I think a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand Baba Yaga because of misapplied feminist readings of her character. Baba Yaga has the inexplicable whims of all immortals. She can be merciful, or not; she can help you, or not; she can kill you, or not. There’s no reason to it, no rhyme, Baba Yaga will do what she wants and we can’t understand any of it. It’s her prerogative; that’s all we need to know, whether we end up in her stew or blessed with new, strange powers. She busts stories open or sews them shut, perhaps because she has a plan, perhaps just because she can. She’s not a witch in a chicken-legged hut. She’s not a monster. Baba Yaga is Baba Yaga – pestle and mortar flying through the night, laughing, and maybe tomorrow it’s your life she’ll touch. Because she can.
“The eldritch world is not dualistic though of course opposites exist within it. So much religious teaching is starkly dualistic. Black and white, all or nothing. One is either with me or against me, religions assert. We are either sheep or goats. The sheep are herded against harm by the good shepherd, but the scapegoat is sent alone into the desert to die, punished for crimes of which he has no part. But we are human beings, not sheep, nor goats nor yet wolves imbrued with blood. There are more than two opposites in existence; for the Cosmos is pluralistic and ever-multiple. We are not born to suffer and serve, neither to swagger with insolence of triumph. Each of us has the divine spark of consciousness and we can – if we bother to make the effort – think for ourselves. So with the ways we may take. When Thomas the Rhymer encountered the Queen o’fair Elfland on Huntlie Bank by the Eildon Tree so many centuries ago, he was shown the potentialities that the eldritch world affords, and returned with the gift of eloquence, for as a later bard, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, understood so well, “language is the sacred fire in the Temple of Humanity”:
“O see ye yon narrow road, So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers? That is the Path of Righteousness, Though after it but few inquires.
And see ye not yon braid, braid road, That lies across the lily leven? That is the Path of Wickedness, Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
And see ye not yon bonny road, That winds about the fernie brae? That is the Road to fair Elfland, Where thou and I this night maun gae.”
The third road does not fit in with dualistic thought. It is older and deeper than that for in the eldritch world there is an absence of separation of the human from Nature’s continuum. One needs a higher level of creative endeavour to view the world in terms other than duality. Primordial unity is not divided into two opposing sides. The principle of universal order is that in one is all, and this naturally includes the spiritual innateness of the material world. Body, mind, spirit, fetch and soul are one with the Cosmos. No part of it is unworthy, for there is no part of us that is not of the divine and no part of the divine that is not within material existence. We are individual people with individual destinies. Taking the third road is choosing neither side for we partake of the divine source of harmony. Of the world, of events and happenings, we ask “does it?” rather than “ought it?” Traversing the ferny brae we avoid becoming the road-weary traveler wandering byways of oblivion, never again to behold the shining, swan-spangled waters or the bright, sunlit fells. We have not lost the common thread that connects all things of the Cosmos, nor delight in the poetic beauty of the real. Though we may never reach the end, we rove ever in harmony with the eight winds however they choose to blow, for the way itself is our destination.”
Hail Hekate Lady of abundance Who stands 400 feet tall Whose saffron skirts Envelop the world
Hail Hekate Queen of the crossways Whose baying, barking hounds Are the souls of the dead Thriving in your service
Hail Hekate Woman of the dark moon Woman of the unending night Woman of the undying fires Daughter of the stars
Hail Hekate Witch of witches Whose powerful magics So arcane, so obscene Are an inspiration to us all
Hail Hekate And take note of those who call Who shout your name into the abyss We call to you mother, across the ages Singing your praises For all who will listen
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