La Huesera, the ancient folktale of the mythical Bone Woman of the desert southwest, wanders the arroyos gathering scattered bones of wolves, singing over them until they reassemble and return to life. Bone Woman’s song is sung the world over, it is the mythic medicine we can heal from if we dare to gather what’s been forgotten and scattered together into the same circle of honoring. This is Old Story Medicine, the elixir She offers from her sacred cauldron when the world seems starved of connection, and in need of healing and repair.
Read MoreBoreal Bears and Feral Females: Twin Bear Folktales from East and West
The Norwegian folktale “East of the Sun West of the Moon” and the Japanese (indigenous Ainu) folktale entitled “Crescent Moon Bear” are folktales featuring fearless young women who dare to engage in greater intimacy with a bear whether it is marrying a bear, or having the courage to pluck the whisker of a bear. Both involve traversing a formidable boreal forest landscape to save their husbands from a “spell”. These folktales are so strikingly similar in theme and shared values, giving voice to their parallel nature deepens our sense of interconnected history, and rekindles a feeling of belonging to a shared storied boreal landscape, weaving together people, bears, ancestry, stories and hearts. . .
Read MoreThe Goddess Isis: Shedding and Becoming
In the beloved Egyptian myth of Isis, Isis searches for the scattered parts of her murdered husband’s body, resembles him, and breathes life back into him, and makes love to him, which then gives birth to Horus who becomes the next Pharaoh of Egypt. Isis shows us that taking the aerial point of view, or birds-eye-view, gives us the power to hold the tension between what is dissolving and what is emerging, to see the whole instead of only the parts, and to recognize our own agency in the potential for transformation.
Read More
The Birch Goddess: Baba Yaga & The Wisdom of Fall
Inspired by the Slavic Folktale Katrina and the Bright Falcon, featuring Baba Yaga, the enduring powerful female wilderness creatrix from Russian folklore, beautifully described and redefined by Natalia Clarke in her book Baba Yaga: Slavic Earth Goddess which she writes from her own Siberian heritage. The wisdom this folktale offers is how a deep relationship with a wild Falcon and an unconventional wild elder woman who lives in the deep forest, can be a pathway to birth our True Authentic Selves.
Read More