Tag: blessings

Ukraine’s Independence Day – Bread & Salt

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Today is the 32nd anniversary of Ukrainian Independence. It is also day 546 since Russia began its war in Ukraine. On August 24, 1991, Ukraine regained its independence from the Soviet Union. The day is a powerful reminder of Ukrainian democracy and self-rule, and we celebrate the courage and bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Last week, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, I participated in a ritual performance that featured goddesses from around the world offering messages to the audience, each one wearing a beautiful mask hand-made by artist Lauren Raine.

Each of us was tasked with writing something that spoke to the challenges we see around the planet: pollution, starvation, inequality, war.

It was my honor to wear a mask of the goddess Lada, as well as my embroidered folk costume from Ukraine. I carried bread and salt on top of an embroidered rushnyk, in a traditional greeting.

In Ukraine, bread and salt are offered as a sacred tradition, incorporated into celebrations that include weddings, funerals, and holidays. I asked my aunt Katia Hrynewycz, who is a baker and the owner of Chicago Cake Art, to bake a special circular bread (korovai) that could be used in the performance and then shared with the audience.

There are so many ancient ideas and stories tied to bread in Ukrainian culture: The grain is symbolic of prosperity and fertility, the circle a symbol of eternity and community, the salt exemplifies wealth and also protection. The bread may be adorned with trees, braids, birds, and more, depending on the occasion. As is the case with Ukrainian pysanky and embroidery, every object that adorns Ukrainian bread is symbolic of a blessing or intention for the people who will receive it.

On Ukrainian Independence Day, I wanted to share Lada’s message:

Lada’s Message

We come to the threshold with bread and salt,
our greeting since before maps and borders.
We say Vitayemo to welcome guests
and offer communion with treasures of
the rich black soil we call chornozem:
grains we grind to bake this holiness,
salt precious and pulled from the ground,
to preserve, to give life flavor.
Everything we have loved and grown
and lost and buried, is in that black earth.

When we say Vitayemo, we are inviting you
into our home and into our story,
with wheat grown from the heart of our Mother,
and salt from her seas and stones,
We are sharing a part of ourselves,
a part of our ancestors, our roots deep in that fertile soil.

When we say Vitayemo, we are telling you that we see you.
and we will remember the way you receive our gifts:
Will you show gratitude?
Will you take nothing more than what was offered?
Will you share something of yourself?
Will you leave the space better than when you entered?

We are living the legacy of betrayal—
what happens to bread and salt
when all is blood and butchering?

When we say Vitayemo, we enter into relationship—
I am saying that I am open to you.
Can you feel the opening of my heart?
Do you see the ripping open of my heart?
Will you watch the bleeding of all who are held in my heart?
How will you cross the threshold?

Слава Україні!  Героям слава!

New Year’s Reflection and Wish

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After ringing in the new year with family, I woke up to this beautiful, hazy sunrise on the first morning of 2023: 

In the quiet of a house still asleep, I wanted to write. I didn’t post frequently in 2022. Time not spent at the day job was divided between family and working on Mother Christmas. With one teenager already in college and another headed there in the fall, I’m aware of how quickly time is flying and how any time spent with them is a gift.

But on January 1, 2023, I first turned to Twitter as I have done every morning since Russia’s attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.  I wake up and check the news, getting the latest updates from Ukrainian journalists and activists I follow, many of whom have been on the front lines. I sit for a moment with the weight of it, and then a prayer. 

By the time I have published this, on Ukrainian Christmas Eve, January 6, 2023, Ukraine has been at war for 316 days. In Ukraine, as well as around the world, there continue to be battles, massacres, injustices.  There are also moments of grace, joy, love, and resilience. 

Tonight is when my family celebrates Ukrainian Christmas Eve, Sviat Vechir. It is on this holiday more than any other that I think about my family, my ancestors, and the country my grandparents were forced to leave. I have been raised with, or maybe inherited, a profound sense of longing for Ukraine and her people and culture.

My grandparents survived WWII, but like many others, they were unable to return home to Ukraine. After time in the Displaced Persons camps, they emigrated to the United States and built their lives in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village. Their children and grandchildren were raised to never forget what they were forced to leave behind. Today, new refugees are resettling in Chicago and in other places, leaving so much behind. 

Growing up, my grandparents were my examples of the different ways that war and trauma can change people. Four people with four very different responses to their past.

I learned from them, and from others of their generation, that there are many shades of resilience: humor, creativity, hospitality, adaptability, conservation, anger, silence. We see this in the stories shared from Ukraine, as well as the stories from other places around this country and the planet where people are fighting for their lives. 

I keep asking myself: How do I begin to formulate a wish for the new year with such a backdrop? 

I’ve sat with these words and feelings for a week now, writing and erasing and writing again. I keep coming back to this Leonard Cohen lyric:

There is a crack in everything, that’s where the light gets in. 

~Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

We are living in communities — global, national, and familial — that are fractured and wounded. Trying to figure out how to heal those wounds is something many of us will spend our lifetimes working toward.

In talking with friends and family over the past few weeks, so many people are feeling a deep longing for connection — with those we’ve lost or lost touch with, with those we have not yet met — as well as spiritual and existential longing for a kinder, more peaceful and more just world.

