Exam - "MIRROR MONOLOGUES" - Spring 2021

[Prof. Sindor Aloyarc]

"Ten Scrolls” / 1000 words (60 points)

Please submit all work to hiddenpowers[at]mugglestudies.org with the subject “Exam – Your HOL Name”

Your task for this Examination is to write a Reflective Essay on this past semester. Each of the four Powers (Faith, Hope, Courage, and Love) must be incorporated in one fashion or another with a minimum of 125 words apiece. The other 500 words may be spread out as you please across each of the energies and/or within an introduction and inclusion, etc.

Perhaps there will be a general theme or through-line to your composition with some primary topic or theory you’d like to delve into. Maybe each area will be entirely different, or you’ll compare and contrast one thing against another. You could write about what has impacted you the most overall in one or many sections, or discuss what has come up for you over the course of our months together within all the different Modules and across any interactions you’ve shared with me and your classmates.

Has any part of your life been drawn into a greater sense of harmony and balance, or have you thought of any new ways of approaching how that might happen? Feel encouraged to include how other experiences here at HOL (past or present) or in other parts of your offline world might be incorporated, or if your perspective(s) on anything has changed over time.

Trust that whatever is internally craving to be worked into the mix will let you know. In many ways, if you’re tuned inward and listening with an open mind and heart, the Essay will mostly write itself! So long as you conduct yourself under HOL guideline then there are no accidents, coincidences, or mistakes here. If you wish to share your Essay, go ahead and below. In any case, I hope you’ll have some fun with it!

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

Looking through the final exam prompt and my course notes, it took me a little while to decide how to proceed. After a few false starts, I decided that the best way forward was to look at each power in turn, in the order they were presented in the course. The plan was to reflect on each power, in turn, over a series of evenings in late May and early June and then compare my current thoughts about each power to what I had written when that power was initially presented in the class.

I began my reflections for the term by thinking about the first power discussed in the course: faith. Since I had done my initial reflections on this power *before* acquiring the Muggle heating box used to guide my reflections in later lessons, I decided to repeat my first meditation for the term, but this time inside the box. Turning it on and taking my seat, I quickly found a comfortable position - seated upright with each hand grabbing the opposite elbow. My hands and arms, as well as chest and stomach, were soon enveloped in a very comfortable sense of warmth as the weather continued thundering outside. A dull ache would come in and out of my stomach, but it would be overpowered by the warmth of the box. But my feet and lower legs, outside of the reach of the box's warmth, stayed uncomfortably 'off' and cold throughout. This lasted for the five minutes, and... no real thoughts about faith came to me throughout the meditation.

But fortunately, I had been thinking about faith before entering the box! My reflections turned me to the past year; this was a year that really tested a lot of people's sense of faith. Nevertheless, a fairly straightforward definition of faith ("don't worry about being careful: everything will turn out right in the end") seemed to be popular, even now. The way faith was explained in the lesson, though, paired with a healthy sense of and response to fear and excitement, seems more natural for me even if it still doesn't come to mind when I think of the word "faith". What the lesson explained as 'knowing' when to avoid something, which is a sense I have pretty well, though, seems to fit more in the realm of Divination (or Arithmancy if numerical analysis is involved) than Faith here! Regardless of what I call these instincts, though, I must realize that faith is much more in balance for me than I would have thought.

The next evening, I continued my reflection with the next power, hope. Although I had acquired my Muggle heating box in time to use it for my initial reflections on that power, the weather outside was a repeat of the day before: cold, damp, dark, and rainy. So I returned to the heating box for a five minute meditation to ground myself anyway - knowing that a few relaxing minutes in a comfortable warmth would do me good. Indeed, the meditation felt nearly identical to the day before: same seating position (upright, elbows on knees with hands grabbing opposite elbows), same general warmth all over the body, same weird feeling of coldness for my feet and lower legs, and similar dull ache in the stomach (but milder than the days before). My thoughts about hope throughout the meditation were tied to the fact that I was feeling a bit more comfortable than I had the day before.

Turning back to my notes for my hope-based reflections from March, I observed that my thoughts from them focused on the feelings of pain as compared to feelings of comfort. For example, in March I had expressed hope that future meditation would be 'much more calming than painful; reflecting nearly three months later, this indeed turned out to be the case. This was partly due to the power of the Muggle heating box to soothe - but also partly due to a better understanding of my own body (and, in particular, knowing what needed to improve). I also said that I could imagine things improving "three or six months from now" (but potentially also getting worse); right now, I would say that things are generally improving - but we are far from home free in any sense. I most relied on hope in making it through a Muggle medical procedure I underwent a little over a month ago: while the complete recovery may take a full year, I'm already much better off - in every sense - than I was before the procedure!

By the next evening, the rain was gone but the cold, dampness, and dark gray clouds persisted. So before moving onto reflecting about courage, it was time for another trip back to the Muggle heating box. It felt nearly identically to the day before with a few exceptions: the uncomfortable cold in my feet and lower legs was much sharper today, my chest felt a bit tighter, and my forehead was feeling sweat and heat. The experience was still comfortable, though, although my meditation did not feel particularly courageous, though! The question about courage that ran through my head was as follows: "if no one else realizes the risk of taking a particular path, but you alone see the risk and therefore choose a different way, are you showing courage or not?"

