THE GREATEST MAGICIANS have something to learn from Mr. Mistoffelees’ Conjuring Turn – PRESTO! People have long believed that love moves forward. I beg to differ, for love does not travel in straight lines; it pauses, it trembles, it turns its head out of devotion. It looks back to honor what it has truly loved.
Ever since the days of old, stories, legends, mythologies, and folklore have remained a quiet constant bearing witness to the unsettling shifts of season after season. Take the famed Snow White for instance-once the breathing personification of grace and beauty, everything that the 2025 live adaptation is not.
And yet we tell her story still. Because it is not through the characters alone that we find inspiration, but it is also through the hushed truths in-between words, discerned not merely by the eye, but by the heart and soul, where the true charm of stories lies. In that charm, we tell and retell these tales to linger in their lessons and to hold the ending at bay. For love, in all its chaotic forms, truly never ends. Love, whether in consonance or contradiction, constantly resists all forms of finality.
“In looking back, in choosing to love still, we allow ourselves to grow from what has been. For love resists finality; it refuses to end where loss begins”
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, though tragic, has long been my favorite love story. The narrative is deceptively simple. Eurydice dies from a serpent bite; Orpheus descends into the underworld and charms Hades with music, winning her release on one condition: that he must not look back. And yet he does, and she tragically returns to death’s realm.
Traditionally, the myth is read as a cautionary tale about human weaknesses—about doubt, impatience, and the fragile trust that so often undoes us. From this lens, we are taught to see Orpheus as the epitome of such frailty; and in that frailty, he fails.
But what if we were reading him wrong? What if Orpheus turned because he refused abstraction; he needed certainty, needed proof that she was truly there behind him? For what is love if not the longing to see, to know, to be assured? Perhaps he looked back not because he lacked trust, but because he loved deeply, so much so that he was willing to risk everything for just a single glance.
Ultimately, looking back signifies more than mere doubt. Sometimes we turn not out of weakness, but in pursuit of solace and certainty. Other times, we look back because we choose to remember. And yet, regardless of what situation compels someone to turn, it is love that moves it.
They say that the heart is a fool, and perhaps I am inclined to believe it. For when we surrender to it, whatever rationality remains within us seems to wither in an instant. We overthink it. We look back. We may even dare to play death’s game in the name of love. And though the means may appear foolish, we persist, because love compels us both to seek uncharted oceans and to remember the very seas that first taught us how to sail.
“In looking back, in choosing to love still, we allow ourselves to grow from what has been. For love resists finality; it refuses to end where loss begins.” And so, we remain willing fools, not in ignorance, but in devotion, choosing, again and again, to love: our friends, our devoted partner, our families, and even ourselves.
So it is with the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Their story did not end in the underworld; it endures wherever memory persists. For each day we remember, we keep their turning alive, and in doing so, we choose to look back; we choose to love beyond all odds.
Oh! Well, I never! Was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffelees?
Email me at thebedan_managingeditor@sanbeda.edu.ph