Big Magic is Afoot

Enter Baba Yaga

About a year ago, I read Thislefoot by GennaRose Nethercott. It’s a dark and beautifully written take on the Baba Yaga folktale, imagining the lives of her modern-day grandchildren. You may remember this post where I shared Nethercott’s language about the importance of stories and folklore.

A few months later, my daughter found The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson at a used bookstore. We spent the summer reading a chapter every night. I found this version of Baba Yaga, who listens to the stories of the recently deceased, bearing witness to their lives so that they can pass serenely through the gate to death, deeply moving.

During lunch with a dear friend and kindred spirit, she said that elements of my braided stories of infertility, pregnancy loss, and my grandma’s dementia had a mythical or mystic quality.

The next week, during an online writing workshop, I “attended” a class on folklore and memoir.

These could be unrelated events. But I don’t think they are. I choose to believe Big Magic (a la Liz Gilbert), is at work. In my worldview, this is the Christ moving through all things, holding all things together.

As a result, I’m playing with the shape of my memoir and using tales of a capricious Slavic witch to help me tell my story. It’s a bit of a left turn that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I feel like I’ve stumbled into a playground that’s opened up energy, creativity, and possibilities.

Paid subscribers, I present to you Jozefina and Baba Yaga . . .

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