Five Questions meme

This is from   xjenavivex - who asked such wonderful questions!

The meme:

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile." 

• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity (though I am leaving for Wiscon shortly, so this will happen after I get back!)
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

1. What is your favorite mythological creature and why?

Firebird!!! It is a mythical bird of Slavic folklore (zhar-ptitsa, which would better be translated as heat-bird, but isn't for some reason). I love fire, I love birds, so obviously the firebird is the best creature ever. Of course, I also grew up with this folklore. One may aspire to catch the firebird, to find her feather, or perhaps simply to become Firebird. The scene in my default userpic is from Bilibin's famous folkloric illustration. The picture that adorns the Birdverse page on my website features Milashevsky's illustration to the Little Humpback Horse, a fairytale in verse, in which the hero and his magic horse sidekick must capture the Firebird.

The goddess of Birdverse is a Bird that appears to each person as a different bird according to their culture and character. She is a firebird for me obviously, though not for others.

2. What is your favorite folk tale and which specific variation?

It's really hard to choose just one.
But if I have to, then "Finist the Bright Falcon" is a Russian folktale about a woman (sometimes named as Vasilissa the Extremely Wise, a heroine of Russian folktales), who is visited by Finist, a shapechanger (his name is etymologically connected to Phoenix; I suspect he is the male variant of the firebird). When Vasilissa's family chases Finist away, she sets out on a heroic quest to retrieve her lost beloved. She essentially goes on a male heroic quest, though it has female elements, such as female kinship networks: the heroine is helped by a magical donor, Baba Yaga, who calls her daughter or granddaughter. The Baba Yaga claims no such connection to the male questing hero, who must trick her or else prove his knowledge/worthiness to get Baba Yaga to help him. In some variants of Finist, Vasilissa is helped by a family of Baba Yagas, three sisters who give her magical objects and advice. After many adventures in which her wit and character are tested, the heroine is successful in her quest.  

It is pretty obvious why I have always loved this folktale. I was quite lucky to grow up with this folklore, where some heroines are domestic and others go out into the world and have adventures.

Here is Vasilissa near Baba Yaga's house, as depicted by Bilibin:



3. Do you always know what form a story wants to take when you begin it? (Here I am also wondering if you view poems as stories and do they feel different that longer forms from the beginning?)

Hm, this is difficult. I always have to know the last scene or the last image of a story, or I will not finish. Knowing the last scene from the get-go gives me the strength to keep going, and also makes me work out what sequence of events leads to this scene. I make it sound like it is something very cerebral, but it is an intuitive process mostly based on my feel for the specific characters and their trajectories. Poems (as well as some flash pieces) are different.  They come from a feel or an image, and often they come with a first line that just unravels into second, third, etc. I often feel that the poem is "waiting" just behind my eyes, behind some gate - waiting for me to make a space for it. Sometimes poetry writing is an ecstatic experience; the Cycle was like that. The poem possessed me. I just had to lend it my heart and my fingers. 

4. Will you share a cool mom moment with me? (It could be you as the mom, daughter, or granddaughter - recent or some time ago.)

Sure. This happened in November 2011, during our last horse riding lesson of the Fall. 

We arrived a few minutes early, and the teacher was in the riding area with another child. Meanwhile, Mati's regular horse, Webster, was waiting tethered in an open-air stall. He ran into the stall - I think he wanted to hug the horse - but I told him he needed to wait. He stood in front of the horse and looked it straight in the eyes for the longest time, with a rapt expression on his face; Webster also appeared interested in Mati. The other kid came out of the riding area - about eleven or twelve years old, and pretty clearly with classical autism. I don't think I've ever seen her before. I greeted her with a hello and a wave. She didn't say hello back, which is just fine. "My name is Peggy," she said clearly and slowly, not exactly looking at me. I had up to that point thought that she was a boy. She then said, "What's her name?"
"His name is Mati," I said. "He's a boy." (Mati has long curly hair).
"A boy?" she said. "How old is she?"
"He's five," I said. "Mati, say hello."
Mati looked in her general direction and said, very reluctantly, "Hello. Peggy."
Then he ran into the riding area, where he tried to put on the "helmut". Peggy ran off to her mother, who was waiting in their car, and I heard her shout, "He can speak! Mommy, he can speak!"

5. What do you do when you need to clear your head?
I go for a walk. Sometimes I just go out in the front yard at night and stand in front of (and under) the oaks and lift my arms like the oaks do.