Are We Hexing Ourselves?

Doubt is a fear that I will fail. The secret stone of doubt sits, somehow both very small and very heavy, in my shoe as I walk on the path I’m building for myself. I do not walk on a path less taken, nor a path well trodden. I make my own way. What good is a witch if she doesn’t make her own way? I am a wayfinder, a waymaker. I create. A creatrix with a jagged stone of doubt in her pointy-toed shoe.

Doubt is a hex.

A hex that I reject at first. There is no stone in my shoe. I imagined it. No, wait, there it is again. Doubt rolling around, hiding under the arch, behind the heel, under the nest of toes.

And yet, doubt is still there when I take a big step forward, crumbling under the pain of a small, jagged stone, preshed against the flesh under the full weight of my giantess.

A full stop. Shoe removed. Stone shook loose. A hex stone. Smaller in the light than it felt under my foot. I tiny little thing, really. I pull the hex rock from my shoe and eat it.

In what ways are we hexing ourselves?

Doubt. Pity. Fear. Withholding. Silence.

Doubt digests into my body, into my work, into my soul. Once I’ve eaten the stone of doubt, I’ve swallowed my hex, it burns through me and is incorporated — corpus in latin means “body” — embodied. My magic can not only digest the hex stone but alchemize it into power, into fuel, into energy.

I ate my hex. I am using it to empower me. I create with doubt and joy and acceptance of failure. I am flying again. Full of life. Full of doubt.

I will fail and start again. I will fail AND I will succeed.

It’s my path, witches. I can do exactly as I please.