Baba Yaga The Wise

I am older than the fence posts,

older than the stories told about me—

yet still I kneel in the grass

to listen to the small, breathing truths

of fur and feather and paw.

Animals do not lie.

They do not decorate their longing

with pretty words

the way humans do

when they are afraid

to be seen.

No—

a dog will lean its whole body into you

or it will not.

A cat will vanish

into the shadow between heartbeats

or it will return

with a soft, deliberate trust.

And I—

Baba Yaga, bone-keeper, fire-tender,

have learned to read these languages

better than the tangled tongues of men.

In the humble hills

where the fog kisses the redwoods

and the earth smells of ancient remembering,

I walk among creatures

who do not ask me to be anything

other than what I am.

Here, instinct blooms like wild fennel.

Here, I am right more often than I am wrong.

Recently, I kept company with a pack—

three beating hearts of dog

where once there were six.

Two had gone away

to a mysterious schooling of wings and instinct—

bird dogs, they call it—

as if one must travel to remember

how to listen to the sky.

The smallest had gone wandering with its humans,

learning roads and distances,

learning departure.

And so I was left

with the remaining constellation.

One—young, bright, a spark—

demanded the center of the universe

with every joyful insistence:

See me. Throw again. Love me louder.

She was the beginning of things—

the hunger, the invitation,

the laughter that tumbles forward

without asking permission.

Another—steady, not the eldest—

carried the quiet ambition of command.

She circled the edges of power,

nudging, correcting,

claiming space with a sharpened grace:

I will be known.

I will be chosen.

And then—

the mother.

Ah.

She did not need to ask.

She came to me softly,

placed her body beside mine

like a warm truth,

and allowed the chaos

to climb over her bones.

They stepped on her,

tumbled across her ribs,

claimed her as their mountain—

and she did not flinch.

She had already lived the storm.

She had already survived the needing.

She knew the sacred art

of letting things be.

Even in play,

she chose her rhythm.

While the young ones raced

after the thrown relic—

an old shoe,

a symbol of something once traveled—

she brought me her offering.

Placed it directly into my hand.

Here, she said without words.

Meet me where I am.

And I did.

I turned,

threw her joy in another direction—

a quieter arc,

a softer claim on the moment.

She did not chase the frenzy.

She chose her own dance.

And I saw myself

in all of them.

I have been

the bright, insistent one—

Look at me, love me, choose me,

again and again and again—

running breathless

after affection

as though it might vanish

if I did not outrun it.

I have been

the one who contends—

measuring worth in quiet battles,

shaping myself

into something that might be kept.

And I have been

the mother of stillness—

the body that absorbs the chaos,

the presence that softens a room,

the quiet that says:

You may unravel here.

I will not break.

Today,

I sit among three cats—

three mirrors of another kind.

One—hidden,

a ghost beneath blankets,

a whisper of fur and breath—

teaching me

that disappearance is also a language,

though not one I wish to speak for long.

One—tender, tentative—

arrives in small offerings of trust,

then retreats

to gather itself again.

A rhythm of

hello

and

not yet.

And one—radiant, unashamed—

greets me at the threshold

as if I am the sun returning:

You are here.

This is enough.

Now love me.

Each creature

a facet of my own becoming.

Each one asking—

not with words,

but with presence:

Who are you today?

It is a strange and holy thing

to learn yourself through animals.

To see, reflected without judgment,

what is useful,

what is hungry,

what is ready to rest.

They teach me

how to be with humans.

Not through effort—

but through being.

Not through chasing—

but through allowing.

How does this human love me?

they seem to ask.

And what do I offer in return

that is true?

I do not need to beg for affection

like a starving ghost.

I do not need to perform

like a circus flame.

I may simply arrive—

whole, present, breathing—

and let love recognize me.

For I know—

as surely as bone knows earth—

I am as irresistible

as a puppy’s open joy,

as a kitten’s quiet curiosity.

And still—

I am more than that.

I am the one who stands

rooted in her own wild knowing.

The one who no longer hungers

for every passing hand to approve her.

The one who ages

not with fear—

but with deepening.

Grace is not softness alone.

It is certainty.

It is the slow, steady understanding

that every crooked path,

every tangled love,

every moment of forgetting—

has led me here.

To this place of strange abundance.

This life that tastes like wild honey

and smoke and salt and laughter.

This spiritual intoxication—

not from escape,

but from arrival.

I was not given this before

because I would not have known

how to hold it.

Now—

I drink deeply.

Every sip.

Every breath.

Every fleeting, golden moment

of connection and creation.

And I say—

with the full mouth of a woman

who has starved and feasted alike:

Yes.

Yes to the animals.

Yes to the instinct.

Yes to the quiet wisdom

of knowing when to chase

and when to simply place the toy

into the hand of the universe

and trust—

it will meet me

where I am.