Summer is a season of feminine liberation. The old has been shed and the journey to full initiation is ready to be crowned as the bejeweled rite it is. We dare to burst forth with the power of our regenerative natures in full expression for all to behold.

Let us consider the myth of Vasilisa and her becoming. There are several variations of the fairy tale but for this summer issue we are going to work with a Russian version of Vasilisa the Beautiful inspired by the rendition in Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

The myth of Vasilisa the Beautiful can be traced to pre-Grecian times. It is essentially a coming of age story of a young woman traveling the psychic underworld in a quest for fire who combines her gifts of intuition, maternal guidance and matriarchal love to blossom into a wild and full woman.

Beautiful can describe Vasilisa’s external appearance, but in true liberatory spirit, the word is meant to convey the qualities of her inner gifts and soulfulness.

Vasilisa is a young and sweet girl when her mother, on her deathbed, gifts her with a tiny doll. Her mother tells her that if Vasilisa is ever in need of help she can ask the doll and it will know what to do. Her mother offers this blessing and tells Vasilisa to keep the doll with her, feed her when she is hungry and to never tell anyone of its existence.

Several years later Vasilisa’s father remarries and the stepmother and her two stepdaughters despise Vasilisa. They mock and demean her and force her to do the chores and wait on their every need. Eventually the stepfamily conspire to kill Vasilisa and purposefully snuff the home fire and send her on a quest to visit Baba Yaga to rekindle the flame of the hearth. They do not believe that Vasilisa can survive meeting the witch and will not return. Naive but determined, Vasilisa heads off into the forest with her doll to find the witch and ask for fire.

Through the dark woods, Vasilisa speaks to her doll for guidance and offers her bread. She encounters a man in white on a white horse and the sky becomes day. Then a man in red goes by on a red horse and the sun begins to rise. As Vasalisa arrives at the hut of Baba Yaga, a rider in black on his black horse brings on night. The witch’s house is an eerie structure made with bones, teeth, skin and sits atop erratic chicken legs. The hut is surrounded by skulls filled with flame that cast their glow.

Baba Yaga flies in on her cauldron, a warty fierce hag, and demands to know why Vasilisa has come. Vasilisa asks for fire and the witch proceeds to test Vasilisa with questions and impossible tasks which she must complete before she will be deemed worthy of aid. If she fails, Baba Yaga will eat her. She makes Vasilisa bring her food, wash her clothes, clean the house, sweep the yard, separate mildewed corn from good, poppy seeds from dirt. In every case, Vasilisa reaches into her pocket and the doll offers blessings, guidance, and extraordinary help to complete what is asked.

The final test is when Baba Yaga asks if Vasilisa has questions for her. After Vasilisa inquires about the horses and riders, Baba Yaga presses for more questions. The doll quivers in Vasilisa’s pocket so Vasilisa quells her curiosity and says she is satisfied. Baba Yaga commends Vasilisa’s wisdom and offers her a skull with fiery eyes to carry back to her home.

Vasilisa listens to her doll as she navigates her return. At one point the skull lantern seems scary and too much to bear, but the skull reassures her to stay the path and so Vasilisa keeps the frightening gift of light bestowed by Baba Yaga and presses on.

As Vasilisa returns home, triumphant in her quest, the stepmother and stepsisters whine of their cold, miserable circumstances. The skull lantern gazes upon them and reduces the stepmother and stepsisters to ash.

As you consider this summer season of becoming here are some contemplations:

  • How can you celebrate the blessings and secret helpers in your life?
  • How can you tap into the strength, willpower and matriarchal love that is available to you?
  • How do you discern what is right for you?
  • What wants to bloom in you? What has endured? What wants to announce itself upon its return home? What wants to rest?
  • What new ways of being can help you honor what has been let go?
  • What wisdom glows within? How can you encourage this fire to burn?
  • What strengths can you adorn with appreciation? Can you live them more honestly?
  • What feels expansive, wild and powerful within you right now? How can you make it an offering for your world in a right sized way?

Summer is an invitation to let live what wants to live. To savor our vitality. Perhaps you can synchronize with its rhythms and rejoice in the fiery wildness that dares and lives within you. Let this wildness be your guide.

~Criss