When Vasalisa Faces Baba Yaga With Grace

The pull of hormones is strong, probably stronger than any of us realizes. The desire to intimately touch another person and to have a child—we already know that these are driven in part by hormones. But there's more.

Women sometimes feel sad, angry and even inspired right before our period starts. During ovulation we might want more sex. Then there's the "nesting" phase of pregnancy, usually starting late in the second trimester, when many pregnant women start big projects to ready the house for baby. Baby needs a place to sleep, a place to have their diapers changed and for sure they need all the loose photos to be arranged in albums and for that hideous couch to get the heave-ho.

I've focused here a lot on the role that hormones play in the menopausal transition. There's no denying how potent they area, but they're not the only drivers of change in our lives. We're not just chemical machines (add more estrogen and watch her grow breasts!). We're spiritual and intellectual beings. I'd like to share some thoughts I've had about the spiritual and psychic forces at play during menopause.

She doesn't name it explicitly as menopause but in her classic Women Who Run With the Wolves Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes about womens' experience of initiation and realization that the world might not be what it seems. In telling and breaking down the old Russian tale of Vasalisa, Estés discusses so many things—developing and trusting intuition, the necessity of "killing off the too-good mother" (a doozy of a notion for those of us who are mothers) and meeting fear, danger and even death squarely in the face.

Vasalisa in the dark woods.

In the story, Vasalisa is a child. On her deathbed her mother gives her a doll. "Should you lose your way or be in need of help, ask this doll what to do." Vasalisa puts the doll in her pocket (yes, right next to her gut) and sure enough when faced with difficult decisions, the doll in her pocket gives her the right answer. What a lovely gift for a mother to giver her child: awareness of their innate wisdom.

But another read is to see Vasalisa as a woman in transition. In the text, it's puberty. But it could also be falling in love for the first time, expecting a child or going through menopause. Aren't all transitions the same in some essential way?

Let's follow menopausal, post-fertile Vasalisa on her journey. She's got a powerful tool in her pocket: her intuition. But she's also got something the younger Vasalisa didn't have: life experience.

So when, as in the story, she meets the "old hag" Baba Yaga in the forest she is prepared to face this odd, frightening power. Baba Yaga is, of course, a crone, complete with a hairy wart and a house that can run around the woods on its chicken legs. She is a wild woman and a perfect stand-in for the hairy, brook-no-fools menopausal woman that the world loves to fear and demonize.

In fact, Baba Yaga is the embodiment of instinct, lived experience and power. In other stories she is the keeper of the day, rising sun and night. To gaze into Baba Yaga's face, Estés writes, is to see the power of creation and annihilation at the same time.

Baba Yaga

Armed with her own intuition and experience, our post-menopausal heroine stands and accepts Baba Yaga, warts and all, just as she did when she was on the threshold of adulthood. She respects this great power, because ultimately some of that power will become hers.

Estés frames most of her analysis for younger women, but this book is so rich and so relevant for women of any age. I highly recommend it. We can all use permission, again and again, to leave our "too-good" selves by the side of the road, to stop smiling kindly when what we mean is to gnash our teeth in rage and disgust. We are all so very necessary, so needed, by the world and not just by our children.