By: Isis Chryseia
Last night I was drawn to working with my Wicca Pack oracle by Sally Morningstar. Often times, I will feel drawn to working with a particular deck and so I try to honor when each one calls me, for I know they have specific wisdom for me that they want to share.
A card fell out for me, depicting the Goddess Nemesis, which stands for "Lessons". Her vibration is "Soul" and the keywords indicated are: "lessons, karma, destiny". I thought this kind of strange, because I hadn't ever got this card before and I have had the deck for awhile, so I read more about the card, because I had the feeling it was trying to tell me about something important. But at the time the meaning of the card did not seem to fit with anything going on in my life, so I pulled another card. It was the "Cord" which is subtitled "Initiation". Though I still I felt these cards were trying to tell me something, I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.
I placed both cards on my altar to honor the lessons, and hopefully tune into them better and maybe gain more insight as a result. Then this morning when I did my morning meditation, I truly was blessed with a miraculous inner experience/event. After my usual breathing and visualization exercises, I became aware of this small light in my thymus charka area. As I tuned into this teeny tiny light, like a distant star, I felt the love of the goddess within while simultaneously experiencing it as my own self. I continued to focus on this most precious feeling. This tiny but brilliant light was showing me about self love and self acceptance, making its presence known in me, showing me it is possible for me. Then I literally could feel in my heart and being how the love and acceptance starts here and radiates out. It was an epiphany in an experiential sense, not just understanding this concept intellectually, but grasping the body wisdom of how it works and makes life right with oneself in real time. It was no longer a notion I was reading in a book or being taught by some spiritual mentor. I experienced the living source of oneness. Nothing external had anything remotely to do with feeding or supporting this loving state. In that moment I understood the incongruence of it with any external influence. For the first time, I could truly hold and experience love within, in such a palpable omnipresent way.
Then I saw the Goddess Nemesis before me, and I tried to imagine her within me so I could fully experience her energy and essence. I experienced her within, but then she appeared before me again. She told me "Share your knowledge with others. Trust that you will know who, where, when and how. It is coming for you. You will know your mission in time. Be not afraid. A priestess is always a priestess in training. I hope you will accept this as part of your work." I said I did, understanding this need for growth and constant deepening of our wisdom and enlightenment on the spiritual path. Having the awareness of the infinite nature of the Goddess, I could not imagine otherwise, or one's growth ever ceasing. I naturally agreed to this condition.
I felt how loving Nemesis was, which was radiating from her self-love and as a source of the Goddess all at once. I also experienced her sureness, confidence, wisdom and her power. I asked her to help me, to please bestow her gifts upon me that I may be a better person. She asked me "If I bestow these gifts, what will be your gift to me?" I told her that I hoped to be a whole person, and that in so doing, I might better be able to help others in my mission as a light worker, but that there is nothing else but this to offer, and yet that it is all that I truly desire to accomplish in my life.
Then she stood before me. I bowed my head in front of her. She had a large ladle that she poured water from over my head. As she continued to pour the water over me she said "I cleanse you in body, mind and spirit". Then she had me take a bite from her apple. She spoke the words "You are beautiful". Then I understood. I was moved to tears. The lesson was about self love and self-acceptance as the true source of inner beauty. The deafening insecurities of my inner dialogue, sustained for a life time, manifesting in a neurosis about my appearance and weight, caused by the need for approval, validation and acceptance were stemmed in that one moment forever. Nemesis had a righted the scarring of the past that had continued to plague me through mature adulthood despite, therapy, spiritual work, energy healing, a loving supportive husband and so on. It was she who blessed me with the experience of inner beauty, inner radiance and inner love. I realized that the love and self-acceptance I was feeling within was how I was being initiated; finally I could be touched by it and know it exists in me. The focus has shifted from worrying about others external perceptions, to the awareness of that which radiates out from within each of us, and that I too now possess the awareness of this experience.
The great blessing of Nemesis has been the correcting of my distortions and the resulting feeling of the light and beauty of the Goddess radiating out from within my being and it has brought me a great sense of peace and serenity, knowing and believing that I am good enough just as I am. I asked what I had done to deserve this experience now at this time, though I have hoped and prayed for it all my life. She said to me "you know I can only tell you what is true". Up to this time she was very serious with me, and yet in this moment she smiled such a warm smile and I smiled too, feeling so happy, so moved, and so blessed.
She told me to go forward into the world with this understanding. I gave thanks to her, Isis and Osiris and Mother Earth.
The book that comes with the "Wicca Pack" describes Nemesis as such: "(She) is the goddess of retribution, of forces that come into play when we need to be steered back to a wiser course. Nemesis shows us that we must take responsibility for all our negative thoughts, words, and deeds and understand the effect that these may have on others (and I would add ourselves). The bowl and the apple symbols indicate her wish to cleanse the human form (bowl) in preparation for bringing it back to love and wisdom (apple)."
The Path of Self has made me all the more aware of the need to maintain positive inner dialogue about myself. I feel that Nemesis has appeared to me because of the heightened awareness I have experienced. To me she is giving me a sign that I am making significant progress in this work.
"Nemesis does not suffer fools gladly, and is a powerful representation of the goddess, similar to Kali in the Hindu tradition. She has a link with Wicca as goddess of fate, similar to the Norns (Fates) in the Way of Wyrd (the belief in the triple goddess: maiden, mother, and crone), and can be called upon during times of great stress caused by the malicious actions of others. . . She offers protection and acknowledgement of some form of injustice. Pray to her for illumination. Understand that life sometimes has to go pear-shaped in order for rightness to emerge. You are in the process of helping someone or something emerge into their own light, and the truth of your situation will shortly be revealed, both to you and to anyone else involved. Don't seek revenge or retribution. Keep your dignity at all times. Wait and watch as things unfold into truth."
I feel that Nemesis is helping to bring my life around into rightness in much the same way as indicated in this explanation. I have lately been feeling a bit in limbo with my life. I know that I must trust where the Goddess leads me, but sometimes, I feel insecure that I will not be able to uncover what my "mission" is and that I will not have the opportunity to fulfill it in this life time. Nemesis has appeared to me today to reassure me not to be afraid of change, however it manifests and that my destiny in time will be revealed and that major transformation is taking shape in my life. I have received such an incredible blessing today. She is helping me to emerge into my own light; the light of my own true nature and birthright as a star seed of the divine Mother and Father. For this and so much that I am blessed with everyday I give thanks. . .
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