Excerpt from the journals of Baba Yaga, the Wise

If ever you lose your way,

do not search first
for the path.

Search for your wonder.

The path has been waiting
for you all along.

When I was younger
I believed the forest
needed protecting
from wolves.

I was wrong.

The wolves were never
the greatest danger.

It was certainty.

Certainty cuts down forests
to make room for answers.

Wonder plants seeds
whose names
it may never know.

Look closely.

Do you see
the gold running
through these old pages?

People think
those are cracks.

They are not.

Those are the places
where curiosity
repaired the world.

Every question
became another vein of gold.

Every kindness
mended another tear.

Every story
stitched another corner
back together.

Even now,
the moon is quietly
pouring silver
into the creek,

showing you
just enough light
for the very next step.

No more.

No less.

That is how wisdom
has always traveled.

Do not hurry
toward the circus.

Listen first.

Can you hear
the music
drifting through the trees?

The performers
already know
what the forest remembers.

The clown.

The juggler.

The dancer.

The musician.

They are not here
to distract you
from life.

They are here
to remind you

that delight
is one of the oldest forms
of courage.

Carry a lantern.

Fill it with stories.

Collect feathers
instead of victories.

Gather fireflies
instead of applause.

Leave room
for butterflies.

Wave to ravens.

Thank mushrooms.

Sit beside creeks
until they tell you
something
you didn’t know
you had forgotten.

And if one day
you find a flower
so beautiful
it seems to glow
from somewhere
deep inside itself,

do not pick it.

Sit with it.

For that flower
is the part of you
that never stopped believing
the world
could still be enchanted.

Protect it.

For once wonder
takes root,

the whole forest
begins
to remember.

—

In a hand made crooked by age, written in the corner of an old page…

Baba Yaga, the Wise