How To Escape Devil's Snare

"Don’t fight darkness. Bring the light, and darkness will disappear.”-Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

        There is a scene near the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone where Harry, Ron, and Hermione must pass a series of obstacles that were designed to protect the Sorcerer’s Stone. They have just gotten past the first obstacle, a three-headed dog, and fall through a trap door straight into the rolling vines of the second obstacle, Devil’s Snare.

        As you can see in the video, dark vines quickly begin to wrap themselves around the trio. After initial surprise, Hermione is heard saying that the only thing to do in order to escape the Devil’s Snare is to relax. With a little bit of a shrug, she slides away from view and moves on into safety underneath the obstacle. She’s heard urging the others to follow her lead. Harry at first seems skeptical, but eventually closes his eyes and relaxes upon further instruction and makes it to safety as well. 

        However, Ron just can't calm down. It’s understandable; the situation truly seems like life or death, and would be immensely terrifying if one were to take his place. He gets caught up in a cycle of fear and panic where words of instruction just aren’t enough. At this point, Hermione desperately tries to remember how to repel the Devil’s Snare. She finally remembers hearing in a lesson that Devil’s Snare hates sunlight, and uses a spell to create the light that will free Ron from the Snare’s grasp.

She's literally the brightest witch of her age.

        I first saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when it came out in 2001. I was six years old and I remember liking the movie, but as a six year old the admiration was most likely surfaced-based. I liked the way the movie looked; I liked that Harry was a hero and that Hermione was clever and that Ron was funny. As the years went on, I began to understand the plot of the series and it was like a whole new world that was hidden under my nose began to unfold right in front of me. As a pre-teen I understood the rich plot points and character development, and as a teenager I read and became familiar with the endless metaphors that J.K. Rowling based her series off of, or metaphors that other people were able to connect to the story. Eventually as I grew mentally and emotionally I began to connect my own metaphors to the books and films too. 

        When I think of anxiety, I think of Devil’s Snare. When I think of panic, I think of Devil’s Snare. I think of how the trio are stuck within its grasps with seemingly no way out, for in the movie, they can’t reach their wands while stuck in it. The essence of their magic is suppressed while constricted by the Snare. All they are left with are their nerves. 

        It’s the constricting quality of the vines of the Snare coupled with the knowledge that relaxing is the only way to escape that reminds me of mental health. The vines themselves are the darkness that feed off of anxiety and panic, wrapping themselves around the victim and squeezing until they can’t breathe anymore. They’re the spirit of dread that constricts one’s reality until they can’t even see straight or accurately. They're the energy that surrounds the cyclical, anxiety-laced thoughts that keep going and going and going like the wheels on a bike headed straight to a mental dimension of hell. They’re the Devil’s Snare; a trap that catches one while seemingly defenseless and at their most vulnerable, and continues to fester until its victim has been entirely consumed. 

        Hermione is the first to recover after observing her surroundings and realizing the only thing she can possibly do is relax. She tells the others, then implements her strategy and quickly falls through the Snare into safety. She is one with excellent coping skills; she views a problem, sees a solution, and implements it. Knowing that Harry and Ron don’t yet have these skills, she shares her knowledge of what she needed to do in order to be successful: relax. Because after all, how does worrying help a problem? What is the point of worrying when the situation is ultimately going to turn out one way or the other? All you can do is what you know. That's exactly what Hermione does.

        Harry takes a bit longer to cope. One can’t help but wonder why he hesitates, as he saw Hermione fall to safety and knows that it is indeed the way out, and that everything turned out okay for her. It takes him a moment to learn to turn away from his own doubts and to trust her, to trust the voice inside himself telling him that everything is going to be okay. He shuts his eyes tightly and takes that leap of faith by learning to relax, and gets through the trap.

        By this time, we see that Ron is quickly becoming consumed with panic. The more he panics, the faster the Snare’s vines begin to constrict him. He knows that Harry and Hermione are safe: he can hear their voices underneath him telling him to relax. However, he’s like many of us when we panic. We think to ourselves, “Just because someone else got through something doesn’t mean that I can,” or “What worked for them can’t possibly work for me,” or perhaps our anxieties have become so apparent that we're convinced they've run away with our own free will at that point. We become enveloped in fear and mere words of encouragement from others are not enough to completely pull us out of it, because we have lost faith in ourselves, and trust in others.

        Hermione and Harry become distressed because they don’t know how to help their friend. Hermione then remembers that Devil’s Snare hates sunlight. It’s a narrative that is literally as old as time itself: darkness can’t exist when light is present. That spirit of fear that is consuming Ron can’t face the sunlight and releases him from its constriction, and he is saved by his friend.

