Женские архетипы. Богиня Морана

As night follows day, as winter follows summer, we exhale before taking a new breath… The powers of creation and destruction are inseparable. Not only fairytale characters need to drink first dead water and only then living water in order to be reborn anew. In their everyday life every person faces losses and disappointments – a kind of small barely noticeable deaths and real tragedies.
Lena and I came to the idea of this photo session each her own way. It was not our purpose to simply recite Slavic mythology. Instead we tried to show our own feeling of this Power in this very moment, at this very place.

Morana (Polish Morzana, , Śmiertka, Slovak Morena, Marmuriena, Czech Morana, Smrtha, Ukrainian Marena) became our Muse. Morana is a Slavic Goddess of fertility and harvest, who embodies seasonal death and rebirth of nature. Morana may appear as a crone dressed in black or a beautiful maiden dressed in white. She is also associated with mists and water, death and Underworld, dreams and visions. Morana possesses threads of destiny. She is wife to Koschei, daughter to Lada, sister to Jiva and Lel.

Morana’s domain lies beyond the black Smorodina River, that separates Yav and Nav, over the red-hot Kalinov Bridge, guarded by the Three-headed Serpent. Morana grants Death, that is not the end of Life itself, but rather a transition to Other Life and a new Beginning. For such is the law of Rod the Almighty: after Winter, that takes away all that died out, there always comes Spring.