What I heard and saw in person and on social media around New Year’s Eve was a sadness that goes hand-in-hand with that longing. Some of it comes from the pandemic, some of it comes from political and economic injustices, some of it comes from war and aggression, some of it comes from lack of resources to help with mental and physical health.

All around us, people are feeling loss and lost. Voices are crying out, but there does not seem to be enough conversation about that sadness, about that longing. People continue to feel unheard and unseen, or ignored.

This week, a new co-worker recommended a book: Susan Cain’s Bittersweet. In it, I read this, and it rang true:

If we could honor sadness a little more, maybe we could see it — rather than enforced smiles and righteous outrage — as the bridge we need to connect with each other. We could remember that no matter how distasteful we might find someone’s opinions, no matter how radiant, or fierce, someone may appear, they have suffered, or they will.
― Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

So here is my imperfect but sincere wish for the New Year:

In this new year, when we reach out our hands, may we find other hands there to safely take hold of, to lift us up, to bring us close. And when we are able, and we see hands reaching out in earnest, may we find the strength to take hold of them.

May the obstacles that stand in the way of connection begin to be eradicated and may bridges take their place.

May we see people as they need to be seen, and may each of us find our way to the communities that will see us and love us and help us to heal ourselves, others, and this planet.

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Love and blessings in the new year.

 

Baba Yaga’s Thanksgiving Tips for Big Hips and a Healthy Appetite

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Something I wrote that seemed timely to share during this holiday season. A little wisdom from the Bone Goddess:

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Baba Yaga’s Thanksgiving Tips for Big Hips and a Healthy Appetite

Well-known for her iconic hut perched atop chicken feet and her flying mortar and pestle, Baba Yaga is the quintessential Slavic witch of the woods. Familiar throughout Eastern Europe as the frightening witch who entraps children and young women, she is older and more complex than a mere cannibal bone collector. Baba Yaga is also the wise woman and earth-mother who protects the forest, the animals, and the wisdom of ancient traditions in danger of being forgotten in a modern world. She is the opposite of what is glorified in our society: Baba Yaga is old, powerful, alone, and perpetually hungry, and her wisdom comes from that ineffable appetite.

It’s time to celebrate the harvest, when your ancestors would stack their tables full of food to celebrate the fruits of the growing season and fatten up for winter. As you face the feast ahead, I offer one simple piece of advice:

Reclaim your hunger.

Hunger is powerful. That’s why people are afraid of it. Hunger reminds us that we are alive and fragile. It casts a light on our mortality. If we eat, we have a chance at life. If we do not, we will eventually die. It may take the average person between 30-40 days to die without food, but die they will.

Hunger teaches us things. When we listen to our bodies, we learn important lessons: our bodies will signal when we are full; they will usually give us clues when we are lacking something. When we pay attention to hunger, we start to discover what we need to change about ourselves and the world around us. Hunger is transformative.

Hunger is holy; it is the emptiness waiting to be filled. Hunger is what tempted people to venture into my deep, dark woods. Hunger is what brought them to my door, and hunger is why I let them in.   So why have people stopped knocking on my door? They have learned to ignore their hunger.

And women have it worst of all when it comes to appetites. Taught to go without, so much language around nutrition and diet is full of words like “combat hunger” “fight cravings.” When did the table become a battleground and food the enemy?

Warm bread slathered in fresh melting butter, soup filled with hunks of potato, juicy meat falling off bones, salt to enhance flavor and combat boredom, honey to sweeten a hard life. The smell of savory stews makes our mouths water. The color of cooked beets is red like flushed cheeks, they feel smooth on the tongue, their taste is sweet, they stain the fingers. Eating is sensual. It fills our mouths with flavors and textures. Why did we stop delighting in this thing we must do every day?

When people could take food for granted, they stopped listening to hunger. They found other reasons to eat or not eat. Restraint replaced relish, and hunger became…monstrous.

Somewhere between vanity and morality, young women became removed from their appetites. Old women became frightening or invisible. And an old woman with unapologetic appetites was the worst of all.

Today, we are rarely shown old women in print or online. (Yes, I do have internet in my hut. If I can make my house turn around to face the stars, it’s not hard to boost a signal and tap into the global network.) But if we see an old woman with food of any sort, she is usually cooking or baking in her spotless kitchen. Or she may be serving a meal, her apron clean and her tray in hand. Do we see her eating? Do we see any women eating with gusto like famished farmers after a day of hard labor? Not usually. Not unless their perfectly lipsticked lips are wrapped around some kind of suggestive sexual substitute.

Food can be sexy, but women do not always eat to tease or please their lovers. Sometimes women savor their meals because there is pleasure in eating, and hunger is the foreplay of the feast. (Because the exquisite wanting makes it so much more delicious.)

Of course, finding our way back to our appetites will take more than fairy tale trails of breadcrumbs, unless maybe they are tossed with bacon fat and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper, and served alongside some succulent spiced meat and cheesy potatoes.

This holiday season, love the food you eat, and eat the food you love. Fill your plate with savory delights and you’ll be on your way to becoming a person of good taste. After that, I invite you to come to my hut, just look for the chicken feet. They’re hard to miss.

Hut of Baba Yaga by Gil Rimmer

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