Read the word “evil” backwards. Interesting isn’t it? 

They say that when the witch dies, she turns into a magpie. 

Yin & yang – it makes sense. Nice reincarnation. 

Magpies are considered evil in largely superstitious folklore. 

They are believed to bring bad luck, sorrow, herald death and steal stuff. 

In the shamanic tradition they are a totem, a link to the spirit world.

I’ve looked into a giant magpie’s eye in the ceremony. I felt safe in her wisdom.

In the Noah’s ark story, a magpie was the only animal that did not get on the boat.

It laughed at Noah and his animals instead. 

(Was it a bizarre sight? Or did the magpie saw beyond the beyond? No one ever dies)

And so magpies were proclaimed evil.  

I wish I knew I was supposed to salute them. 

Not out of fear, for fun. 

I don’t see Satan when I look at a magpie. 

I see a cheeky, tiny, tuxedoed dinosaur who sometimes chirps in gurgling noises.

If I went back to when I was a child, I would not have run away in fear this time.

I would come close to the magpie talking to me, salute it and hear what she had to say.

Who knows what special ability, wisdom, or shiny trinket I could have received.