There is a Russian fairytale named Vasalisa the Wise. It is a story about a young girl who was sent to retrieve an ember for fire from the hearth of Baba Yaga, the old wise woman who lived in a cottage deep in the forest. Vasalisa’s stepmother sent her to the Baba Yaga, in the hopes that the young girl would fall prey to the wrath of the old woman. But Vasalisa was able to withstand this dangerous task with the help of a gift her mother gave her.

While her mother lay dying, she gave Vasalisa a doll, which would protect and guide her in her mother's absence. The doll symbolizes the matriarchal bloodline, the river of wisdom flowing from mother to daughter. The blessing of the doll is the passing of woman’s intuitive power, the uncovering and embodiment of a power that may lie in disuse, buried deep within the psyche of every woman. Dolls are holy. Sacred dolls of intuition have the power to transform us spiritually, for they are a miniature version of our higher spiritual self and they contain all the soul knows. But it is you who must activate the doll of intuition, not the good mother who passes it on to you. It is up to you to face the challenges, meet the mark, and open the pathways to the inner voice, with the help of the doll as a symbol of this sacred gateway.

There is the kind of wisdom in the story of Vasalisa that a woman can only receive from experience. Vasalisa became the slave of the wicked stepmother and stepsisters hoping this would help her escape her destiny. Being a good girl is a path many women take hoping to avoid their own shadow aspects and the shadows of the unkind in their lives. Vasalisa, like many women bore the yoke of the outcast in the family and by being exiled by the wicked ones and yet remaining still compliant to their demands, she became exiled from herself and her knowing nature. She gave herself away in the hope of finding love and approval.

Entering the dark woods in search of the Baba Yaga marked the moment when her soul called her to adventure, to the initiation of her retrieval of her intuitive self. As she fed the doll that guided her in the dark woods, her intuition awakened. Her habitual attention shifted from the voices of doubt and castigation, to the voice of her inner compass spoken by the directive nature of her doll who led her through the dark woods and to the abode of the Yaga, the archetypal power woman.

Once Vasalisa arrived she was tested by the Baba Yaga to see if she was worthy of receiving the Old Wild Nature of Woman. The only way she found her way to the Yaga's cottage and survived her tests was through the help of the doll in her pocket – her intuitive voice. Hidden within her, the doll endures all that the shadow side of the psyche can dish out. The doll is instinctual, holding the power that lives and breathes beneath the outer persona we offer the world. It represents the glowing form of our Original Self. This doll is tireless in her interior working world, and Vasalisa feeds her life by listening and following her cues. Like a muscle, Vasalisa strengthens her ability to hear the voice by simply listening to it and acting on its advice.

Staying at the Yaga’s house and performing tasks according to her bidding is a process of sorting and purifying the elemental powers of the Wild Woman’s inner voice. By cleaning the Yaga’s house, Vasalisa puts her own interior castle in order. Vasalisa makes sense of what must die and what must live within her being. She like us learns to hold what is true and sacred within us from our ability to intuit these noble truths. And it is the intuitive doll who does all this work while Vasalisa sleeps – meaning while we exist in ordinary consciousness, the inner voice works from the depths of awareness at the level of the unseen world we also inhabit. The power of the unconscious is vast and works while the ego is unaware, just like the doll who performs all of the Yaga’s monumental tasks while Vasalisa sleeps.

Vasalisa returns home with the fiery skull, a gift from the Yaga for a job well done, an acknowledgement of woman’s power taken by the young maiden who now returns home as a woman “who knows how”. The skull sees through all facades of the shadow aspect of self and the negative aspects of others in her life. It shines on the goodness and flaws in others and sees all in balance. The fiery skull of intuition sees what is and burns to cinders the evil step family that strives to take Vasalisa’s power. All that tries to oppress our inner wisdom is rendered impotent in the eyes of the fiery skull of truth. It will not suffer any fools and will not allow anyone to drown your passions or douse your fires of wisdom.

