Introduction to Baba Yaga

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. " - Robert Frost

This quote is the embodiment of wild and radical Crone Witch Goddess Baba Yaga - the Slavic Goddess of Change.

The message on her Goddess card (from the Kris Waldherr Goddess Inspiration Oracle Guide) is:

Do not fear life's changes, no matter how scary they may seem

Whilst she often seen as a Goddess of death, she is a representation of the Crone in the Triple Goddess symbolism and is the Death that leads to Rebirth.

In some Slavic fairy tales, they show Baba Yaga living in Her hut with Her two other sisters, also Baba Yagas. In this sense, Baba Yaga becomes full Triple Goddess, representing Virgin, Mother, and the Crone. Baba Yaga is also sometimes described as a guardian of the Water of Life and Death. When one is killed by sword or by fire, when sprinkled with the Water of Death, all wounds heal, and after that, when the corpse is sprinkled with the Water of Life, it is reborn.

The Patriarchal Fairytale & the Demonisation of The Witch

There are many myths about Baba Yaga across the Slavic cultures and she is usually portrayed as an extremely contentious and fearful, monstress figure according to the Patriarchal re-tellings where she was turned into an evil and cannabalistic old witch monstress, skulking away in the deepest darkest woods where she preyed on children and ate them for her supper and left their skulls on her fence to warn off poorly-behaved children.

The word Crone, as it was often intended in folklore, is an "old woman who may be disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that usually make her obstructing."

'Crone' actually comes from the Greek word Cronus which means time, so Crone just means 'someone who has lived a long time' and it's original usage in pre-Christian societies was as a term of wisdom and admiration and this archetype was honoured as the Goddess.

Another lovely descriptive word that gets thrown in with crone is ‘hag’ or ‘haggard’ in these types of fairytales with 'Haggard Old Witches' as the evil protagonists - such as Hansel & Gretel where old women (especially childless women) were usually depicted as 'hags' thereby culturally shifting the original meaning to have negative connotations.

Mary Daly who wrote Gyne-Ecology writes about how the original meaning of Haggard actually means 'Intractable' or having 'a will of your own'.

In addition the original meaning of the word Hag comes from Haggiology which means holy, or the study of holy objects.

So may we all be haggard crones as we get older 💁. ;)

So often the original myths of these powerful ancient goddesses, such as Baba Yaga, get severely twisted whenever the Patriarchy of the day got hold of their story. Because woman’s power was feared during the take-over of masculine monotheistic religions from pagan societies, they didn’t know what to do with the Divine Feminine. So, to suppress and condemn woman’s power - they took the Wise Woman - who was once the revered elder of the village, the community midwife, the healer, the seer, the priestess and created this whole campaign around her being 'a witch' in a negative sense of a heretic, ugly, hideous, frightening or 'a nag' and all this folklore and fairytales emerged around this Dark Old Woman living in forests and eating babies and other horrifying thins 🙄.

In reality, a 'Witch' was usually just a wise woman or independent woman in her power who often owned her own property and was free of the responsibilities of a traditional lifestyle or was an esteemed position as the village Midwife or Medicine Woman. Witches were sadly burned and persecuted over many many centuries - and still are to this day in some parts of the world - for practicing 'witchcraft' - their wisdom, power, independence, living life on their own terms, honouring their spiritual gifts, their connection with nature and being the original medicine women - making medicine and healing potions from nature.

The True Divine Feminine Power of Baba Yaga as Goddess

So the REAL story of Baba Yaga is that yes, she lives in the wood. And yes, she symbolically lives on a hut made of chicken legs. Not as a symbol of how gruesome and disgusting and cannibalistic she was as per the (misguided) folklore but because chicken legs were a talisman of protection. And yes, she had skulls outside her house not because she murdered and ATE children but because she was the Goddess of Death and the skull and crossbone has always been a symbol of the Gateway to death and rebirth.

She was known to ride through the sky in a mortar with a pestle as her oar. A mortar and pestle is used to grind things up which was symbolic of how she would grind away the bones of what is no longer necessary and alchemise the ground up matter into new life. She stands for the end of ignorance. The end of illusion. The end of ego (not healthy ego but ego as mask - ego in its socially approved form where it's keeping you from your true, authentic, wild self).

In this way, she is similar to Hindu Goddess Kali - another expression of the Goddess of Death who will come in and pull out the proverbial rug you are standing on (or clinging to!) that is in fact all an illusion and not in your highest good. It feels like a brutal awakening at the time but it's done from the greatest and most maternal love because there is something so much better and so much more aligned waiting for you - often something you can't fully realise until much later.

In Baba's original form, when you’re in the midst of transformation, when we experience a death, dark night of the soul, depression or spiritual emptiness in our lives we journey to Baba Yaga’s hut and she grinds this down and washes new life into us.

In that way she is the Grandmother of Alchemy and the Goddess of the Grain with the Oven as central to her mythology. Wreaths of grain - wheat, rye, corn sheets, wild flowers are all her symbols. The symbolism of the oven in the Baba Yaga fairy tales (where she theoretically 'baked' children) is actually very powerful since from primordial times the oven has been a representation of the womb and of baked bread. The womb, of course, is a dark space and a (much feared) symbol of life and birth, and the baked bread is a very powerful image of earth, a place where one’s body is buried to be reborn again.

Baba Yaga’s Medicine:

Call on Baba Yaga for:

• Going through any kindof change - especially a major life transition such as into Motherhood, Menopause or retirement or moving locations etc

• Grieving a loss or death - both dealing with death of a person but also divorce, redundancies, career change, retirement.

• Ego death - letting go of things (jobs, people, material things, attachments, addictions) that are not for your highest good and not in authentic alignment with your true soul

• Cycles - needing to walk away from, end something or let something die gracefully

• Alchemising wisdom from a painful ending so you can re-birth new life from the space

• Unleashing and reclaiming our inner Wild Woman archetype - going against convention or stepping out of perceived boundaries or societal moulds that are set for women (especially by religion) and not of our own making

• Becoming a witch, wise-woman or medicine woman (or man) -

• Letting go of fear and conditioning and bucking society’s rules for you or parental/societal/peer expectations for you - having the courage to walk your own authentic path, going the untrodden path into the woods, going deep into the unknown, into the dark, into the Feminine 'womb space' for re-birthing.

• Dealing with and learning to value isolation and solitude to find your own heart, to find your bliss, find your own true authentic Self, draw deeply on your own inner wisdom.

• Granting ourselves permission to be our authentic selves and do whatever we want without needing the validation or permission of society

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Ways to connect with Baba Yaga

Astrological Sign: Scorpio

Colors: White, red, and black

Gemstones: Garnet, bloodstone, tourmaline, smoky quartz

Goddesses: Hecate, Hel, Kali

Herbs/Flowers:/ Essential Oils Patchouli, sandalwood, geranium

Foods: Grains - especially corn, rye, oats, wheat. Bread. Alcohol from grains.

Moon Phase: Waning/Dark

Sacred Animals: Snake, cat

Festival Date: January 20

Season: Autumn

Symbols: Mortar and pestle, broom

Tree: Birch

Affirmations:

I let go with ease

I embrace change with grace

Within every ending there is the seed for a new beginning.

Death is a chance for rebirth

If you would like support working through an ending, a transition, honouring and reclaiming your wild woman or witch self, or finding your own will-power to step into your own authentic and independent life you can book a Goddess Empowerment Session with me here.