Saturday Goddess Blogging

So, I generally write something about the Wiccan Sabbats, but I just couldn't get inspired to write anything this time about Samhein. Samhein, when the veil between this world and the world of our ancestors is thinner than thin. Almost at the stroke of midnight on Samhein, all the dead people in my family came waltzing into my dreams. We danced around until almost 3:00 am, when I had to tell them, "Enough is enough," and cast a circle so that I could get some real sleep.

Samhein is the witches' New Year's Eve. It's when I make my new year's resolutions and wipe away whatever's gone before in preparation for what's to come. This was a key Samhein for my circle of witches; we joyously initiated five (five!) new women. Our circle, which had shrunk to four, will continue. It will go on. It will not slip into oblivion. We will continue to do magic, to support each other, to recognize the imminence of divinity within this natural world, here, in this sacred spot at the base of the Potomac River, where the center of worldly patriarchal power-over imagines itself immune from the effects of women and witchcraft.

In my circle, we always do divinitation at Samhein. This year, with all the energy of nine magnificent women -- ranging from maiden to crone, from multiple PhD's to recent MBAs, from human resource Apaches to polyamorous moms, from editors to bridge fanatics, from divas to screen writers, from S&M devotees to bloggers, from witches of twenty + years to complete noobs-- with all of that magnificent female energy swirling around -- of course we did divination. We each followed a set of clues in order to pull a card from The Goddess Oracle to guide us through the new year.

I pulled Baba Yaga, elemental Wild Woman extradornaire. Wikipedia says that Baba Yaga is the wild old woman, the dark lady, and mistress of magic. She is also seen as a forest spirit, leading hosts of spirits. My impression is that Baba Yaga started our more as a figure of fairy tale and only recently became, perhaps thanks to Zuzanna Budapest, a figure worshipped by Dianic Wiccans, but I may be mistaken.

Wiki goes on to note that: In Russian tales, Baba Yaga is portrayed as a witch who flies through the air in a mortar, using the pestle as a rudder and sweeping away the tracks behind her with a broom made out of silver birch. She lives in a log cabin that moves around on a pair of dancing chicken legs. The keyhole to her front door is a mouth filled with sharp teeth; the fence outside is made with human bones with skulls on top -- often with one pole lacking its skull, so there is space for the hero's. In another legend, the house does not reveal the door until it is told a magical phrase: Turn your back to the forest, your front to me.

Baba Yaga's house isn't as strange as you might originally assume. A "cabin on chicken legs with no windows and no doors" in which Baba Yaga dwells sounds like pure fantasy. In fact, this is an ordinary construction popular among hunter-nomadic peoples of Siberia of Uralic (Finno-Ugric) and Tungusic families. This was an ingenious invention to preserve supplies against animals during long absence. A doorless and windowless log cabin is built upon supports made from the stumps of 2-3 closely grown trees cut at the height of 8-10 feet. The stumps, with their spreading roots, give a good impression of "chicken legs". The only access into the cabin is via the trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Bears are strong, smart and stubborn enough to break into any door, but they cannot use a ladder or climb a rope to reach the trapdoor.

A similar, but smaller construction was used by Siberian pagans to hold figurines of pagan gods. Recalling the late matriarchy among Siberian peoples, a common picture of a bone-carved doll in rags in a small cabin on top of a tree stump fits a common description of Baba Yaga, who barely fits her cabin: legs in one corner, head in another one, her nose grown into the ceiling.

Next weekend, I'm going to grind herbs in my mortar and mix them with chicken feet, to be buried at each of the four corners of my property. I want to find out what living like Baba Yaga will mean. I want to find out what is left of the dark and the wild within me.

You come, too.

PS If you know of a good charity that supports the survival of bears, I'd love to hear about it. Thank you. Tarot cards gladly read in exchange for information.