So, just as with the previous two powers, I turned back eight weeks to my reflections on courage. At the time, I had been struggling maintaining a good seating posture while meditating - which is not a problem for now. While my reflections had focused on that, they somehow had managed to omit one of the most courageous decision I had just made: a decision that would take affect a mere two and a half weeks later. The risky decision: subjecting myself to short term pain and weakness for the chance of long term alleviation has proven to be fairly successful so far, though it's still too early to tell. And, as for the question mentioned in the preceding paragraph? My sense of courage has always been aligned with former Slytherin headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black's: "We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks." And so, I answered my question by concluding that it can be very courageous to take that different path when you alone see the dangers in the other, well-trodden path... even if everyone else may think you're 'chicken'!

Finally, the sun came out the next day and brought with it warmer, more comfortable temperatures. Nevertheless, I waited another day still to begin my final reflection, which was to be the one about love. The warmer temperatures persisted, but by that evening, the sun had given way to white clouds. In any event, I knew that the place for me to go was back in the Muggle heating box for another brief round of meditation. This one felt very similar to the previous ones but with a few twists: for example, I immediately felt myself hugged by comforting warmth in my chest area (and the ache was not really there). Only my feet, not my lower legs, felt uncomfortably numb and cold; but on the flip side, my shoulders felt as sweaty as my forehead and I found my head instinctively pulled downwards for most of the meditation. The strongest association I felt directly towards the power of love, of course, was the way my chest felt hugged by warmth!

As usual, I turned back in my notes for my reflections on love; being less than four weeks ago, they were much fresher in my memory. At the time, my reflections on love were along the lines of "love is there for you, but it may require some discomfort to get there." These reflections proved surprisingly prescient as I looked over various thoughts and discussions I had over the preceding month! I still agree with my recent past self that feeling the power of love properly really requires having a connection with other people - and that the better you know yourself, the better you'll know others. Do I really know myself as completely as I'd like? To be honest: no - but I've definitely made steps in the right direction over this past term, and this was definitely helped along by the reflections from this course! And this makes it easier for me to feel and understand the power of love, even though it feels more out of balance for me than the other powers.

Looking back at these reflections, it really does seem that I have a better sense of all four powers discussed through this course. Not only that, though, but I think I even understand myself much better than before!

[Carrie Warts]

As I sit here looking at everyone with their eyes set on the piece of parchment in front of them and their quills with ink moving fast from one side to another I can't help but fall into the same urge. They are not the only ones excited to tell the Professor and me how much they learned and enjoyed this class. I want to share with them how much these lessons impacted me, how much Sindor's words touched my soul and how much I've grown this past year.

Faith, Hope, Courage, and Love. Strong and powerful words separately as well as together. Thruout the entire semester, each of these powers has resonated with me, and curiously enough, every time we touched a new power, it made sense to me with whatever it was that was happening to me back then.

When we started and I saw that the first power was Faith I couldn't help but be marveled at the quote mentioned at the beginning "Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase." Luther King Jr. was indeed an amazing human being and could always see the glass half full, the light at the end of the tunnel. During the beginning of this power, I was going through some hard times, making hard decisions, decisions that without exaggerating changed my life. And I have to thank this power because if it weren't because I had - and still have - faith, I would have never dared to take this step and would've never seen the beautiful stair that is now presenting before me.

Hope was another main factor and power in the following month, and just like Euripides said "Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything." This specific power led me to a state of mind that I've always had but never quite paid much attention to until it was presented to me by Prof. Aloyarc. I've always been a hopeful person, and even though that has its pros and cons I've always been a happy person because of it. Or at least, that's how I feel it. I have always been able to look on the bright side of things and if something seems hopeless or if something went totally wrong and I messed up, I get bummed for like 10 minutes, and then I think: "Well, hopefully in the future I won't make the same mistake" or "I have hope that whatever happened it did for a good and positive reason" or even better " I know for sure that something better is waiting for me around the corner" and this always gives me the courage to keep on moving forward.

And speaking of courage, I have to say that I deeply enjoyed how every power was connecting with one another throughout the semester. Churchill said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."When I first read this quote I couldn't help but remember something someone once said - and I wish I could remember who said it - "It's not the finish line that matters but how you got there". Courage is on every decision we made every day, not in the same amount of course but it's there. There's courage in how we choose to present ourselves to the world, there's courage in how we speak, how we demonstrate our feelings, how we say what we want, how we face our failures, and how we move on despite the difficulties. Courage makes us be fearless and dare to do what our hearts desire, and the lack of it can put us in a hole and isolate ourselves from everyone. I am a courageous woman and I love being one even though there are times when I don't feel as much as I would like, deep down I know it's in me and it's also in me the choice to let it out.

And the final power but not less important, Love. The quote for this power was powerful but I wanted to share one of my own "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." This is a particular quote that I love from Buddha. Whenever we talk about love is often referred to or thought to be romantic love, and even though that is an important type of love, it's going to mean nothing if first there's no self-love. In order for us to live a good and happy life, we must always put ourselves and our own self-love first. I know, it sounds selfish but when it comes to you, your happiness, your self-esteem, and your confidence you kind of have to be selfish. It's amazing how many things you can accomplish when you love yourself, how many obstacles you can cross, and how free you can be when this type of love is in you.
This doesn't mean that all other types of love are not as good or as powerful, na-ah! I'm just pointing out to the one that for me is the crucial one for when you are older. But of course! when you are growing up, your family's love and support are the fundamental part of an amazing childhood and a great upbringing and then it's up to us to continue this legacy of love with ourselves, our family, our friends, our partners, our kids, and everyone that comes along that deserves our love as much as we deserve our own.

During this semester I was blown away by how deep everyone's thoughts were - and how big of an appetite they all had - and made me realize that this world is in good hands, no matter how many bad people are out there, these ones right here will and already are making the world a better place, and for that, I'm honestly blessed for having been a part of it all. Thank you all, thank you, Professor.