go ahead and make the trip.”
Vasilisa walked all through the night, and then, she met a rider. A rider who was dressed all in white riding a white horse. After this white rider went by, dawn broke. A very short time later, she met another rider dressed in red riding a red horse, and the sun rose. Vasilisa had already walked all night, but now she walked all day. She walked all day, and in the evening, she arrived at a clearing.
This was a very strange place, and the longer that she stood there and the more she took in the situation, the more frightened she became for in the middle of this clearing, there was a fence enclosure. She saw that this fence was made of bones and that there was a skull on top of each of the fence posts. In the middle of this enclosure was a house, a very strange house for it was on chicken legs and was wandering around in the yard.
Vasilisa was so frightened that her knees were knocking together, and she barely begun to even try to make sense of the scene when she heard this strange sound. At that moment, a black horse and a black rider rode by and night fell. Suddenly, with a flash, the eyes in all of the skulls on the fence lit up with a fiery light, and in that light, she saw an ugly old woman flying through the air in a mortar, you know, that you grind herbs or grain in, flying through the air in a mortar with her long gray hair flying out behind her. In one hand, the old witch grasped the pestle, and in another hand, she grasped a broom. She rode through the air with the pestle and the broom, wiping out her tracks behind her.
The Baba came whirring in and landed by the house, which immediately sat down on the ground, and she went to the door and took out her skeleton key to open her skeleton lock. Just as she was about to open the door, she stopped and sniffed the air. “Hmm,” she said. “I smell a human being.” Vasilisa was terrified, but she said in a very small voice, “Grandmother, grandmother, it’s me, Vasilisa.” The Baba came over to Vasilisa and said, “Well, what do you want?” “Oh, my stepmother and my stepsisters have sent me here to you to get fire,” said Vasilisa. “Oh,” said the Baba. “I know, yes. I know. I know your family. Come on in and stay with me for a little while.”
Vasilisa was ushered into the house along with the Baba Yaga. The place was full of all kinds of very strange and interesting things, but immediately, the Baba ordered her around and had her set the table and take enormous quantities of food off of the stove and pile it all up on the table. The Baba sat down and began to eat. She ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate. She ate an enormous amount of food.
When she was finished, she gave Vasilisa a crust of bread and a bowl of soup and said, “Okay, young lady. Here’s the deal. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to go out, and while I’m gone, I want you to clean my house, do all of my laundry, sweep the yard and you see that huge pile of corn over there? I want you to separate all of the good corn from the mildewed corn. Oh, and you will need to cook me a meal. All of this must be done before I return in the evening, or I will eat you.”
Then the Baba went to sleep. Vasilisa thought, “Oh my God. I’m so screwed. There’s no way I can get all of this work done,” and so she consulted the doll. The doll said, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. Eat your supper. Go to sleep, and in the morning, all will be well.” Vasilisa did so.
When she woke up in the morning, the Baba was gone, and she looked around the house for a few minutes. She was amazed at what she was seeing in there, and then decided, “Oh my, I should better get to work.” She didn’t even know where she was going to start, but she discovered that all of the work had been done. The doll had already done everything except for cook the meal, so Vasilisa cooked the meal for the Baba Yaga, and when the Baba came home, she looked around, and she pretended to be pleased that everything was done, but you could tell that she was actually rather put out by this.
She snapped her fingers and called out, “Servants, servants.” Suddenly, three pairs of skeleton hands appeared. The skeleton hands went and took the corn and mortar and pestle and began to grind it. Well, Vasilisa was dumbfounded. The Baba Yaga sat down at the table, just as the night before, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate. She then finally gave Vasilisa a crust of bread and a little bit of soup. “Okay,” she said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to go out again. I want you to clean my house again. I want you to do my laundry. You will sweep the yard, and this time, you will address that big pile of poppy seeds in the yard. I want you to separate all the seeds from the dirt, and you will need to cook my meal. All of these will need to be done before I get back in the evening, or I will eat you.”
The Baba went to sleep. Once again, Vasilisa thought, “Oh my God. This is too much,” and she consulted the doll. The doll said, “Don’t worry. Eat your dinner. Go to sleep. In the morning, everything will be just fine.”
In the morning when Vasilisa got up, sure enough, everything was done. The doll had done everything except cook the meal. Vasilisa cooked the meal for the Baba, and when Baba Yaga came back, she looked around again and saw that all of the work was done. She snapped her fingers and called for her servants, and again, the skeleton hands appeared and went to go and press oil out of the poppy seeds. The Baba sat down at the table full of food and began to eat.
While she ate her supper, Vasilisa stood silently by the table until the Baba looked up and said sharply, “Is there something wrong with you? Why are you standing there without saying a word?” “Well, if I may, grandmother,” said Vasilisa, “I’d like to ask you a question.” “Okay, you can ask a question,” said the Baba, “But just remember, too much knowledge can make you old.”
Vasilisa said, “Grandmother, on my way to your house, I saw a white horse and a white rider. Who was that?” “Ah,” said Baba, “The white one. The white one is my dawn.” “Grandmother, I also saw a red horse and a red rider. Who was that?” “Oh, the red one, the red one. That was my sun.” “I saw a black horse and a black rider. Who was that?” “Oh, the black one,” said the Baba. “The black one, that is my night.” Vasilisa thought about the skeleton hands, but she didn’t say anything. The Baba looked at her. “Is that it? You don’t have anymore questions for me?” “Oh, no, grandmother. I’m good. You said yourself, too much knowledge can make one old.”
