Listen, little firefly.
Come closer.
No, closer than that.
You have spent far too many years standing at the edge of other people’s campfires, warming your hands while feeding their flames with your own wood.
Sit.
The night is long, and old Baba Yaga has seen this story before.
Once there was a woman who forgot she was a forest.
She believed she was a path.
A useful path.
A path for husbands.
A path for children.
A path for wounded men dragging old ghosts behind them.
A path for friends.
A path for strangers.
A path for anyone who needed somewhere soft to place their feet.
And because she was kind, she allowed it.
Because she was loving, she allowed it.
Because she was afraid of being abandoned, she allowed it.
Until one day she looked around and discovered there was hardly any path left at all.
Only dust.
Only exhaustion.
Only the distant memory of birdsong.
“What happened to me?” she whispered.
The forest did not answer.
Not yet.
First came the losses.
The beloved dog.
The dear friend.
The falling hair.
The aching bones.
The long nights of staring into darkness wondering why her heart felt so heavy.
The forest is not cruel, little firefly.
But sometimes she must burn away what no longer belongs.
And so the woman wept.
And wept.
And wept.
Until there were no tears left.
Then something curious happened.
Silence arrived.
Not loneliness.
Silence.
The kind that settles over a meadow after a storm.
The kind that allows tiny green shoots to push through blackened earth.
And in that silence, she heard a voice.
Not a husband’s voice.
Not a mother’s voice.
Not a lover’s voice.
Not a child’s voice.
Her own.
Small at first.
Shaky.
Unused.
But alive.
“I do not like this.”
“I do not want that.”
“I would rather walk outside.”
“I would rather tell stories.”
“I would rather make art.”
“I would rather laugh.”
“I would rather be free.”
Oh, how the forest rejoiced.
For there is no sweeter song than a woman remembering herself.
Now she walks among children and bubbles.
Among dogs and stories.
Among artists and dreamers.
She gathers curious souls the way wildflowers gather bees.
Not because she is trying.
Because she is blooming.
And the old sorrows?
Some still visit.
The past knocks on her door now and then.
A memory.
A regret.
A face she once loved.
But she no longer invites them to stay the night.
She pours them tea.
She thanks them for the lesson.
And then she sends them back into the woods.
Because she finally understands a secret Baba Yaga learned long ago:
Forgiveness is not opening the cage.
Forgiveness is discovering you were never meant to live inside it.
So tend your fire, little firefly.
Feed the birds.
Tell your stories.
Dance badly.
Laugh loudly.
Love carefully.
Trust your feet.
And when the moon rises over the trees and doubt comes creeping through the moss, remember:
You were never a path.
You were always the forest.
And the forest, dear one,
has finally come home. 🌙🦉🔥🌲✨
Baba Yaga The Wise 
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