The Mirror of Baba Dochia
The snow-capped mountain loomed before Adi, its peak shrouded in mist. Spring was coming, but winter’s grip held fast here. Adi’s breath formed clouds in the crisp air as he began his ascent. The painted monasteries of Bucovina still echoed in his mind, their vibrant frescoes a stark contrast to the monochrome landscape before him.
Sana’s voice, a whisper on the wind. “Be careful, Adi. Baba Dochia’s mountain is not to be trifled with.” But he had to go. The old crone of the mountain called to him, her legend intertwined with the very essence of transformation he sought.
One step. Another. The crunch of snow beneath his boots. With each step, memories flooded unbidden.
Coding in a sterile office in Toronto, fingers flying over keys, creating worlds of ones and zeros. The scent of sage in a Mexican sweat lodge, ancient chants reverberating in his bones. His grandmother’s weathered hands, kneading dough for cozonac, telling him stories of the old ways.
Past and present blurred, time losing its linear quality as he climbed. Was he ascending a mountain or delving into the depths of his own psyche?
A gust of wind nearly knocked him off his feet. He stumbled, catching himself on a gnarled tree. Its bark rough beneath his fingers, anchoring him to the present.
“Who dares to climb my mountain?” The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, carried on the swirling snow.
Adi’s heart raced. “I am Adrian,” he called out, then paused. Who was he really? “I am… a seeker.”
Laughter, harsh as the wind. “A seeker, are you? And what do you seek, little man?”
Images flashed through Adi’s mind. The Strigoi’s haunting eyes. The Iele’s seductive dance. Sana’s smile in the Sânziene firelight. Father Vasile’s knowing gaze before the monastery frescoes.
“I seek… understanding,” Adi said, the words forming even as the thought crystallized. “I seek integration.”
The wind died suddenly, an eerie calm descending. Before him stood an old woman, her face a maze of wrinkles, eyes glittering with ancient wisdom.
“Then seek you shall,” Baba Dochia said, her voice now gentle as falling snow. “But be warned, seeker. Understanding comes at a price.”
She gestured, and suddenly Adi was surrounded by mirrors. But these were no ordinary mirrors. In each, he saw a different version of himself.
In one, a successful tech entrepreneur in Bucharest, surrounded by screens and gadgets. In another, a humble healer in a Carpathian village, hands glowing with energy as he tended to the sick. Yet another showed him as a nomad, wandering the world with nothing but a backpack and a story to tell.
“These are the paths not taken,” Baba Dochia’s voice echoed around him. “The lives unlived. Are you prepared to let them go?”
Adi’s heart ached as he looked at each potential self. The safety of success, the nobility of healing, the freedom of wandering. But as he watched, he realized each reflection was incomplete, a fragment of a whole.
“They’re all me,” he whispered. “And yet, none of them are fully me.”
“Wise words,” Baba Dochia nodded. “Now, seeker, it’s time to shed your layers.”
With each step Adi took, he felt a weight lifting. His designer jacket, bought in a moment of materialistic weakness in New York, fell away. The protective amulet given to him by a shaman in Peru dissolved into mist. The watch his father had given him for his university graduation slipped from his wrist.
With each discarded item, a memory surfaced. The thrill of closing his first big deal. The profound connection he’d felt during the ayahuasca ceremony. The pride in his father’s eyes as he accepted his diploma.
“Your past has shaped you,” Baba Dochia said, “but it need not define you.”
Adi stood now in simple clothes, feeling lighter than he had in years. The mirrors around him began to spin, faster and faster, until they blurred into a single, shimmering surface.
In this new mirror, Adi saw himself as he truly was. Not the successful entrepreneur or the mystical healer or the free-spirited wanderer. But all of them and none of them. A being of infinite potential, shaped by his experiences but not bound by them.
“This is the gift of Baba Dochia,” the old woman said, her form beginning to fade like snow in sunlight. “The ability to see oneself truly, to embrace change, to understand that identity is as fluid as the seasons.”
As her final words echoed around him, the mountain scene dissolved. Adi found himself standing on a grassy slope, the first flowers of spring peeking through the melting snow.
He took a deep breath, feeling the warm sun on his face. The air smelled of renewal, of possibility. For the first time since he’d returned to Romania, he felt truly present, truly alive.
Adi began his descent, each step feeling like a new beginning. The trials of Baba Dochia had stripped away his preconceptions, his attachments to who he thought he should be. What remained was simpler, purer, but infinitely more complex.
As he walked, he felt the rhythm of the earth beneath his feet, the pulse of life returning after the long winter. He understood now that change was not something to be feared, but to be embraced. Like the mountain, like Baba Dochia herself, he too could weather the seasons, shedding what no longer served him, always renewing, always becoming.
The path ahead was unclear, but Adi no longer feared the uncertainty. He was a bridge between worlds, between identities, between seasons. And in that space between, he had found his strength.
Sana was waiting for him at the base of the mountain, her eyes wide with wonder at his transformation. “Adi?” she asked, her voice a mixture of concern and awe.
He smiled, taking her hand. “And not Adi,” he replied. “Come, we have much to talk about.”
As they walked away from Baba Dochia’s mountain, Adi felt a profound sense of peace. The journey was far from over, but for the first time, he felt ready for whatever lay ahead. The mirror of Baba Dochia had shown him not just who he was, but who he could become. And that potential, that constant state of becoming, was the greatest gift of all.