The Dance of the Witches
In the old town of Gent, if you face the church of St. Nicholas, turn around and look at the building opposite. Then look up! The 16th century façade of the mason’s Guildhall is a particularly sparkling jewel in the crown of perfect Flemish architecture that is all around the square and around town, but that isn’t what makes it remarkable. Placed evenly on the stepped gable are 6 bronze statues of dancing figures. Their pointed hats, their pose, their defiant abandon – they must be some sort of witches. But what are they dancing about?
Oh, may the witches dance on the graves of those who are of arid spirit. What greater corrosive force could there be than a soul that has no thirst to commune in joy and sadness with her fellow human? What greater power of destruction can exist than indifference? The absence of hate is a vacant mask if it comes with an absence of light, it is more poisonous than the repentant soul who drank from the cup of Mephistopheles and felt remorse for it. There is only virtue in the Hippocratic oath on account of the word “first”. “First” do no harm, meaning there must be a second, more important task: doing good. Harmlessness is a bland dish that nourishes no one, causing no pain an arrogant presumption. Oh, may the witches dance on the graves of the perpetrators of indifference.
What heinous crime it is to spend energy creating a vacuum when life provides us with such abundance, or better still, provides us with the ability to create abundance. We can fully own only one thing, and that thing is our own truth. How dare they try and deplete our most valued resource? Oh, may the witches dance on the graves of those who wish to silence our truth. A truth we must live fully, deafeningly loudly, or perhaps delicately and with stubborn gentleness. The volume of us should be free to modulate according to our feelings. Oh, may the witches dance on the graves of those who tell us to turn down our volume.
Of those who take and give nothing back, what terrible leak must they have in their soul for them to lose all that wealth of affection? What bullet holes must riddle their emotive fuel tanks for them to have nothing but fumes to light the stuttering engine of their lives? Do they not feel the need to plug those holes, or do they not see them? Is it sickness or cruelty that stops them healing? Oh, may the witches dance on the graves of those who absorb completely but radiate nothing.
A question remains: who are these witches? Are they women? Are they spirits? Are they ideals? It doesn’t really matter; it only matters that they exist. May they dance and dance wildly, dance in the wind, dance on the water. May they dance in the purest Dionysian ecstasy that belongs fully only to those who have the ability to dissolve the salty crystals of everyday preoccupations into the ocean of mundaneness, letting the currents wash it all away. May one of these witches whisk me away; may she get me drunk. I want to fall in love with one and I don’t care if it kills me. I want to dance with the witches before I die, I want it intensely. Oh, may the witches dance on the graves of those who would deny us this dance.