To listen to the doll in the face of the Baba Yaga, the wild woman’s knowing, will earn you the fiery skull of true seeing, hearing, and knowing. It is powerful and fulfilling and once achieved there is no turning back.

A story well told can change lives. The source for my discussion of Vasalisa is the profound work by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in Women Who Run With the Wolves (1992, Ballantine Books). Actually what I have printed here are my notes written ten years ago on now well worn yellowed sheets of paper. These jottings hinged the framework for my book; Wisdom Walks In Circles, for Vasalisa’s story encapsulates a treasury of poetic notions that coaxed me down a road worth taking. Key words, phrases and whole concepts floated up from the pages of Clarissa’s work and began to dance with me, edging me closer to the flourishing of what would become a book, a website, and now an online course.

As serendipity would have it, my niece Julia recently spent a day with Clarissa as an occupational boon in her work in the literary world. Hearing Julia speak of this great lady, my heart swelled in gratitude. I felt a rekindling of a fire Clarissa's work fanned to a blaze within me. Through the life path of my niece, I flashed back to the momentary kinship I shared with this great writer so many years ago. People might say it was a splitting second that only a flight of fancy can devise, but I can’t help but sense it has the telltale signs that confirm the rightness of choices made in my life.

Should you choose to join us for the Online Course, The Spiraling Journey of Artemis, you may come to find your herb doll of intuition is like a golden key, unlocking the gate to your inner voice. By simply holding your doll, you can reconnect to the journey and all its lessons. The love you feel for your doll will turn the key opening the gate to your intuitive voice. Walk through the gateway and enter your secret garden of inner knowing. There is beauty all around you.

With a doll in your pocket, you'll never have the need to look to others for your answers. Hold your doll and remember -- all your answers lie within.

As you read through this journey around the wheel, bring all the aspects of your life stages into the center of your most sacred self. I offer you a gathering of knowledge, experience, and a savoring of your past, present and future wisdom.

A woman places her being on the sacred wheel of life and sits at the center. She looks to the East. The East is the place of vision, home of the Eagle, bird who flies highest and sees farthest. Its color is yellow or gold, and is the place of the Sun. Home to the Season of spring, the element of fire, and the New Moon, the East brings us the golden light of spirit, illuminating our soul. East is the place of physical birth and death, and rebirth into the worlds beyond. The East direction is a gateway between the crossroads of birth and death. At daybreak, a woman enters life through the East Gateway as a fetus growing within the womb of her mother, and when she is born; she begins her circular rotation on the wheel of life.

Moving sun wise (clockwise) in the early morning light, a woman looks to the South on the sacred wheel of her life, planting her feet firmly in the moist soil of trust and innocence. In the place of the child, she holds the energy of the waxing moon growing into fullness. It is the summer of her life, and she makes mud pies in her element of Earth. She lives very close to the ground and explores the green meadows, vast oceans, lush woods, endless deserts and jagged peaks of the Great Mother. Like the mouse, she drinks in every detail, texture, and sensation of life around her. In the South, a woman is the tiny rosebud beginning to open. She peeks out of her petal edges with wide-eyed wonder as the landscape of her life unfolds in all it splendor, filling her field of vision with breathtaking glory.

During the southern childhood of life, a woman grounds herself in physical life, allowing her roots to wander deep into the body of the Great Mother. She is planted, nourished, and given the magical moments of childhood, which spur on her growth. Ever so slowly the bud begins to open, and she slowly awakens to her destiny. The seeds of her life purpose are planted deep in the bones of her body. The inkling that life may have some greater meaning enters the threshold of her mind as she moves toward the doorway of adolescence.

Close your eyes and breathe deeply into your belly. See the innocent child you once were standing before you. Call her into your circle now. Embrace her. Let her know how important she is to you and ask her to stand in the South of your sacred circle of self.

