Baba Yaga's New Year Manifesto / Womynfesto
reflecting on our many selves
Precisely four years ago, I was deep in the bowels of a cold, wet rainforest, isolated with young, neurodivergent (pre-diagnosed) children, fearing an unprecedented pandemic would devour my fragile lungs. I had metamorphosed into Baba Yaga and was contemplating eating my children.
Within me still breathes this Baba Yaga from 2020, who discovered satire and comedy writing to tether her from flying off forever into the woods in her mortar and pestle.
While our culture loves dwelling on the future (see: New Year’s resolutions), to better understand our future selves, we must know our past. The following is my New Year’s post from 2020 and the origin story of this newsletter. Unlike so many of my favorite 80s movies, it has aged well.
I invite you to reflect on how your past self informs your future self, then comment below so we can support your manifesting/womynfesting journey.
Happy 2025 to all my feral baddies and Baba Yagas out there.
Love,
Summer
2020 started magically on Moonlight Beach with a glorious sunset, massive bubbles, drum circles, and priestesses chanting down 2019.
It inspired this moon-shaped poem.
Then, it ended unceremoniously with cataracts in both eyes and an “untamed” feral family that would make Glennon Doyle proud.
On Friday the 13th, my husband’s birthday, and the second Friday of our play’s run (I had been cast as the wife of Ingrid Croce and sang dozens of songs on vocals, harmony whilst playing guitar, a shit-ton of lines, and sobbing real tears after losing a husband and miscarrying a baby on stage every night), we learned that schools were closing for the month.
Now, I was home trying to learn how to teach Spanish on Zoom to middle schoolers while schooling and caring for my first- and third-grader. My husband is an “essential worker,” so it was just me with some help from my mom.
Because I’m bad at boundaries, I embraced the new shift as I do everything: with open arms. Being “open” and an empath means I am receptive to the creative forces of the universe, others’ feelings (hence the ability to cry on command), and numerous health problems. My body is a dilated pupil. All the stuff gets in. (Please tell me you relate.)
Even as our family, friends, and loved ones stayed healthy, 2020 took my eyes as tribute. I developed fast-growing cataracts in both eyes, and the ophthalmologist thinks it’s from my asthma medication (which, of course, I pumped up when I found out that COVID was a respiratory disease).
Remote schooling for my first and third graders without a social bubble while simultaneously trying to figure out how to teach Spanish to middle schoolers on Zoom was less fun than undergoing eight root canals, which I did the year prior. I had to resign from one teaching position to care for and school my kids but hung onto my Spanish position at the Montessori.
Zoom school wasn't working for my children, so in spring 2020, we did “nature school,” spending every day in the rainforest or beach — rain, wind, and snow be damned. I wrote about this here for HuffPost.
Thus, we became feral. My menstrual cycle synced to the moon. The tides controlled my feelings.
Poetry came out depressing, so I turned to comedy. Satire seemed to be the best way to describe a world that turned inside out and upside down and batshit crazy. Humor was more palatable for sending hard messages (like these here and here I would subsequently write and pub in 2021). Also, I don’t think I am inherently funny, so even the challenge of doing comedy was irresistible to this drama-loving sadist.
2020 wasn’t all bad news…
I won a statewide poetry contest, played lead in a highly acclaimed play, and had nineteen pieces published in various literature magazines. I took part in the Through the Cultural Lens class on Zoom with Southeast Alaska Heritage Institute and dove deeper into the fundamental question of How do we decolonize? -- something I have always been fascinated with and continue to explore further. Watch this space for more of that!
So, what is on my goal list for 2021? Well, obviously smashing the patriarchy, calling out Western culture--you know, the usual--decolonizing, challenging white privilege (yes, me). Writing more satire and honing my voice as a comedian. I’ll be taking more writing classes, getting my kids up skiing, swimming, and rock climbing, and continuing to teach Spanish and remote school my children.
Oh yeah, and getting cataract surgery!
What are YOUR goals or intentions for this year? In this age of Aquarius, NOW is the time for a significant creative, cultural, social, and political shift! The conjunction of Jupiter with pragmatic Saturn will give the earth energy enough to put ideas into practice! They say this hasn't happened since right before the Renaissance! Exciting!
How does your past self inform your future self? What are you manifesting or womynfesting for 2025?
I love baba yaga. So freeing to let her take the lead in our lives from time to time. Covid made me a wolf—sometimes I found myself backed into a domestic corner and I had to let the claws and teeth show. It serves me well to know that wild creature lives… while I comfort and care for everyone else, she fiercely protects me.
Baba Yaga and the Cailleach are my leads going into 2025. I’ve heard from my guides that this is a “building” year, and that 2026 will be “golden” which sounds lovely.