Aligned with Good

How I stopped being Slytherin and learned to love Gryffindor

I was always a bit of a rebel with a dark side. Or more realistically I never fit in, and the dark side came calling like a beloved friend. The romantic boyfriend with a single rose and matching mascara, but the only thing you share is sadness.

That’s what a lot of villains have in common, right? A sad backstory of alienation where they didn’t fit the norm. Bad Guy decides that the only way to get the respect they so richly deserve is to burn it all down. Darth Vader and Voldemort have always seemed so mysterious compared to the dimpled Luke and lightning scared Harry. The power to choke-hold those who mildly perturb you is just a bonus to being corrupt. You didn’t need friends when fear makes you into a God.

However, I had an existential alignment change last year. It happened within the depths of a float tank. Plunged into darkness and surrounded by white light. I had a specific moment where I could see the worlds of magic in this spiraling yin-yang, dark and white. As I looked on the white started taking on the dark until there was nothing left but warmth.

I was left with this profound feeling that white magic was something that was always around us, it was freely given.

Black magic had to be this secret archaic knowledge because it wasn’t dominant, it was the weak magnetic force of the world. To make that darkness feel powerful, it hides in bolstering, not unlike the Wizard of Oz.