This illustration was inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ audiobook, The Dangerous Old Woman.
Some people think Baba Yaga is an evil witch, but I feel inspired to think of her as the preserved wisdom of women from the beginning of our time here.
And because each of us comes from the beginning of our time here, this wise woman must exist inside us all.
The part of the self with a heart as bright as the moon, like heartwood that’s been weathered by storms, not to harden and die, but hardened just enough to stay preserved and protected from the turbulence of life.
My whole life, I was the little leaf that was blown and then left alone. My stability was determined by outside forces.
And yet these outside forces in my life were also lost in the turbulence, because they had never been taught about this light within, that offers wisdom and stability, and so they weren’t able to share with their children what they didn’t have themselves.
It’s an invisible trauma when a child says to their grown-ups, “Look at me glow! I have magic inside! Would you like to celebrate with me?” And watching the adults smile and say they’d love to, but sadly they can’t, because turbulence needs their attention.
After enough time, the child may stop believing that the magic they experienced inside themselves was real.
Maybe they exchange the light of their wisdom and magic for compliance, or hollow, commodified rituals, because they’re the only times people seem available to celebrate.
Or maybe they’re fueled by their defiance of such things.
Either way, they must muscle through the turbulence every day — constantly blown off course by a mere look or comment or tone that reminds us of our original betrayal, of someone not seeing that sacred part of ourself when we were so sure it was there.
And this becomes our life, this cycle continuing…
Feeling so privately stressed and betrayed, looking for a way out instead of in.
And when our own children come to us asking for a witness to their magic, or for guidance through their turbulence, we teach them what we were taught—proper behavior and compliance—just so we can have a little peace from their turbulence, before it adds to our own.
And yet, the truth is, after all this time, our light is still here, inside us. Inside us all.
We don’t need to travel to find her to receive her teachings. She has never left—her light is as bright as it’s always been.
When I listened to Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ The Dangerous Old Woman, her light was so bright, it traveled right through the recording and ignited my own.
And this is when I felt it—the importance of waking up each other’s awareness to this light, that is all of ours, instead of letting the hardness of the world convince us that it isn’t real, or worse, doesn’t matter anyhow.
We need only to step into our bodies and listen. Until the light inside us becomes our own, guiding us as we travel through our days in our mobile houses.
And when we cross paths with someone who may look as though she’s doubting what she most definitely has deep inside her, we can share our light until it ignites her own.
This is the sisterhood that we have lost.
Baba Yaga is not an old evil witch, except to those who don’t understand. Except to those who have lost the magical language of light.
We women need to make sure we never quiet our spirit or save it for a rainy day. Or to waste our time wondering if it’s real.
We need to trust that in our light is our unique expression of the most profound humor and wisdom and creativity that’s been flowing from one heart to the next since the beginning of our time here.
—JLK