        So how does one even relax? It’s by using one's inner light: love. Love is composed of compassion, understanding, gentleness, hope, trust and all other traits and emotions that leave a lasting positive impact. Love is the opposite of fear, and every thought you have and every action you take is either out of one or the other. For instance; say someone bullies you for how you look. They do it because they are afraid of being powerless. They are afraid of being powerless because of the fear of losing control. They are afraid of losing control because they are afraid of what might happen to them if they do so. If they do it because they truly think that they're better than you, that's because it's a defense mechanism drawn up perhaps years before that was caused by, you guessed it: fear. And when you understand that these people have been completely consumed by fear to the point that they try to inspire fear in others, what can you do but pity them? They could have a whole life not feeding into that fear but instead, that's their life, and they will be disdained by many or even completely forgotten because of it until they learn to change it and find their own inner light instead of believing the lies that fear spreads within and outside of them. And those that see no wrong in what they do or support the actions of the bully feel that exact same fear.
       Hermione found that inner light for herself by soothing herself even when the situation called for panic. And when Ron can’t summon his own inner peace to bring him through, Hermione uses an outward projection of her own light to help him. Just as the darkness surrounding Ron can’t keep hold of him while there is light present, there is no fear where there is pure love. Sometimes when someone is too far deep and forgotten what love looks like, it’s up to others who haven’t forgotten to show it to them again. 

        Love consists of all the things that make one relax. When one has pure, unconditional love for themselves, others, and existence, there is no panic. There is only peace, understanding, and trust. When we become afraid of this purest form of love, we put ourselves in danger. When we allow the hurt to go without constructive attention, without deep soothing, we feed into fear, and it begins to proliferate and constrict itself around us, just like Devil’s Snare. Because fear IS the Devil’s Snare. It is the ultimate trap that will prevent us from loving, trusting, having faith, and understanding. It will root us in darkness and tell us there’s no way out. All the while, the way out is to sit down in it, take a deep breathe, and to get comfortable. Kind of like a mixture of cornstarch and water, the harder you pound at it, the more resistance it has. You must be gentle in order to get through it. 
        Sometimes, it's true, this fear keeps us alive in the form of fight or flight in true life or death situations. But when it becomes something that's present when there is no real danger, that's when you know you have to start thinking critically about the situation. "But what if it IS a dangerous situation?" you may ask. But what if it isn't? Aren't the two possibilities just as likely? If you wanted to be a realist, you could tell yourself you have no idea what's going to happen, and leave it at that. The power is put in whatever reality you believe. Your fear tricks you into believing that you're trapped into a cycle of negative situations. It's having love, understanding, and wisdom that can set you free.

        Does this mean one will have no anxiety for the rest of their life if they start to bring love, trust, hope, and gentleness back into their life? Probably not. Even after the trio slip through the vines grasps, they still have many obstacles they need to face. But they got through the Devil’s Snare. They got through that one obstacle. They learned to cope in the case of Hermione and Harry, and they helped their friend through when he did not have the emotional coping skills in order to get through it on his own. And they just keep going, knowing there are more anxiety-inducing problems they’re going to have to face, because at the very least, they know they can cope their way through the madness.
        I've been a mix of each of the characters at some point in my life. At my lowest, I handled things much like Ron did: I didn't handle them other than freaking out about them. I was so caught up in fear and anxiety that I couldn't see any other possible form of existence. It took the love of my family, friends, and therapist, listening to me, encouraging me, hanging out with me and pointing out how my fears are valid, but that there is a whole new perspective of a love-filled world that was available to me if I sought it. I saw other people dealing with similar problems as I, but they could handle it much better. I realized they must know something I don't, and worked hard to a. figure out what those things were and b. to implement them in my own life. But during that process, the love of my family, friends, and sometimes perfect strangers kept me from being completely consumed. This is why it's important to be as loving as you possibly can, to go out of your way to make someone feel encouraged. You just might be that tiny voice of hope in the back of their heads when they think all is lost. You just might be saving their life.
       It's now about a year and a half into this healing process and a grand majority of the time, I reach full-blown Hermione levels of coping skills. I can just shrug a lot of things off and focus my energy where it is needed in order to deal with the situation. There are times when life really tries to test me for sure, and it takes a more delicate hand on my part to make sure I'm truly dealing with and processing the situation. But I'm confident that one day it will be effortless. And if not, well, I'll sure know how to cope with it. 

-Katie