With time and experience a woman moves toward the mid-day sun, transforming from child to maiden at the West position on the Wheel, the place between childhood and womanhood. The rose blossoms into fullness in the West, at the zenith of the Full Moon. The adolescent maiden is “one unto herself”, for she is autonomous, unattached, uncaptured, and therefore free to create her life as she sees it. She is the artist with palette and brush, and her life is the empty canvas.

In the West lives the element of water, the emotional body. When a woman lives in the southern childhood of her life, she explores her physical being, but in the West, she must wrestle with waves of powerful emotions, as they intricately weave themselves among the fibers of her mind and heart. Not only must she subdue the demons of raging hormones, and changing physical features, she must settle and sink deep into the lake of her feeling life.

West energy flows like water seeking its own level, falling into depressions, and rising to new heights. The waters of the Earth, like the red waters of a woman’s body, swell and overflow down the mountains of the Great Mother’s body, and down the thighs of a woman. Always flowing downward to meet the Earth, to fill her cracks and crevices, a woman’s blood was meant to be honored and returned to the Great Mother. The Spirit of the West flows with a woman’s bleeding time cycles. The womb, like the Moon, moves through its cycles of waxing and waning. The womb fills and empties, only to fill and empty again. When the maiden begins her bleeding cycle for the first time, this rite of passage marks the opening of the third eye to power, intuition, and the ability to access knowledge from other realms.

Close your eyes and deeply visualize yourself as an adolescent. See yourself clearly at this stage of life. Remember your beauty and power at this age and when you feel this aspect of yourself clearly present, call her into your circle. Ask your adolescent maiden to be with you now and see her enter your circle taking the West position.

As the sun casts long mid-afternoon shadows, a woman walks toward the soft glowing light of late day into the home of her adult self. At the North position of the wheel, between the maiden and Sage aspects of her being, her full blooming rose begins to stretch and create space between her petals, like the widening of a woman’s hips as her body swells with child. North, place of winter and the waning moon, is covered with a blanket of crystal white snow. Each snowflake is unique, yet creates in unison, a shield for Mother Earth uniting her with the Great Spirit of the sky.

A woman in the North position of life makes a sacred pact between the manifestation of her dreams on Earth and the Spirit of her true self that soars to great heights in the sky. It is vital at this stage of life that she sees the paramount significance of merging material with the spirit world. She feeds the rose bush now, so when she meets the crossroads of elder age, she will have created a strong foundation in the physical world to support all efforts of spirit in later life.

The North time of womanhood is a time of fruition, and the woman takes aim and makes her mark in the world as she manifests her dreams into reality. If she chooses to have a family, she learns how to care for the circle of people in her life, and makes these provisions finely attuned to the delicate balance of give and take, ensuring a steady flow of energy for herself as well as her loved ones. If she walks in balance, she provides for others without depleting herself.

The great archetypal Mother is our foundation, and when a woman faces the crossroads in her North direction of full bloom, she relies on the strength of the Mother within to be her springboard, providing the power and intent she needs to manifest her secret dreams into reality. However, being a mother is not the ideal each woman holds as the ultimate resource of a fulfilled life. In fact, there are many ways to mother - - passions, projects, careers, spiritual beliefs, close family members, pets and plants may all be the recipients of loving, nurturing mothering.

Dream of yourself as an adult, this stage of life you may be experiencing now. Close your eyes and see yourself like a mirror image. See the knowledge written in your eyes of all the life experience you have accumulated thus far. Invite your adult self, the mother of your children or your life’s accomplishments to stand in the north direction of your circle and be with you. Embrace her and feel proud of the person she has become.

Now we come full circle, to the East in a woman's life once again. Wise woman’s petals are beginning to brown at the edges. Glowing in the last embers of the setting sun, some petals loosen their hold on the stem and fall to the ground. Feeling more expansive as her petals travel with the wind, Wise Woman merges with her surroundings knowing she is one with the primal source of life. Reflecting on her trials and triumphs she begins to have glimpses into the meaning of all the joy and pain. She longs to share her knowledge with those who trail behind her. She is ready now to give away all she has learned to assist those who are willing to listen.

