What if the wisdom we fear the most—dark, wild, and unpredictable—is exactly what we need to find our way through the ruins? Here we follow the forest path of Baba Yaga, the wild crone of Slavic folklore, whose kinship with the birch tree teaches us that destruction can be a beginning, not just an end. In a world unraveling—ecologically, spiritually, and politically—her fierce, untamed wisdom calls us to root ourselves in cycles of death and rebirth, and to remember that becoming who we truly are often begins in the ashes.
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Caribou Sky, inspired by a folktale about the caribou and their connection to the seasonal cycle of the sun which draws loosely from several ancient stories from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, including many elements from indigenous Sami folklore. Here photographed in the process of being carved.
Summer 2023 Newsletter
Sharing several new handmade prints in my shop! Each print contains a precious folktale from the past, a mythos, reminding us of our ancient and intimate kinship with the wild, expressed with a multitude of endearing voices of the earth. Whether it is the sound of clanking antlers, or the mischievous pecking of a black crow, or the whisper of a tiger’s whiskers these heartwarming stories lyrically weave us into the circle of life and remind us of our extraordinary human imagination.
Read MoreThe Medial Thread: Between The Cauldron and the Crow
In a quiet cave beyond time, an Old Woman weaves the world with fibers dyed from root and blossom, only to have it unraveled again by Trickster Crow. Yet she does not despair. She gathers the threads and begins anew, each tapestry carrying a different pattern, a new possibility. This enduring White Mountain Apache folktale echoes in the folklore of many landscapes around the world reminding us that creation and destruction are not enemies, but dance partners in the rhythm of renewal. In a world obsessed with permanence, at its heart the story holds paradox, persistence, and the sacred art of starting again.
Read MoreSedna: Gift from the Salt Womb
Sedna is an Inuit folktale about how unimaginable pain can be transformed into our greatest gift to others. Though Sedna drowns at the hands of her father, she transforms from the role of victim, to the mighty goddess of the underworld who births all life. Complex, fallible and real like each one of us, Sedna is a deeply lovable character in a heartbreaking tale that offers up ancient wisdom that wakes us up, like the salty spray of an ocean wave.
Read MoreSelkie: Coming Home to Oneself
An ancient folktale from the Faroe Islands, Scotland, Ireland and Iceland about a seal-woman, or Selkie, who loses her pelt, and how she finds it again. Though this story is ancient, it still speaks deeply to the lived experience of those of us who offer our time and energy to others at sacrifice of something vital to us whether it is a love, a dream, or the potential to develop, and how important it is to reclaim it.
Read MoreThe Bird Woman Inside Us
Whether it is winged deities like the Hindu apsaras; airborne Christian mystics; Islamic Sufis; or the Greek Goddess Athena with her Little Owl, there is a consistent association between birds and a sense of fierce and powerful womanhood and femininity across cultures and geographies. In what small ways can we reclaim our power, rebel like these bird heroines, and embody the energy and spirit of wild birds?
Read MoreJade Rabbit and Moon Goddess: A Love Story Between Worlds
What stirs the soul more deeply than the quintessential pairing of rabbits and the moon? Reflecting on the ancient Chinese Jade Rabbit on the Moon folktale, we discover the timeless enduring medicine the Jade Rabbit is entrusted to safeguard on the moon and how it serves as a timeless healing salve in a contemporary world fraught with divisiveness and tension.
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