chilli heat

My hands are burning...... I just roasted and ground some chillis but made the mistake of using my hands to put it into the salsa.

Whenever I have a chilli burn, it reminds me of the burns in my lifetime - they are perplexing experiences. Apart from the fact that they can hurt, a lot sometimes, the sense of heat stays with you all the way through the healing process (until the itching starts). It is this feeling of heat that is so interesting though. Our first response is to process the feeling as pain but when you can take a step away from the thought of pain and just watch the sensation, it is more of a very intense warmth. Of course, my burns have always been small and it would be a totally different experience for those poor souls with large burns - there would be nowhere to go to escape it then.