MODULE II : Intuition
There is a vivacious energy of expression in our intuitive psyche.
But we forget, we disconnect from this intuitive and instinctive power.
We forget that we can trust this power and that we have the answers within. That deep within we know where to go, and where not to go.
This knowledge seems to have been lost in our time. We have become as disconnected from it as we are from nature. We have come to doubt it as much as we have come to feel unsafe in nature.
Today's practice unfolds in four steps:
(1) The introductory video
(2) The recording of the tale
(3) The invitation to experience the outdoors
(4) Integration of the experience, maybe by drawing, journaling, or simply by being and letting the tale infuse and settle.
It is quite a demanding practice. Be sure you have the time and space to dedicate to this practice.
Take your time, and go at your own rhythm.
Thank you for trusting us.
Much love,
Gaelle and Camille
You can download the recording of the tale.
And listen to it either before you go outside or while you are going outside.
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All the components of the tale represent characterization of a single woman’s psyche.
Vasalisa has 9 initiating tasks to complete through which her intuition can be reset in her psyche. Through this initiation she learns how weave a living and trusting relationship with her intuition, with the « Knowing Woman » - La Que Sabe -, the essence of the wild woman archetype.
The 9 tasks :
1. Allowing the Too-good Mother to die
2. Exposing the Crude Shadow
3. Navigating in the Dark
4. Facing the Wild Hag
5. Serving the Non-Rational
6. Separating This from That
7. Asking the Mysteries
8. Standing on All Fours
9. Recasting the Shadow
Characters and symbols :
The Too-Good Mother
Vasalisas initiation begins with learning to let die what must die, in the tale, with the death of her sweet mother.
This symbolizes values, attitudes, rigors in the psyche which makes life too safe and block further development toward intuitive powers.
Baba Yaga, the wild hag
She embodies instinctive nature in the form of a witch. Fearsome, she represents both the power of annihilation and the power of life. At the same time, she is just with Vasilisa, who approaches this wild, powerful mother with respect.
Can you stand her as the wild creative power in yourself ? If you don’t come to visit her, if you are not willing to be more than a too-nice over-adaptation, she comes to visit you in night dreams.
The stepmother and stepsisters
They represent the undevelopped and provocatively crual elements in the psyche (exclusionary, jealous, exploitative...).
They make Vasalisa’s life miserable, symbolizing the shadows considered by the ego to be undesirable and unacceptable. Their hostility and chorus sending Vasalissa away « you can’t do it » creates a psychic tension needed in order to make soul no longer accept submission and create change.
It is about how to be true, not over-nice, over-good, over-sweet, see all components of your territory, make a good relationship unequivocally to the best and worst part of ourself and ultimately let the old self die and the new intuitive be born.
The doll
The doll is one of the symbolic treasure of the instinctual nature and life enduring force, a little piece of soul that carries all the knowledge of the larger soul-Self, the voice of inner reason, inner knowing and inner consciousness.
In the tale, she is navigating in the dark, trying to find her way in the wild forest. It’is about to begin to experience the new and dangerous feeling of being in one’s intuitive power and rely on our senses. Vasalissa is heeding the doll’s directions that guides her through the dark to the house of Baba Yaga.
She feeds it and shifts the power to it, symbolizing intuition.
She is in her way of meeting the power coming from the dark.
The Non-Rational and the Mysteries
The house of the soul like that of Baba Yaga and her clothes need to be cleaned, clear.
Baba Yaga or the Goddess in you needs to be feed (a lot!) by cooking up new and original things !
Separating one thing from the other, making a deep sorting (here, mildewed corn from the good corn, and poppy seeds from a pile of dirt) with the finest discernment is important and observing the power of the unconscious when the ego is not aware is represented by the pairs of hands which appear in the air.
Vasalisa is asking questions trying to understand all the elements of the wild nature.
Women have life / death / life nature. This is our cycle, the special insight into the deep feminine.
Letting live, letting die, letting be born is important because it is the basic and natural rythm in life.
How does it function ?
Vasalisa asks about the horsemen. Colours are extremely precious : each has its death and its life nature.
But there are things out of reach, whose understanding can come by accepting and experiencing.
Baba Yaga says : « to know too much can make one old too soon ».
The Shadows and the Fiery Skull
Receiving the fiery skull is taking an immense power to see, sense, discriminate, be whole and affect others, using that acute vision to recognize and react to the negative shadows on one’s own psyche and / or negative aspects of persons and events in the outer world.
And it enables recasting the negative shadows of one’s own psyche with hag-fire (like the wicked step-family).
The nasty aspect of the psyche can be reduced to cinder, being watched in consistent consciousness.
Its energy released is reconfigured.
The fiery skull given to Vasalisa is like instinctive capacities and intuition to carry with her for life, a timeless knowledge.
Momentarily, she became afraid of the power she carries and is tempted to throw it away.
The skull calm her and she returns home more sure, dealing with adversity in the outer world in a powerful manner.
She now sees the world and her life through this new light.
This eternal light is like a presence which goes a little bit before her and reports back to her what it has found ahead.
To possess good intuition causes work.
The resonance of the tale within you
Did you go walking into the unknown, in nature, perhaps when it was dark, after having listened to the tale ?
Have you met some componants that you usually judge undesirable, unavoidable, unuseful ?
Did you feel with all your senses, met new things, experience some shifts inside, hear an inner voice talking to you ?
Can you see that into your shadows, there are hidden gifts which wait to be revealed, and all the treasures that hold back a creative life ?
Did you reveal one or some ?
What have you done after that was not your habit, that was spontaneous and creative ?
Do you wish to access to your true, complete, wild, intuitive nature and life according to your deep value, passions, unique gifts, being able to differentiate loyers of personnality and intention, balancing good boundaries and spontaneity ?
Do you know how to strengthen your connection to your inner guide ?
Your passage is already very evocative and rich with meaning! Here's a refined version with smoother flow, improved clarity, and some grammatical adjustments:
Some of the ideas presented in the tale:
Silence your inner critic. Don’t be too nice or rigid in a life that’s too safe. Refuse to let anyone repress your vivid energies. Go beyond the judgment of right/wrong and useful/useless.
Connect to your gut (the brain in your gastrointestinal network of neurons that sends sudden "pop-ups" you can feel before thinking) and to the natural cycles at all levels of life—day/night, seasons, menstruation, and more.
Feel with all your senses. Recognize the intuition that guides you to dare, create, destroy, and hold it in consciousness. Care for it.
See widely and accurately.
Let what must live, live, and let what must die, die. This is inner purification.
Trust your primitive, inventive soul—the force that makes all creative acts and arts possible. It creates a forest around you, and from that original perspective, you begin to engage with life.
And nourish it!
You possess Baba Yaga, the Doll, the Fiery Skull, they are all within you —and, with them, great powers.