WHAT SHE SHEDS
The must-have Hag Shack, Grandma Cabin or Baba Yaga Hut
The formidable Russian Baba Yaga probably sets the template (in our minds) for the Hag Shack! Her hut walks around the dark Forest on chicken legs. (Earlier this year, I wrote an entire piece dedicated to her, here on Substack: BABA YAGA).
The current post is an adapted and expanded version of a Facebook post, which I typed out in a moving car, on a road-rip in in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota (states in the north of the US).
My students at the Golden Light Healing Center in Wisconsin had just floated the idea of finding me a remote "Hag Shack" or Grandma Cabin (Baba Yaya Hut) locally, in the wilderness, for me to live in. (I am sure they were hoping to drop in themselves!) A full time move to Wisconsin is too drastic for a European Forest Witch. But I was casting an eye, all the way up to the Canadian border, for a part-time option!
Then I saw a big board (by the road) pronouncing:
"THIS IS WHAT SHE SHEDS"
(It was only a flash so I have no context. Is this a woman who runs a business installing sheds for other women to have as outdoor offices or garden escapes. Like the female version of a “Man Cave”? I ran a quick search and SHE SHEDS are definitely “a thing”!)
Anyway, I LOVE that line! Ageing well means shedding roles that suit no more, illusions and delusions, clutter and collections, even mirror images of younger selves and broken dreams with sharp edges.
All this shedding prepares us for becoming an Elder, where our focus is on community, mentoring young people, wisdom and the greater good of all (and less on Self).
WHERE MY BLEACHED BONES BECOMES WHALES, painting by the author
I just heard on a podcast that every part of the human body “sheds” (sloughs of cells and renews itself) except the teeth. Of course animals shed too: snakes shed their skin, birds drop feathers, mammals moult (hair and fur especially) and even beluga whales shed old yellow skin to remain snow white!
Some birds even become flightless during their annual wing moult, meaning that they need to seek refuge in a protective habitat, to allow this process to runs its course. As an avid feather-collector, I always feel that women can learn so much from birds. Birds take us back to the Neolithic Bird Goddess that the Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutas wrote so passionately about! And all the goddess figurines from Old Europe that she excavated. I have already learned to hibernate in a snow den, like a bear. Now I need to learn how to moult with grace, and build time for that into my annual cycle or schedule.
Apparently birds moult in late summer and fall and they sometimes have a partial moult in Spring. AHA! This teaches me that there need to be regular periods in “my year” where I retreat from the world to complete my animal processes!
Do you take time out of your schedule to complete your animal processes? If you do, please tell me how you do this, in the comments!
Anyway, in my art diary I wrote down the must-have features of my shack or shed:
A bear flap, so bears (and my own cubs) can come and go!
A glass roof (so I can dream under the stars)
Sea spray creating tiny salt crystals on my windows, little prisms casting rainbows everywhere…
A small beach where I could find hag stones, and driftwood to carve animals from.
A place where the Sea washes my footsteps away, so I can reinvent myself every day!
I would LOVE to hear what your Hag Shack would look like! So please tell me in the comments:
Where it would be (your dream location).
Who is allowed to see it or visit (or will you have total solitude?)
The key to having your own Hag Shack is found by finishing the following sentences:
MY HAG SHACK/SHED WILL HAVE....
And to achieve this I MUST SHED....
If you have a desire to retreat from the world for a long weekend, enter deep art process, and participate in ceremonies where a community of kindred spirits witnesses you on the level of soul, then let me remind you that I am teaching a sacred art retreat in Wisconsin in February: Swan Maidens & Becoming a Swan Bone Flute for Spirit! And there are beautiful small cabins you can stay in…
I try (but sometimes fail) to get out at least one essay a week (sometimes more), due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). If you would like to see regular posts about about Nordic spirituality and my life as a Forest Witch (and of course short videos of all the wildlife here!), please follow me on Instagram or Facebook, thank you!
Imelda Almqvist, (The Pregnant Hag), Sweden
BIO FOR IMELDA ALMQVIST
Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). So far she has written four non-fiction books and two picture books for children. Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020 and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian spirituality of the Low Countries) was published in June 2022.
The Green Bear is a series of picture book for children, aged 3 – 8 years. The stories and vibrant artwork, set in Scandinavia, invite children to explore enchanting parallel worlds and to keep their sense of magic alive as they grow up.
Imelda has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism.
Imelda is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians (about the runes of the Elder Futhark) and on more books in the Green Bear Series. Imelda runs an on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings, where all classes she teaches remain available as recordings, which can be watched any time.
Website:
http://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk/
YouTube Channel: youtube.com/user/imeldaalmqvist
Online School: https://pregnant-hag-teachings.teachable.com/courses/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imelda.almqvist/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/almqvistimelda/
Imelda (The Pregnant Hag)
I read this right after deleting literally thousands of e-mails as a digital decluttering... Also taking a break from Facebook and Instagram is so peaceful and quiet - I will probably delete a lot of non-inspirational contacts there, too. The ones that only share workshop announcements etc. The shedding has already begun it seems 🙂
I lived in a kind of hag shack for 25 years. Then it became too beautiful and comfortable and after putting metal siding in one outside wall, I could not live in it any more. It never had running water and only a small amount of solar power. Eventually it had internet etc.
Now I live in a large and spacious for one person house where I can live and do my work. It is unfinished on the outside and surrounded by piles of lumber, firewood and sand, all covered as well as a mountain of sawdust and milling ends. Is it a hag house?
I don’t know. I feel I must be careful not to finish it nor make it too perfect.
Oh yes, about shedding and regenerating… did you know that beavers’ teeth never stop growing; I guess because they keep wearing down.