Happy Friday, dear readers! This post is coming later in the week than I had hoped, but after a few nights with not enough sleep, I've mostly been going through the basic motions the past few days. I'm feeling a little more proficient with words at the moment, so I'm running with it while I can. Now on to today's post!
Earlier this week, I shared that this week was going to be a celebration of goddesses. While rummaging through my makeup, I noticed I had several palettes that somehow included "Goddess" in the name, and I thought it would make for a fun theme.
Instead of just creating a "pretty face" and calling it a goddess, I wanted to challenge myself with this project. I selected a specific goddess to create and pay tribute based on the nuances of each specific palette. For today's post, I opted to use the
Greek Goddess palette by Lunar Beauty. I am of Greek descent on my father's side, and as a result, Greek mythology has played a rather substantial part of my life for as long as I could remember. When Manny designed this palette, he picked some fantastic Greek goddesses; for the purpose of today's post, I opted to pay tribute to one that is not as widely known here: Nemesis!
Nemesis is the Greek goddess of retribution and balance. Should a human show any arrogance towards the gods, it was Nemesis that would inflict punishment upon them.
As with many myths, there are conflicting stories when it comes to the Goddess Nemesis. Many believed she was the daughter of Nyx, the Goddess of Night, and why I opted to stick with the appropriately named dark blue hue in this palette.
Her names relates to a Greek work that means to give what is due, and she certainly did just that! Nemesis sought to bring balance to the world, and that also included taking away things that were gained unjustly.
Unless you have had a particular interest in Greek mythology, Nemesis most likely would have fallen off your radar. While she herself may not be known to you, many are at least briefly familiar with the myth of Narcissus who loved with his reflection. Narcissus was an attractive man that cruelly scorned the nymph Echo whom had fallen in love with him. Harshly rejected, Echo wilted away in despair. When Nemesis learned of Narcissus' behavior, she decided to punish him by leading him to a pond and make him fall in love with himself. In some versions, Narcissus cannot bear to part from his reflection and dies a slow death due to starvation while another claims that he committed suicide upon realizing he loved his reflection and could never have that love requited.
One of the key features I think about when it comes to the Goddess Nemesis is balance. As a result, I designed my earrings to look like a scale, placed on each side of the balance.
I also wanted to bring balance to this look by embracing both dark and light. Much like the African Orisha
Oya in my previous Goddess post, Nemesis is a goddess that is willing to make the difficult decisions even is some might consider her actions harsh. Nemesis' actions are less about vengeance but a redistribution on a cosmic level to give one what they are actually due.
I hope you have enjoyed today's post, from the look I have designed for Nemesis as well as hopefully learning something about this fascinating goddess!
While the week may be coming to a close, I'm going to call my own goddess powers into question (as the writer of this blog) and continue Goddess Week in to next week! This week hasn't gone exactly as planned, I've got another goddess in store to share with you!
Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day and enjoy the weekend!
XO!
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