This is part two in a three part series on my most recent ink work. This particular piece is so very meaningful to me and I wanted to share the inspiration behind the piece.
The second story I share is another one from the same book. I actually read this story before the Skeleton Woman so this is the story that set the stages for the skull imagery but the Skeleton Woman was the catalyst that sparked the vision of the design. For those who have followed me in my journey, you can see why this piece spoke to me in tandem with the other.
In her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés tells the story of Valalisa and Baba Yaga, identifying much of the Goddess imagery inherent in it. This is a Russian folktale but to be honest it is found to be common through much of Eastern Europe.
Valalisa The Brave
As time went by, the girl’s father decided to marry again. His second wife had two daughters of her own, neither of whom could touch Vasilisa for beauty or sweetness of character. In fact, they were jealous of Vasilisa and they hated her terribly. So long as Vasilisa’s father remained at home, the step-mother and step-sisters had to pretend that they liked her, but every now and then one of the sisters would whisper in Vasilisa’s ear:
“Just you wait until your dear papa leaves us alone with you. Then you’ll see !”
When Vasilisa had recently passed her sixteenth birthday, her father said that he had to go away on a journey that would last at least a month. Vasilisa begged him to take her with him, but he just laughed and said he was traveling on business, and the girl would find the journey tiresome and dull.
The first night after the father had left, the step-mother gathered the three girls together in the parlor and spoke like this:
“Now my dears, I have a little task for each of you. Tanya” – that was the oldest ” – go in my room please my dear and sew a button on my red dress. Katya ” – that was the youngest – ” go to the kitchen table and roll some pastry so that it’s nice and flat. And Vasilisa dear, go to Baba Yaga’s hut in the forest and ask her to lend us some fire for the hearth. Now run along sweetheart. Don’t waste any time.”
The stepmother shooed Vasilisa out of the house so fast that that she had hardly time to put on her hat and gloves. She walked forlornly to the corner of the street and took the little doll out of her coat pocket where it had been sleeping.
“Oh Little Doll,” she said. “My mother told me that if I fed and looked after you, you would be ready to help me if I was ever in trouble. Well I have fed and looked after you. And now I’m in terrible trouble. I must go to Baba Yaga. And everyone knows that she is a dreadfully wicked witch. So please tell me – what am I to do?”
And the little doll looked up at Vasilisa and said:
“Be as brave as you are beautiful. Go to Baba Yaga’s hut and no harm will come to you.”
And so Vasilisa mustered all her courage and walked down the path that led through the woods to the hut of Baba Yaga.
Valalisa begins her journey with the rising sun, and as she delves deeper into the ancient wood, she sees first a man dressed in white riding a white horse out of the forest. A bit later in the day, she hears the thundering of hooves again and a red-clad rider on a red horse flies past. As the sun is setting and Valalisa sees flickering fire in the distance, a black rider on a black horse goes past.
When she finds the witch’s home, she is afraid of the bone fence, the dancing hut, and Baba Yaga’s iron teeth and withered form, but determined to retrieve the fire her family needs, she faces down her fears and enters the Yaga’s dancing hut. Therein, she is set to cleaning the witch’s house, cooking her dinner, and completing an impossible task: Separating mildewed corn from good corn. Baba Yaga warns Valalisa that if she doesn’t complete these tasks, she will become dinner. The magic doll, gift of her mother, helps her through. Baba Yaga is surprised to find the tasks complete in the morning, but calls upon three pairs of skeletal hands to grind the good corn into meal. Valalisa is set to another day of cleaning, cooking, and yet another seemingly impossible task: Separating wheat from black grains and wild peas. Again the doll comes to her rescue. Baba Yaga does not appear pleased, but sets Valalisa to a third day of chores, and a third and even more difficult task: Separating poppy seeds from a pile of dirt. In the morning, the Yaga appears disappointed once again, but calls upon her magic hands to grind the poppy seeds into oil. As Estés tells the story, Valalisa is granted the opportunity to ask questions for the tasks she has completed, with the added warning, “too much knowledge makes one old before their time.”
She asks about the riders she saw on her journey.
“Who is the white rider?” she asks the crone, and Baba Yaga smiles fondly.
“Ah,” she says. “That is my Day.”
“And the red man on the red horse?”
“That is my Rising Sun.”
“And the man in black on the black horse, Grandmother?”
“He is my Night.”
Valalisa then falls silent, and Baba Yaga wheedles her. “Come, my child, do you have no more questions?”
The girl considers asking about the skeletal hands, but remembers the warning she was given, and instead answers thus: “No, Grandmother. You, yourself said knowing too much makes one old before her time.”
The Yaga cackles and grants Valalisa what she has traveled so far for—fire, in the form of one of the fiery skulls from Her gate on a stick. Unafraid now of the forest and emboldened with the lessons she has learned, Valalisa returns home with her fire, the fire of wisdom and power, and brings it back to the stepmother and stepsisters who had plotted against her. And by morning, under the watchful eyes of the skull, they are all burned to a crisp.
*
“Now, at first glance, Baba Yaga appears to be the villain of the story, the wicked witch who makes Valalisa toil for Her. And indeed, to a small girl cast out of her house to search for fire, the Yaga appears frightening indeed. She lives in Her dancing hut surrounded by a fence made of bones, topped with human skulls whose eyes glow with a fiery light. She demands impossible tasks be completed in order to gain Her approval. Yet, when those tasks are met, Valalisa, as the honest Seeker, is gifted with the gifts of the Crone: Wisdom and power.
