Say what you want about JK Rowling (just, please, not in my comments), but HP isn’t something I can just dislodge from my heart. My childhood was what it was, and Harry essentially grew up alongside me as I was going through some less-than-whimsical life events.

My mom had bought me the third book at some point, and the year before she passed, she surprised me with Order of the Phoenix the day it came out. I think I read about a third of that chunker that day. I’ll probably never part with this book as long as I have a say in the matter. I tend to hoard sentiment.

I was recently thinking about the ways in which the universe will act like a mirror. Synchronicities, yes. Confirmation, yes. But also with situations and people.

It will connect you with people who are on your wavelength, and whether their presence is going to be helpful or hurtful almost always is up to you. At a certain age, anyway. Children don’t get to decide who is in their lives, for the most part. I’m not going to go into that. Not today.

Today I want to briefly wax poetic about the concept of a mirror universe. I think there are several ideas that claim this term, but the framework I’m referring to is about reflection. Maybe I’m using the wrong term for an established idea, but “Mirror Universe” makes the most sense to me here.

I mean reflection in that the universe will show you what’s inside you, whether you’re paying attention or not and regardless of if you do or do not like what you’re seeing. That might be the one caveat to the comparison I’m trying to make to the Mirror of Erised: that mirror will always show you something you want to see.

The Mirror of Erised (“Desire” backwards), for those who are wondering, is a fancy mirror that Harry finds while sneaking around the school in his first year at Hogwarts. In it he sees both of his parents, who were wizard murdered when he was a baby, standing beside him. It’s his deepest desire to have them alive again, to be able to speak with them, to spend time with them.

The lore of the mirror is that numerous wizards spent their lives wasting away in front of it, clinging to merely the image of a dream. Some desires are things that can be fulfilled by our action in the world. Some desires, like Harry’s, could only be found by looking in the mirror.

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live,” are Dumbledore’s words to Harry.

I love that Harry was kind of tested here in a way that I feel like I’ve been tested, not by an author, but by the universe. By the creator of all things, whatever you yourself like to call it.

Harry missed his parents (same, tbh). A carrot was dangled in front of him with this mirror; finally he and his parents, seemingly all alive together in a frame. A deal with the devil. It looks like what you think you want, and you can have it if you just… give up your life.

Thankfully Dumbledore was there with some wize words. Like, I’m sure they have wizard rehab or something for wizards who struggle with ancient relic abuse, but he was there.

Harry wanted his parents, yes, but he needed family. Support. Love. Safety. Being stuck in front of a mirror with two people who can only communicate through their eyes does not a family make. Harry did end up leaving the mirror, and for the rest of the book his “real life” actions bring him the thing he needed.

Camaraderie and love and support. Legit friends who have his back.

Sometimes the universe will test you and dangle what you think you want in front of you. It’s asking “are you sure? Are you sure you want this?” You might spend years taking this test, trying to make it work, giving it everything you’ve got. Eventually you realize the thing that’s been dangling just out of your eager grasp has been slowly poisoning you simply with its proximity.

You go “oh, I was being silly” and finally release the need to have exactly what you want. The need to make this work when it just ain’t working. The need to make the image in the mirror real. When you do that (release, surrender), I find that you end up being provided the thing you actually need; if you’re in alignment and actually trying, it will come.

I believe the universe is always trying to lead us to what we need (on a soul level). It will reflect what you want, what you think, how you perceive… the good and the bad. Your awareness of it doesn’t really matter; your intention and how you move does. What are you reflecting back into the world?

I think it’s important that we maybe focus less on what’s being reflected back at us and focus on where we’re being led. Focus on being a reflection. Embody what you want to see come to life outside of yourself.

If you want fear, be afraid. If you want honesty, be truth. If you want compassion, be love.