Romancing my shadows

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.

Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

Rainier Maria Rilke

As I prepare to go see the Baba Yaga later this spring, I have been looking through some of my journals from a few years ago when I was actively amplifying fairy tales and working with the archetype of the Shadow. Sometimes when I find something I wrote a few years ago, I am pleasantly surprised at how meaningful it is to me now. Then I wonder why I learn something, only to forget, only to learn again… lather, rinse, repeat.

In my kinder moments, I tell myself, each lesson, relearned, is taken in at a deeper level.

From a distance, the pieces I write are wise, poignant, and meaningful - but when I am writing them, they often seem too  personal, rambling and disorganized, and in my harshest moments - irrelevant to the greater world in which I live. Seems to be that I need some distance in my self-viewing.

Taking distance, I ask myself - OK - so what the hell am I projecting onto the Baba Yaga that I need to have reflected back to me so I can reel it in and claim its gold?

The answer will only come as we get closer…