The skeletal hands – the Mystery Valalisa did not ask about – also reveal Baba Yaga’s deeper mysteries. The hands reveal the alchemic power of death, the crucible in which one thing is transformed into another. In working at separating that which is useless (moldy corn, dirt) from that which is good (healthy corn, poppy seeds) Valalisa learns the all-important lesson of discernment, for that discernment must be employed before that transformation can take place. But these Mysteries are not explained to Valalisa like the riders. Death, of course, is part of the natural cycle of nature, but the deeper mystery remains with the Yaga in her dancing hut.
When we work with Baba Yaga, when we take that path into the deep forest to face the mysteries of death and emerge with the light of wisdom, we also face the wild aspects of ourselves. They may not be pretty, they may have long stringy hair and iron teeth and a wild cackle, but they also hold mysteries our more civilized day-to-day selves never think upon. Baba Yaga is not tied by social norms and mores. She flies about in yet another symbol of transformation; she wipes away the signs of her passing so you’re never sure if she’s really been there. She’s rude, she’s crude, and she lives in a hut that doesn’t have the manners to sit down and stay like we expect a house should—and you can bet she enjoys all of this. She is less concerned about what is civilized and polite than what is true.
When you find yourself in need of true wisdom, when you find yourself being too nice, too polite in the face of ongoing boundary violations, when you find yourself stagnated by the expectations of others, it might just be time to retrieve your Wild Woman (or Man.) It might be time to brave the forest and meet Baba Yaga.
I wanted to show in my story that the doll and the Baba Yaga represent the same idea, one in tiny human proportion, the other of the magnitude... yet both linked by safekeeping, and by knowing. Vasalisa in the story as I wrote it, carries... she carries the doll, she carries the laundry of the Yaga, she carries the poppy seeds, she carries the skull of consciousness. She is a quintessential dummling who is learning consciousness and has all she needs given to her time and again. The psyche appears to work this way too, offering us avenues for learning, for escape, for differentiations heightened, if we will bend to the work and not block what we have learned and what we know to be so.The psyche appears to learn from the magnitude and from the tiny also, particularly if one does not 'throw away' what the soul knows, as the ego will ever try to lighten the load in its ramblings, uncertainties and lacks of courage. The point is, the ego will never understand, but the soul can grasp a great deal of the archetype, can learn a great deal by remaining with and with and with.
You've heard me say this often: There comes a time in life... when it is time to move from this encampment to a farther encampment. Then, we move away from ego's sights only and far more into soul's sight.
This can be a struggle, and the Vasalisa story details her oh so willing struggle, her... to me... heartbreakingly faithful trust of the tiny doll given by her mother... who in herself is also part of the Baba Yaga who keeps, preserves, watches and cares for, teaches and is bold and wise and no one to mess with.
In symbolic terms, I love the story of Vasalisa because it takes all these matters into account and as one reads and learnes the story as applied to one's life only, one begins to be near the transformative fire. How far in one wishes to jump is up to the individual. And it is true, that Baba Yaga is not one for the timid or unprepared. Remember Vasalisa is about to die; she has been harmed horribly, abandoned in a forest, has NO protector.
And yet, an archetype has relevance and resonance in every life regardless of horrifications, and in this sense Vasalisa, a child of the universe, as we all are... is a Baba in the becoming... a mother who will see so much and have dominion over herself, and teach and give to others, and who also will turn away from what is destructive to her soul and spirit.
In this case, a representation of a great woman who sees clearly, is decisive and knows the patterns of the universe.
The doll is symbolic homunculi, little life. It is the symbol of what lies buried in humans that is numinous. It is a small and glowing facsimile of the original Self. Superficially, it is just a doll. But inversely, it represents a little piece of soul that carries all the knowledge of the larger soul-Self. In the doll is the voice, in diminutive, of old La Que Sabe, The One Who Knows.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
There is one section in the book (which I cannot type out for you word for word as I have lent my copy to another at the moment) that goes into the symbolism of Baba Yaga giving her the fire in a skull versus some other vessel. In essence, what she said was that this part of the story symbolized how many of us are presented with an event (or events) in life that is dangerous, causes pain or injury, and profoundly changes how we see the world and our place in it. This encounter with “Baba Yaga” in whatever form she takes is an opportunity to receive the gift of wisdom and enlightenment. The fire inside the skull represents that new knowledge.
The problem some people face with it is that the blinding light that beams from the skull’s eyes is harsh and unforgiving. While it can and does illuminate great beauty, it can also uncover terrible ugliness and horror. Some people get to the point where this light of wisdom and experience is just too much for them to bear. The pain, ugliness, horror and madness it often spotlights is just too much for a soul to take on. They end up tired and they cast away this gift of the wisdom and prefer to remain in the cool comforting darkness where it’s much easier (on the heart and the eyes) to remain blissfully ignorant of the truth about people and the world.
Sadly, these are the same people who are doomed to repeat their traumas, horrors, and mistakes because they prefer to stumble around a dark room rather than to illuminate it with that light…. because the light may show the monsters…and that’s just too scary for some. Too overwhelming.
This story was a huge reminder to me that after I had been through everything I had experienced with douche bag, I MUST not throw away that light. I must not discard what I had paid a very painful price to learn. I must not let that experience go to waste. As depressing as it could be to see those monsters behind the faces of men who pretend to be nice…it was worth it to illuminate each and every one of them so I could also see those who were good, honest, kind, strong, wonderful men.
To me this story speaks to that of learning the wisdom to discern. To see. To sort. To be brave. To be able to listen to that voice of wisdom and respect the power that is given to you. And, to have the strength to not discard it when the burden becomes heavy or uncomfortable. The flowers in the eyes will be done in the colors of fire to further symbolize that light of knowledge and illumination.
This story was what first started the idea of the skull design to start to coalesce in my mind and when I read the next story of the Skeleton Woman it just clicked and I KNEW that would be the focal point of my next design. In my third and final piece, I will share the rest of the smaller details and why they were done and important to the design.
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