I am a huge fan of all things magical, so when I learned that ABC was creating a new series, Once Upon a Time, which revolves around magic, I was super excited. I’ve been a faithful viewer since the pilot aired in October, 2011. I have followed the ever-winding, dramatic rollercoaster of romances, disappearances, sudden appearances, time travel, and dimensional travel.
The premise of this show deals with two different realms of existence – the “real” world in the town of Storybrooke and a “magical” world of fairy tales. Regina, the evil queen of fairy tales, cast all of fairy tale land under a curse which developed Storybrooke, a place that no one can leave and very few can enter. In Storybrooke, everyone has a new identity, a new life, and no recollection of who they were in the land of fairy tales.
Last week, as has become our Sunday evening ritual, my family and I gathered in the living room just a few minutes prior to the show’s beginning. Each in our favorite spots, scattered about the living room, we waited with baited breath for our show to begin. The show unfolded before us in the epitome of good versus evil, as Regina went about manipulating every situation in her favor.
I have found myself growing tired of the show because of the fact that, no matter what any of the “heroes” are able to accomplish, Regina is either a step ahead of them creating more messes, or directly behind them undoing their successes. It’s exhausting, really, and when I noticed I was growing weary of it, I checked in to find the source. That search has had me looking at my own beliefs of “good vs evil.”
“Good will always win,” is the moral of most fairy tales and this theory seems to be imprinted on the human race in this undying belief that “If I’m good, I will win” or “I will be saved.”
Last week, in the final moments of the show when Regina discovered the well-hidden secret that was going to help Good win, my dad sighed and said, “This is ridiculous. No matter what they do, she always has a way to stop it through magic. Her evil keeps winning.”
I have actually been surprised by some of the evil twists of the plot, myself. The writers have come up with some very convoluted and convenient resolves for Regina and the Dark Side. Just when it seems that Good is pulling ahead, Regina conjures some sort of object that never existed before and, suddenly she is in control of the situation again. That’s the thing about magic, though. It is based on belief. And, if the practitioner of magic believes they are capable of anything… well then… they are. And Regina proves that time and again, through her evil mastery of the art.
So, what if good doesn’t always win? What if “evil” sometimes wins? What if “evil” seems to always have the upper hand ? How do you keep your faith in those situations? Do you keep believing that Good will win?
What if you are woman who has been maimed with a clitoralectomy and whose body will never be the same? What if you are starving to death or dying of thirst while watching the wealthy people be cared for? What if you live in a country where speaking your mind is cause for execution, so you remain silent and scared?
Do you still think that Good is victorious?
What if you are the one who got caught in the Boston Marathon bombing fiasco and you now have no legs? What if it was your loved one who is now forever disabled? What if it was your child that was killed there? What if you were shopping in a local high-end mall and chose to be there at the exact moment in the exact spot that lined you up with the bullets shot from the gun of the crazed gunman?
Do you still believe that Good will prevail?
What if you were one of the people shot in the dark of a movie theatre? Or you were the girl who drank the liquid spiked with Rufies and then were gang raped? Or that was your daughter or sister? What if you were the POW that was on a waterboard, or chained to the wall and tortured within an inch of your life?
Do you go on believing in the power of Good?
What if it was your spouse and children that were killed in a car accident caused by a new driver who also happened to be intoxicated? Or it was your loved one who was jogging along the road and was killed when a tired driver succumbed to the monotony of driving and fell asleep at the wheel?
Do you remember in those moments that Good will always win?
What if you are a woman who is beat nearly to death by your husband and are forever disabled, disfigured and scarred as a memory of the incident? What if nothing happens to the man?
Do you still believe that Good is stronger?
If he ends up in prison for life for those crimes, do you feel better? Does that prove to you that Good is stronger?
What if your daughter, her fiancé, and their unborn son are killed in a freak auto-accident after a heavy winter storm? What if their death could have been prevented if the ramp had been built differently or the guard rails had been higher?
Do you continue to believe in the power of Good?
These are things that have happened recently and for real in our world. The last two instances have personally touched my life. The story of the abused woman could have been me, but this particular story was the story of people who are very near and dear to me. The story of the freak auto-accident was my best friend’s daughter.
Both of those situations – any of these situations – could cause a person to really question the belief that “Good will always win.” If you are committed to there always being a good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, then you will be forever held in the grip of comparison. I believe these kinds of heart-shattering, life-rending, gut-wrenching experiences are placed in our paths to help us return within and choose to be the Good in the situation.
In the darkest of moments, there is always a choice about how you will experience it. Will you succumb to the dark forces, the evil that is there, and give up your Light, surrendering to the darkness because holding onto your belief no longer makes sense? Or will you choose to cling to that Light, remembering that you have a divine right to LIVE and be alive and go forward from here?
We live in a dimension of polarity. Where there is Evil, there IS Good. And, where there is Good, there IS Evil. When you are faced with the ever-present battle of Good vs. Evil, your intention will aid the energy upon which you are focused. When bad things happen, when you experience evil, you have the opportunity to be with the experience by fully feeling your emotions and then choosing to move forward in a way that benefits your life.
By choosing to allow yourself to feel those emotions, rage with the anger and fear caused in these kinds of situations, cry and scream, run and move your body, to question humanity and God, to not understand, to miss your loved one that is now dead, to question “why” … all of that… that is being with yourself, being present for yourself. When you allow yourself to BE there, you are allowing Good to prevail.
It is when we give up fighting for the Light, fighting for our divine right to LIVE, that evil wins.
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I always welcome your thoughts, questions, and comments. Feel free to jot down what you’re thinking in the comment box below.
