BABA YAGA

In Russian folklore Baba Yaga is presented as a fearsome witch with iron teeth.  She is mysterious, dreadful, and cautions against being deceitful and impure.  She has a litany of awful characteristics that are meant to punish those who go about in this world doing as they please with little regard to whom they injure in the process.  She becomes one with the intention of anyone who seeks her out, and the operative word is INTENTION.  

The definition of INTENTION is the thing that you plan to do or achieve : an aim or purpose, a determination to act in a certain way :  RESOLVE

Baba Yaga is said to KNOW the intention of those who pursue her and her actions in dealing with them are a direct reflection of that intention.  We live in a society now that is determined to make INTENTION obsolete; no bearing on consequences and therefore NO PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY required.  Well of course this mentality goes against nature.  Every choice made, whether consciously intentional or subconsciously intentional binds us to the consequences of that choice. Only on a very naive level can we pretend our choices are not our own.  This doesn't change the fact the choice will have consequences. 

Baba Yaga would ask only one question to the visitor bold enough to enter her hut; do you come of your own free will or were you sent.  There could only be one right answer.  A wrong answer was death.  Who would enter a hut surrounded by a fence made of bones, meant to keep out intruders, and topped with the skulls of blazing eye sockets except of their own free will?  And yet we have generations walking about now who want us to believe they should not be blamed for the choices they make regarding how they use products they purchased because they ignored the directions or disclaimers.  Or an industry giant knowingly burying evidence a product is not functioning properly or wasn't properly installed and now people are being injured or killed as a result.  The initial reaction to warn the public before serious injury or death was ignored in favor of protecting investments and careers.  The choice was made and the intention was to deceive.  Of course in the END it fails and investments are lost and careers ruined but seldom will you see ONE person step up and take responsibility.  It becomes the shame of an INDUSTRY or a CORPORATION.  Behind the scenes there is a scramble to RENAME or RELABEL a product so it that it can RESURFACE under new management, that will function as a MOB as well, so as not to make ONE person totally accountable because, well, we don't live in a world that expects ONE PERSON to accept full accountability for any decision.  Even though the salaries get larger as you go up the ladder of accountability, it will be those on the lower rungs of the ladder who suffer the most for the bad intentions of those at the top. We USE the word HONOR to describe honest and thoughtful and mindful people but when was the last time you saw a JOB DESCRIPTION that included the phrase MUST BE HONORABLE?  

Honor and personal accountability go hand in hand so it's not surprising HONOR isn't on the short list of qualifications for the highest paying or most prestigious jobs being offered.  In some cultures loss of honor is a justification for murder.  Yet we don't think honor should be a qualification when asking us to trust someone to lead us, direct us, and represent us.  Honor isn't just something you SAY you have.  You demonstrate it by stepping down when you've failed, when you've lost the trust in people you serve, when a decision you made cost people their savings, their future, their lives.  We used to say it took an act of Congress to force someone to step aside but that is no longer true.  It used to take a lawsuit that threatened a financial empire, or the constant glare of headlines in news papers and blogs declaring someone unwilling to take accountability to make someone buckle under and accept responsibility.   Seems like these days, nothing can force someone to admit they've dishonored themselves.  They simply ride out the controversy knowing another scandal will come along to bail them out any day now. They learn nothing and they make no changes in how they conduct themselves, at least none the public can see.  Life goes on for them as if nothing happened to unsuspecting or innocent people under them.  And people become desensitized to dishonor, almost accepting the fact they will be exploited or manipulated for the sake of saving someone else from dishonor.  Everyone is so willing to 'forget it'.  You hear, "everyone makes mistakes' or 'everyone deserves as second chance'.  Which is all fine and good but where is it written they don't have to be closely supervised or scrutinized the second time around?  

We have a President who feels so strongly about NOT holding people of questionable honor under close inspection that he refuses to profile or vet these questionable people because it's hurtful....to them.  They are questionable because they are unknown, and have questionable intentions. But we have to take their word that they simply want to live a good life and hope they won't turn around and join in marches demanding an end to the very good life that they said they wanted here...because suddenly they aren't happier here than they were in their war torn homes across the ocean.  And STILL he refuses to make them feel badly about hating the people who took them in.

Honor should be at the top our list of qualifications; over how wealthy they are, over how experienced they are, over how many promises they can make to us, over how effective they are using the media, and over which set of genitalia are suitable for the job.  Honor should be more important than the words FIRST IN HISTORY.  Honor should be more important than how they look on television or how skilled they are at making people laugh.  Honor should come before how well they talk, how many celebrities support them, or how much money they can raise in one $5000 per plate dinner.  Honor is so important it should also trickle down to the people they consider their closest friends.

Baba Yaga wanted to know just how honorable the person was who dared to breach her inner sanctum.  In the end she was also credited with helping the most honorable because as it turns out SHE HAD NO POWER OVER THOSE WITH A PURE HEART.  When are we going to get back to demanding honor among our leaders?  In fact when are we going get back to making HONOR more important than gaming the system?


http://www.oldrussia.net/baba.html