The (in)sensitivity of witching

Have you ever dared to be in pain, when someone asked you not to be? Probably even the person causing it?
Of all the different ways to become a witch, this is my favourite one of all!
„You‘re such a drama queen“, my witch giggles into our iced coffee, on one of those hot summer days that were filled with unease about the state of the world and what we had made out of it.

Yes, I probably was. But for a good reason!
As this blog post will show.
So, what is this sweetest of all missteps you could take to eventually end up as a witch? To fall out of this world? Oh, it‘s simple!
It‘s not much more than being slapped right into the face and daring to actually feel the pain.

My witch smiled knowingly as the pages of Malleus Maleficarum ran through my hands once more.
„Here he discusses this woman that was upset when her former lover married someone else and told her how happy he now was“, I complain. „According to Heinrich, she was the witch that cursed their marriage to stay childless. And the proof for her guilt is nothing more than her being unhappy about him now loving someone else!“
I was fuming. I was enjoying this, but I also was fuming. „And here“, I keep on going. „Here, he describes a woman reported as a witch who denied anything. But her husband’s regrets in her deeds was so believable that he was forgiven and she was burned, and the proof of her guilt was her rage towards the man who betrayed her.“

Living was hard enough, even without people watching you and blaming for reacting to anything done to you, don‘t you think?

Being left by a lover.
Being betrayed by the person sleeping next to you.
Slapped into the face.
Stabbed into the heart.
And daring to feel the pain, only to be punished even more.
Is this the sensitivity or the insensitivity of witching?
Hard to tell.

Lalya twists her lips into a smile that left her witching eyes thoughtful.
„In my days, some people still said that pain had to be accepted and endured in dignity“, she says.
„Some still do“, I respond, thinking of my last visit at the gynecologist. „But I will never accept being in pain.“

And you, as well, must not.
All of us.
Being in pain is never alright, not even when the flames are already burning.