“You did well to only ask about things that were outside of the house,” said the Baba. “I have a question for you then. I’d like to know how you’re getting all of this work done.” “Oh, grandmother, why, I have the blessing of my mother.” “What,” said the Baba Yaga, “You’re blessed? You’ve been blessed by your mother? You must get out of here immediately.” She jumped up and hustled Vasilisa out the door and down to the gate and was about to just push her out of the yard and into the woods when she grabbed one of the skulls with the fiery eyes and stuck it on a stick and gave it to Vasilisa and said, “Here you go. Here’s your fire. Now, be gone.”
Well, Vasilisa took the stick and the skull with the fiery eyes, and she ran through the woods. Her way was lit by the light of those eyes, and she ran all night. When dawn broke, the light in the skull eyes went out, and Vasilisa continued walking and walking, and she walked all through the day. As evening was falling, she arrived back home, and the skull’s eyes lit back up. She put her hand on the gate to go in and looked at the skull and considered tossing it away, but the skull said, “No. Keep me with you.” Vasilisa took it inside.
Now, her stepmother and her stepsisters were very surprised to see her, but they welcomed her and said, “Wow, we haven’t had any fire since you’ve been gone.” Vasilisa took the stick and the skull and leaned it in a corner. While the women ate dinner, the skull’s eyes seemed to follow every movement of the stepmother and the stepsisters very, very carefully. In the morning when Vasilisa woke up, she discovered that her stepmother and her two stepsisters had been burned to ash. They were just a pile of cinders. Vasilisa took the skull out into the yard and buried it at the foot of a tree. Then, she went through the gate and out onto the road and headed off for the market.
That’s the end of the story. There are a lot of really incredible images and ideas in this story, and every time I tell it, it provokes a lot of questions. I want to invite you to do some of your own research into the details of the story, the images that grabbed your attention. This story, as I read it, is about initiation.
Initiation into a greater knowledge of the power of intuition, which is the doll, and the mysteries of the great mother, a feminine earth wisdom, which is the Baba Yaga. The Baba Yaga is one in a long line of scary old witches and crones and goddesses who hold both the power of life and death in their hands and remind us that those things go together. The Baba eats and eats, and eats, and eats, and eats because the earth is profligate and abundant. When Vasilisa passes the test, she passes the test of her initiation. She relies on the doll and then she questions the Baba about the right things.
That mysterious phrase, “Too much knowledge can make you old,” is a reminder that we have to take little pieces of the deep secrets. There are right times for us to know and understand things. If you think about how you would explain death, for example, to a three-year-old and how you would explain it to a 13-year-old, you get a sense of this idea. When we’re approaching the numinous, the mysteries at the heart of life, we need to be careful and respectful of their power. Vasilisa takes the right piece, an appropriate piece of this body of wisdom, and she is given, in exchange, a spark. A spark of the Baba life-death power, the fiery-eyed skull.
Fire is the element of transformation, and this fire destroys and purifies the fire of awareness and consciousness. The fire in those skulls’ eyes burns away what is false in Vasilisa’s life. What needs to die, what needs to be let go. My moment in this story right now is this incineration. If I take all of the characters in the story as aspects of my own psyche, I ask myself about the stepmother and the stepsisters. Where is my stepmother and my stepsisters? Where is the feeling inside me that I must compete, that I need to put other women down maybe? Where do I fear a loss of my position? Where do I condemn myself for inadequacy or overwork myself?
I ask myself about my repressed emotion, about my thwarted action, my strangled desires and how these energies become a form of contempt or hatred, a disconnection between my own selves and between me and other people in the world.
At a recent gathering of women here in Joshua Tree, we each took a moment to consider these questions. We took a few moments to ask, “What, in my life, in my psyche needs to be incinerated or transformed? What needs to die? What do I need to let go and release?” The answers that we arrived at were offered to a fire. I invite you to perform a similar ritual for yourself. Take a piece of paper and pen. Give yourself permission to be with your own self and your own heart for a few minutes. Jot that down. What needs to be transformed or incinerated? Offer it up to the fire. A candle outside will do.
Something else really beautiful happened in that circle, and that had to do with this notion of blessing. Those of us who were gathered talked about this blessing. What is the nature of this blessing? Many of us felt that it was a certainty, a faith, a belief, a knowledge that we are connected, that we are connected to other women, that we have ancestors stretching behind us, that we have an intuitive instinctual knowledge of life and self in our DNA by virtue of that ancestry and that we are completely connected to the earth, to mother earth. We are of her.
Some of us are blessed as children by our parents, and some of us understand intuitively that we are blessed in this sense of being connected, but not all of us get that. Not all of us get both of it. Sometimes it’s easy, regardless of your inheritance, to lose sight of it.
In that circle, we all realized that we have the power to bless each other, and we have the power to offer this blessing to ourselves. Transformation is something that so many of us long for and are working for. It will include us. We will also be transformed. We will have to let go. We can’t cling, and we need to ask the question, “What will I become? What do I want to become?”
I want to leave you with this quote from Barbara Myerhoff. “A self is made, not given. It is a creative and active process of attending to a life that must be heard, shaped, seen, said aloud in the world, finally enacted and woven into the lives of others.”
That’s it for me, Catherine Svehla in Myth in the Mojave. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about today’s program. I very much appreciate it if you would share this program with others and spread the word about Myth in the Mojave.
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Thank you so much for listening. Please tune in next time, and until then, happy myth-making and keep the mystery in your life alive.
