Abandonment and Finding What You Really Are!

As a child, I made some things very special. A disability was a point of interest. Many people, like the man missing an arm, had 100 pirate stories about how he lost it. I only know that because when you are very small, people let you ask the same questions 100 times. If someone told me they were adopted, like a friend did when I was small, I wondered what it was like to suddenly know this thing. I secretly wished I could openly look at a person with the glass eye and peer deeply into it so that I could see what it looked like. Mom never would let me. Many years later I did meet someone who makes glass eyes for a living as an adult. (It is a very unusual and artistic employment pursuit.) I never wanted to have any of these things myself, unless you count super human strength and to fight like the guy on Matrix, or the gift of invisibility... x-ray vision...

Now that I am older, I notice how well some people do with the changes in their bodies. One of my friends, who is very busty, had breast cancer and had a breast removed. She never had reconstructive surgery stating that she could not stand the pain of having surgery there again. She did have a special breast made that is a artistic copy and very realistic prosthesis matching exactly what her breast did look like. I saw her downtown one day and she is apparently so comfortable about the whole thing that she sometimes forgets to wear her breast. So there she was on a bright sunny day with one boob up high in the very center of her chest moving rhythmically with her pace. Cyclops came to mind. I felt I had to tell her and I said, "You forgot something today." She thought for a moment and responded with a laugh, "OH! I am a unicorn. I did not even wear my hang around the house boob." (That is a sock. PERHAPS one of the widest used prosthetic devices.) This was a new thought to me. A hang around the house boob. This lady has a neighbor who has a glass eye. He has a really nice one for going downtown and he also has a "hang around the house" eye. If he is really comfortable with someone, he apparently does not put in an eye at all.

Well, this all comes to feeling differently about something than one might suspect. I was reading "Exploring Harry Potter" by Elizabeth D. Schafer the other day. One of my friends said that it is ridiculous to have a literary study about a children's story, but I don't think so. Anything that makes someone one of the wealthiest people in the world deserves study. For one thing, this book appeals to adults and children as well as both sexes and to people representing many different cultures around the globe!

I have read all the Potter novels so far and enjoy them very much. The stories are said to speak to something primal in humans. Harry wants to know himself, and what he is. Like all of us, he would like a better understanding of the world he lives in and the forces of it. "Harry is like a lot of humans."

Harry Potter does not stand out without his actions. He is small for his age, not especially attractive but nice looking, nor is he the top of the heap in intelligence, although he is smart like a lot of children are. He takes some abuse and also gets some special notice because of his history which he only recently found out about. He has bad days, and he has days that make him feel on top of the world. He likes sports. Among Harry Potter's special gifts are his ability to take the actions he feels are right and fair even when it bends or breaks the rules. Usually he breaks the rules when it is a matter of life and death and he is strong enough to take the action. This is what makes him a legend. Despite his own mistreatment by his foster family, he does not participate in hurtful actions towards others including discrimination against "mudbloods and muggles." He somehow naturally overcomes his difficult upbringing and was all the nicer for it.

Lord Ragland's study of archetypes, The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama identifies categories of archetypes including characters, situations and symbols. These are some of those observations included in the book "Exploring Harry Potter":

The hero in every culture experiences a series of well-marked adventures that strongly suggest a ritualistic pattern. Ragland finds that traditionally the hero's mother is a virgin, the circumstances of his birth are unusual, and at birth some attempt is made to kill him. He is, however, spirited away and reared by foster parents. Little is known of his early childhood, but as he nears maturity he returns to his future kingdom where he learns some of the secrets of his past. After a victory over a king or wild beast, he marries a princess, becomes king, and reigns uneventfully. After losing favor with the gods, he is driven from the kingdom and meets a mysterious death, often at the top of a hill. His body is not buried but resides in one or holy sepulchers.

So we have Moses, Superman, Harry Potter and perhaps Lighthart (an internet friend of mine who lost her father) plus many others. The difference is, some people live the archetype in a way. The Quest of the hero may be a stronger need to find out about oneself, since the defining role of the parents in self-identity may be less strong leading to the greater need of the hero's task: know thyself. Then comes the initiation or the surviving of a ritualistic act transforming them into adulthood with knowledge. Of course there is always the journey.

You might want to try standing in front of buildings full of the oppressed masses extending your arms out and exclaiming, "FREE MY PEOPLE." Try leaping tall buildings in a single bound. (Start out on the ground and maybe with doghouses first to see if this is for you or not.) Go to King's Cross Station and see if you can get through gate nine and three-quarters. If you can, enroll in wizarding school. Then again, you can just be yourself and find the treasure of what you really are. Many of us are on this path.