walking barefoot, thinking barefoot

Barefoot path at Hexenwasser

There were witches who never wore shoes. Always barefoot, even in winter. And I always recognise a witch by this: I ask, How are you? And she answers by taking off her shoes and saying, look and walk a bit of the way with me. In fact, more is revealed in the passage than we suspect. Language gives us clues to this: Progress, gait, point of view, understanding, passing, passing away... progress and regress. How am I walking? How do I stand? When I have put my shoes on display in the "shoe museum" and my feet, freed from pressure and confinement, enjoy the fine massage in the grass, in the sand, in the stream, over hill and dale, I feel a revitalisation throughout my body. The barefoot path runs through the entire witch's water and leads you back to your shoes. Sometimes they are garnished with mint leaves or exchanged for even more beautiful shoes. Bewitched. And it's the same with thinking: the prejudices are the shoes and the ideas are the socks or stockings. If you let them go, your thinking is freed and you come up with completely new thoughts.

Two umbrellas shine far away. The witches lost them during a flight over the high valley.
Under these umbrellas you can hear the rain. An orchestra of drops! And in a water bowl it rains from the bottom to the top and at the same time you hear the witch sounds. If you are lucky and it rains, you can catch a drop and be amazed at how the whole world is reflected in one drop.

At the top of the witch's forest you will see two witch bathhouses. Or rather, two large wooden baths. But how does the water get up there? It's best if the guests do it for us, all those who visit us every day. They have time. But how do we do it? And so the witches invented a witch's ladder. You stand down here and turn a big roller, and poof, a bucket moves up and pours out water. Now everyone wants to go up and see what's happening. There's the next crank and a bit higher up the water sprays out of a pipe. And so it goes up and up, and before you know it, both bathtubs are filled with water.

If the witches aren't there, you can simply take a footbath or climb in completely. The great thing is that when you're sitting in the tub, you can see the beautiful Hohe Salve mountain. All these are just little "witch shreds" on the edge of the barefoot path. We can't describe it to you. You have to walk it yourself. How do you tread? How do you stand there? What is your point of view?

Shoes off Feeling on!