Hey, Jude.
Photo by Isle Jordan
FoxHaven held the tension this past weekend between life and death. Life and Death. Vasilisa and the Baba Yaga. We hosted a 4 day fairytale retreat and we grieve the passing of a sister. Life and death in the fullness of the season of harvest and letting go. My heart is full. With the Canadian Thanksgiving on the horizon, with a trip to Italy beckoning, my gratitude is deepened and widened.
My sister-in-law called her loves together on Saturday at the family farm. She called them home to say goodbye. Hers was a short and intense battle with cancer. By the time she looked into the horrifying face of the Baba Yaga in her darkest most devouring visage, by the time the agony of cancer had her in its death grip, she was ready to go. We were willing to let her go. May her memory be a blessing. If I have learned anything worth sharing at this threshold between life and death, it is this: contrary to collective culture here in the West, our death does not belong to us. It belongs to those who will carry us. It belongs to those we leave behind. Jude leaves behind a 98 year old broken-hearted mother, siblings, kids, grand-kids, nieces and nephews and cousins and friends. We will all carry her, her memory, and her unlived life. I think this is how it works. How she is carried will define and deepen the meaning and purpose of her too short life. She will not be forgotten by those who love and carry her. I repeat, this is how it works.
My husband had to leave a full house and our fairytale guests to be with his sister and his family. It was tough to see him go and tougher not to go with him. But, oh, and this is the beauty of women, we carried him. They carried me. Together, in the strength and beauty that is a gaggle of women, we sang Judy home. The Journey Song, taught to me in indigenous Lodges, that on this Turtle Island know too well the ravages of spiritual cancer and cultural genocide, this ancient song gathered up all the beauty. This ancient song rose up in new vocies and sang Jude home. Maybe we sang us all home.
“All behind me, beauty, all before me, beauty, all within me beauty, never alone, traveling home.”
The next chapter will be tremendously hard for Jude’s family and friends. Yet, of this I am confident, spells can be broken, curses undone, and beyond the fear, there is always courage. And love. And surely, life everlasting. In the ancient fairytale that came alive here at FoxHaven this past weekend at our inaugural fairytale intensive, Vasilisa confronts her darkest fear. She ventures into the forest and finds the courage and the humility to serve the hag. In so doing, she earns the eternal fire. The fire of her own authenticity. The fire so needed in our broken world. What I so love about this fairytale is that it is a feminine “Book of Job”. Jung was fascinated by the biblical story of Job. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section11/ Why is it that a good and faithful servant to Yahweh could be so sorely afflicted. “If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target?” Job’s, “Why, me?” echoes into the eternal abyss; yet, it did not crumble his faith. Perhaps, in spite of his suffering, he stayed curious? Open? What we do know is that Job stayed faithful to his God. In so doing, according to Jung’s seminal book, Answer to Job, Yahweh is transformed. The old testament God of wrath and might, softens into a human/god. Yeshua. A human/god who opens wide his arms on a cross and willingly accepts and redeems our human suffering.
The fairy story of Vasilisa the Beautiful is older than the biblical Job. Some fairytales we are told are 10,000 years old. Vasilisa’s confronts all that has been denied, disavowed, and repressed in the Feminine. She meets the hag of the forest, the Baba Yaga. Like Job’s Yawhweh, what she serves does not smote, or devour, but rather, in relationship with her, softens. Vasilisa learns that she needs the wisdom of the crone to strengthen her backbone. The crone learns that she needs the vitality of the maid to transform her bitterness. Seeds need fertile soil. Soil needs fertile seeds. The masculine way may well be the heroic slaying of dragons, but the feminine heroic is always relational. Even our Gods and Goddesses are subject to entropy!
I fell into bed about 7:30pm last night. As a thunderstorm moved across the land, we gathered linens and stripped beds. We began the laundry and unloaded the dishwasher. We put away chairs and rearranged the furniture. We shelved books and swept floors. Oftentimes the cleaning up is as precious as the preparing. Just as the sun was setting, golden and globus after a cleansing rain, I realized I was exhausted. I was processing. I am grieving. I am celebrating. I fell into bed with a soft smile on my face and an ancient song in my heart. I slept deeply and soundly.
As the coffee brews this morning and my fingers tap the keys of my laptop, as I prepare for the days ahead, I am struck with how silent the house. Silent and full. All the fairytale women are returned or are returning to their homes. Iowa, Guelph, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Listowel, Colombia, Australia. Although the house is silent, the land itself seems to be whispering. The Mother Tree is cooing. The Baba Yaga hut is waking. Humming. Processing. And, when I lean in, I hear the echoes of The Journey Song. I see the full unfearful faces of the women who held each other up and sang. I smell the fragrance of the bouquet of blooms they offered. I feel the lingering warmth of their hugs. I taste the sweetness of shared life. And, underneath it, another song…
“Hey Jude, don’t be afraid, take a sad song and make it better…”