The intuitive impressions women receive for several days around ovulation transform into everyday occurrences postmenopausally. Naturopathic physician Farida Sharon believes on the basis of her clinical impressions, that women's menstrual cycles produce a kind of alternating current of intuition premenstrually that is changed into a direct current postmenopausally. Herbalist Susan Weed makes the point that all over the world men are sitting in prayer and meditation trying to reach the intuitive state of interdependence that menopausal women are in naturally.

Wise woman moves slower now, and she remembers to stop and see every petal of the flower, and the dappling play of light through the leaves of the forest. Her fingers enjoy the feel of tiny seedpods and acorns. She sees, feels, and knows the wisdom of the child. Life is a circle.

See the old wise woman you have or will become. See the grandeur of her silver hair and well-lined face. She is the ancestor within you, the Sage, the Wise One. Feel the wisdom that runs in her veins emanating from her being as you envision her standing before you. She has seen so much and understands many things you have yet to comprehend. She is benevolent and kind and wants to stand in your circle with you. Invite her to take her place of honor at the East direction of your sacred circle of self. See her standing there now and feel the completion of your circle.

A Dreamer's Question

Dear Margaret,

Last night again I had busy people dreams going here there and everywhere just like my waking life but then I remembered something. In the mist of all the energy of others I saw angel's wings. I didn't see the angels but saw their wings up on a wall. Soft velvety wings. I was showing someone the wings when one set disappeared. The woman said those were for you. I replied, ya, I guess you're right and then went back to all the people and doing of life. This morning after dropping off the kids, I called my sister-in-law because she has had a emotional week and insights came for me to tell her. Then I remembered the angel wings. Being the angel in the every day. Funny but this is really all I have ever wanted to be.

Blessings and wings, Pam

Answer

Dear Pam,

I am particularily fond of this dream you shared with our online community at wisdomwalks. It is a shining example of the kind of dream we so often have where our Mythic Soul tries to communicate and penetrate our consciousness via symbology designed to stir us out of our everyday processing dreams. It is as if your Soul slipped the angel wings in between the cracks of your busy dream dramas and you stopped for a moment and heard the Inner Voice harking with glad tidings of your angel wings. For a moment, you timed out from all the busyness and acknowledged the dream's spiritual message.

So often it is not until the next day when our conscious mind is engaged in another task, that we open to the dream and it reappears on the movie screen of our minds. How wonderful to know your wings appeared to you in conscious awareness while you were tending to your sister-in-law. Like the everyday angel your speak of, you opened to the glorious meaning of your wings while being in service to another. Bravo! Being an angel in the every day is an admirable trait and I sense it will be the tack you take while engaging in your healing work with others. You have a heavenly host behind you bringing the wind to carry your wings aloft. In being that angel for your sister-in-law, it is as if you were giving a nod to the dreaming world and the response came fluttering back to you -- you earned the wings of your dreams!

Until next time, sweet dreams my friends.

Margaret H. Lewis is a highly regarded professional speaker, workshop facilitator, business and personal development consultant, gifted spiritual practitioner and author. For over 20 years she has provided countless training seminars and workshops on a wide range of life management and personal development skills.

Margaret is a graduate of an intensive four-year program of spiritual study, receiving her professional certification and ministerial license. She is continually engaged in many areas of research and study that further her continuing education as a spiritual practitioner.

From 2000 - 2005, Margaret directed Lynn Andrews website where she designed, wrote and taught Online Spirituality Courses with Ms. Andrews. In her role as the Online Course Creator, Margaret oversaw the entire learning environment and curriculum presentation. Margaret has ventured out on her own and is offering many new online courses and learning adventures on her website at www.wisdomwalks.com. Please keep checking the website and new issues of Spirit's Scroll for updates!

In private consultations, Margaret has assisted hundreds of people in releasing the blocks that are holding them back from achieving their goals and visions of fulfillment. To set up an appointment with Margaret, please email her at info@wisdomwalks.com or visit her online store at www.wisdomwalks.com.


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