Dear Witch, Wake Up!
I exist in a colonized body. I don’t belong to myself because the rights to my body were sold at a time when I was not yet born.
They threw my body into the fire over and over again. They said: she is dangerous, she killed, she lied, she’s a witch. And they killed me. Over and over. Without. Count.
Those I loved watched me burn, signing the silent pact of colonization of my body.
They raped me because I wouldn’t shut up. They tortured me because I knew things they didn’t want me to know. I have lost count of the violence that inhabits my ancestral memory. Many I don’t know them with the memory of who I am now, but my body knows. My soul knows.
I do not forget. I vowed never to forget. In my colonized body dwells the memory of all the broken boundaries, the soiled sacredness of my mother and all who came before her.
I do not forget.
I will never forget.
And I see.
How you want me to shut up, how you want me to shrink so you can feel bigger.
I won’t shut up. I will never shut up. I am Clarity. I am Love. I am Transformation. And I will never be silent again.
I am back.
And my body will no longer be a colony. I will transform it into a Bridge for those who want to find the Way.
I will denounce you at every step you take, in every gesture, in every look, in every intention. You will not pass!
Every woman you tell how to be, every woman you rape, harass, assault, discredit, I will be there.
In me lives all those who came before me. In me lives the memory. And lives the pain. And now I know.
You will not pass!
I am the daughter of a colonized body. Granddaughter of a colonized body. Great-granddaughter of a colonized body.
In me are lost the stories of the horrors that all before me have lived. I am those women. I am all those who were burned at the stake. I am the crucified healer. I am the daughter abandoned because she was raped. I am the woman tortured and raped by the religious and pious men. I am the witch persecuted by the Inquisition.
We all are. And our body is not yet ours. In the kisses we were told to give because it was polite to do so. In the beatings we received for not being quiet. In the times we were told that they don’t like us anymore if we don’t do a certain thing. In the advertising that tells us what to eat, what to wear, what to look like, how to look. In legislation that tells us that we have no right to choose whether we carry a pregnancy to term or not. In childbirth when we are told to shut up. In medical procedures that we don’t consent to. In the moments when we are called hysterical because we show our anger. In the question “why did you go out at that hour? Why did you wear that skirt?”
Our body is not ours yet. Our emotions and feelings are not ours. Our blood is not ours, our vulva is not ours, our hair is not ours.
We are still a colony of a silent covenant.
“When we lose contact with the instinctive psyche we live in a state of semi-destruction and the images and energies proper to the feminine nature cannot develop to their fullest. When a woman is removed from her basic source, she is “sanitized” and her instincts and natural life cycles are lost, subordinated to culture or intellect or ego — of herself, or others.” — Women That Run With Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Éstes
