Taisia Kitaiskaia - Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles

M

For my mother and father

A Note from the Author

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Baba & Me

Baba Yaga was a potent presence in the wild, dense Siberian woods where I formed my earliest memories. My familys dachya (summer house) was right up against a forest roamed by bears and wolves. After days of berry picking and mushroom gathering, my parents told me fairy tales about this ancient trickster witchsometimes cruel, sometimes generous, always dangerous. In one tale, the young maiden Vasilisa risks her life to seek guidance from the human-eating Baba. Vasilisa knocks on the door of the strange hut, which stands on chicken legs. Vasilisa is lucky, and instead of cooking her in a cauldron, Baba presents the brave girl with a human skull. The skull, glowing mysteriously from the inside, serves as a lantern. It saves Vasilisa, illuminating her forest path through the dark night, taking her where she needs to go.

When I was all grown up and living far from Babas woods, I tried to find my way back to such enchanted lands. To get to know Baba Yaga better, I asked her questions on paper ( What do you look like? What do you keep in your house? ) and wrote down her answers. Babas spirit ignored my queries but immediately began investigating my life. She even offered some unsolicited advice.

Spooked and thrilled, I communed with Baba Yaga every week for two years. Strangers sent questions that agitated and ached my human heart but found clarity in Babas supernatural one. I listened to her pronouncements and recorded these answers on a typewriter as best I could.

Indifferent and immortal, Baba offers no comforting pats on the back. But she can extendwith her gnarled, clawed handa glowing skull lantern. If you keep your nerve, that eerie light might just guide you through.

Be well, and beware,

Taisia Kitaiskaia

Contents

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HOW DO I SURVIVE THE DATING WORLD?

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Dear Baba Yaga,

How do I survive dating in a world where people seem afraid of being vulnerable?

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BABA YAGA:

When we live ) in our snail-shells, :to see a cracked one feels uglywe watch the slimy slug, naked & shivering, and everyone feels ashamed to look. But if this slug were to undulate and wobble, if it were to find sweeter sprouts with its sleek body, if we could see this creature be unafraid, we would not be so squeamish. ; Be the first slug.

WHY AM I SUCH A LUSTY BOAR?

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Dear Baba Yaga,

When I was in a relationship, talking to the opposite sex came easily. Now that Im out of one, I feel a sexual tension and angst with almost any conversation. How do I learn to be myself again?

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BABA YAGA:

Youre an itchy boar in the woods, feeling for the first time its boar bristles. ;Rub up against a tree & laugh at yr prickly skin&fur. Into such a laughter-hole you may fall, & begin the serious journey of knowing the tunnel of yrself.

SHE WONT DATE ME; WHAT DO I DO?

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Dear Baba,

I have recently fallen in love with a girl. Were so perfect for each other that it annoys herbut, alas, she wont date me, even though she tells me that she loves me and that I am someone to grow old with. BabaIm confused. Is it that Im not cute? My hair is looking excellent today, and I even showered. Can you help me? Perhaps bewitch her so shell love me forever? My heart is a big, lumpy piece of brick.

P.S. Can you also make her less crazy? I love her, but she annoys the hell out of me. By the way, she just read that last bit over my shoulder and wants to kill me right now. Oh, Baba can you make me smarter, too?

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BABA YAGA:

)You two; are as potatoes overgrown with sprouted eyes, all tangled-up in each others growth. Love there may be but sense there is not, so stop wishing for all to be so clean. If you wish to wallow in the root cellar, know you will be visited by foully breaths & bored spirits of the kitchen. Nurse a map & go elsewhere. or accept that you both love the malaise & confusions, suck the rot from each others toes & wake for several more months to the consternations of yr silly vegetable faces. , irritable and not wholly adoring.

WILL I DIE ALONE?

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Dear Baba Yaga,

My best friend just got engaged, and all I can do is weep, left alone as the last of the single ladies in my circle of friends. How do I suck it up, move on, and be happy for her when all I do is fear I will die alone, eaten by squirrels and badgers in the wilderness? How do I find my own happiness along the way?

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BABA YAGA:

Everyone dies, alone in their own cauldronyr death will be no more or less gruesome than any others. & happiness is a thing that passes through you, not a thing you meet & hold in yr deathly grip for ever afterwards. You are afraid; of being the last at a party without the others, but the others have gone on into a wood they do not understand. It is the same wood you stand in, weeping. & the trees look at all of you the same, & say nothing.

WHY CANT I STOP FALLING IN LOVE?

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Dear Baba Yaga,

I cant stop falling head over heels. I was in love with someone, but it didnt work, and now I am falling for someone else: someone I think may like me, at least, but who is also far away and is very close friends with the previous someone. I am torn between wanting him, suddenly, intensely, and wanting to be free and quiet and still. How can I stop thinking about the way it felt to dance drunk with him at midnight?

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BABA YAGA:

Theres a whirling in yr brain, but inside every; whirling is a quiet, after the howl undoes itself. You can keep sliding down its spirals or you can sniff out the still spot and put yr toe in it & let it suck you in. Either one, loving or not;loving, is a sucking in. You choose yr sink-hole, knowing that always will there be more Whirlings & more absences stuck to those fragrant ribs.

HOW CAN I BE HAPPY FOR MY EX?

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Dear Baba Yaga,

My ex and I were together 4.5 years before I broke up with him. Even though he loved me and was good to me, I have never been happier about myself and my life until we split up. So why did I get so angry when I found out that hes been dating someone new? And how can I stop feeling this way and be happy for him?