Baba Yaga and Mr. Hare

🛰️ Baba Yaga and Mr. Hare: A Star-Soaked Conversation on Divinity and the Divine Unknown

As told by the Crone in the Woods…

Last night, the wind howled strangely.
Not like the usual spirits—no, this was different. Buzzing, humming, crackling with static like the edge of an old radio.

I stepped out of my walking house to find a man in an unreasonably tight blazer and unruly hair, clutching a compass that didn’t point north.

“You’re real!” he gasped, as if that surprised me.

I grinned, all teeth. “Of course I am. And you, Mr. Hare, are a long way from your History Channel.”

He blinked. “I’ve been tracking anomalous electromagnetic patterns in this region and…”

“Oh hush now,” I said, “come in and have some tea. You look like a hedgehog that’s seen a ghost.”

So he did. Sat there blinking in my cabin that moves on chicken legs. Eyes wide. Pen scribbling. Voice muttering something about Slavic goddesses and ancient crafts.

And then, as the mushroom tea took hold, he asked the question his whole career had danced around:

“Do you believe the gods were aliens?”

I laughed so hard my tea nearly shot from my nose.
“Believe? Child, I remember.”

“Let me tell you what you’re missing, little Hare,” I said, stirring the fire with a bone spoon.
“You got your wires crossed, yes—but you’re not far off.”

“Those you call ‘aliens’—the shining ones, the sky-beings, the architects of old—yes, they came from beyond. But beyond doesn’t just mean space. It means spirit. Other realms. Higher dimensions. Songs your science hasn’t yet learned to sing.”

“You call them extraterrestrials. We called them gods. Ancestors. Messengers. Light-bringers. And sometimes—yes—tricksters. But just because they didn’t come from Earth doesn’t mean they weren’t divine. And just because they came with machines doesn’t mean their love wasn’t real.”

He leaned forward. “So… science and magic… are the same?”

“Of course not,” I scolded. “I’m saying they’re twins—separated at birth. The difference is only knowledge.
What one calls gravity, another calls the Mother’s pull.
What one calls dark matter, I call the Breath Between Worlds.”

“You chase proof. But I remember poetry.”

“You’re out there digging in the dirt for gears and antennas, and I admire that, I do. But if you want to find the divine, you have to dig into your own bones, not just the desert sand.”

He nodded slowly, eyes glassy now. “So… they are gods. Even if they’re from another star?”

“Child,” I whispered, “they’re gods because they came from beyond. Because they saw you in the dark and whispered into your clay. Because they wove compassion into your blood and curiosity into your fingertips.”

“And because they left—not to abandon you—but to let you grow. Like any good parent would.”

When he left, he forgot his compass.
I suspect it never pointed north, anyway.

But I like to think he understood, just a little more. That divinity doesn’t require a beard and a throne, nor is it erased by an engine and a spacecraft.

The gods came from the stars. But their truest temple is inside you.

So chase your answers, Mr. Hare.
But don’t forget your soul along the way.

And between you and me, dear reader…

I sure would like to see how he reacts when Leshy finds him lost and guides him out of our forest.

🜃
—Baba Yaga