"Ask if you want," said Baba-Yaga, "but remember that not every question has a good answer."
― Russian folktale
Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest
Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week. A random grab bag of delights!
What's caught my attention this week... Obviously I've been thinking about Baba Yaga! Baba Yaga is the old woman in the woods who lives in a house with chicken feet in Russian fairy tales. She is known for eating people who bother her... but also helping them, sometimes at a cost to them, or in helping them, she repays them in unexpectedly helpful and surprising ways. The thing is, she's unpredictable. Sometimes she gives you the impossible tasks and you fail and get eaten, and sometimes you don't.
Medusa's Garden
When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.
Sometimes there is nothing to do but wait. You've added logs to the fire, carefully placed kindling, lit everything that can be lit, and then... it's time to allow the work that you've put in to take off. Sometimes there's a lot of bright lights and hope and then the kindling doesn't catch to the larger logs and burns itself out, sometimes it all catches just as it was planned.
It's in times like these, between the moment where the kindling has taken, and one is waiting for the rest of the fire to catch, where there's wait and see time. It's times like these where one is like Medusa, wandering around her stone gardens of those foolish enough to mess with her. Or Baba Yaga waiting, knowing Vasalisa or children are around the corner (for she is eternally wise as she is frightening). I am neither particularly wise, nor frightening. Not so much a moment to catch one's breath, but maybe a moment in which one's breath catches...
Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads
What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.
The blue-faced Leicester is all done and hung to dry! The black Welsh mountain wool is being carded and spun. I made notable progress on the baby camel/silk blend scarf this past weekend. And since the black Welsh mountain wool is raw wool that I've washed, and a relatively short (1-3 inches) staple that is somewhat rough, I'm also working, on the side, on one of my spindles, with some merino with 10% silk blended in.
The black Welsh mountain wool will make good socks, and I'm pleased that it just dawned on me, that with the wool that's too short to spin, I can felt it and make dryer balls. Now I don't feel quite so bad about how picky I've been with the wool, the only trick will be getting the vegetable matter sufficiently out of the rest of it to make it ok to felt. There will still, of course, be some waste wool, and that's ok, but not as much waste as before. Perhaps Baba Yaga will be pleased by my cleverness and not eat me tonight...
Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life
Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.
It is good to find ways to keep busy while one is waiting for something to happen. And to continue to look for opportunities while one waits to see how the fire catches. Is there nearby kindling to gather closer to the fire? Is another larger log needed in the event that it is required? And of course, you do have water nearby just in case, for safety reasons?
Baba Yaga always has work for the people who seek her knowledge, even when it seems like one should be able to rest for a moment, when one is dancing with Baba Yaga, it's best to stay light on the feet.