I’ve always relied heavily on stories and storytelling to help me cope, in childhood, while taking care of children, while traveling, while dealing with particular crises. The storybooks may have been just distractions, but they crammed together in my bookshelves as a child and eventually they crammed together in my head.  The archetypes and coping skills and potential for danger and adversity I found in them have helped me cope with my environment wherever in the world I’ve landed, and I always thought there might be others who wove their experience and stories in an effort to hold it all together.  I’d love to hear from any of you.

I chose Marya as my alter ego a long time ago, probably when I received a book of Russian fairy tales from my mother, illustrated by Bilibin -you’ll find Marya Morevna’s Tale on the stories page on this site.  At that lovely indomnitable age just before adolescence, she was exactly what I wanted to be- a lovely foreigner who got to wage war whenever she chose, no parents and no children, who took a lover and married him later, and dragged him back to HER castle in the land beyond the sea.  She doesn’t do half as much weeping as Ivan, and she had an army…how great was THAT.

I relied more heavily on my mental image of her as I grew older and adopted a career that took me overseas quite a bit.  Need strength for that board meeting?  Going to collect from that scary mafia-associated distributor? Get your nails done and slip into Marya’s persona, be charming and gracious and then, girl, just slay them all.

I married a crazy man who followed me to the ends of the earth, all the way to Siberia and back.  My Ivan doesn’t weep much, but he’s been one of the few I’ve allowed to rescue me.  Koschey the Deathless has had me in his clutches once or twice, as well, but you’ll find out more about him later.  The Battleground is where I fight that bastard off.

In terms of following the log-  you’ll find the stories  to which I refer rewritten on the story page of this site, or imbedded in the log as links, if I don’t have time to rework them.  The rest is writing based on the myths and legends you’ll find there- affiliations of the stories and my own or other’s experiences, an examination of archetypes, and, if I can ever figure it out (Thank you, RealLivePreacher), art and travel.  I’m going to start with Marya, but I’d like to explore as many corners of the world as I can. 

SO- here we go.  Long, long ago in a land closer than you might think, once there lived, Once there was…. 

10:17:20 PM