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Important Parallels between Nessie and Bella

1)  Both Bella and Nessie are destined to be with older mates.  The significance is that both Edward and Jacob have certain preconceived notions about their role primarily as protector of Bella and Nessie, respectively, but the younger soul’s journey is to break those preconceptions and to liberate the older one’s view to see the world with “new” eyes. 

When Jacob realizes Bella is never going to choose him over Edward as her romantic partner, he initially dies inside and feels like God has overlooked him as a worthy mate for an imprinted soul.  In desperation, he eventually finds himself in an unfamiliar park searching the eyes of every stranger for any hint of a spiritual connection.  Instead, it is later revealed that Nessie, even from the womb, sees Jacob’s shining Light and recognizes that he is “hers” in the way Jacob assumed would never apply to him.  She liberates him from his own self-doubt about his place in the world as a worthy mate and partner.   

 Edward is over a century old, so for much longer than Jacob has doubted his imprintability, Edward has lived his centenarian life with the fated belief that he has no soul, which translates (in his mind) that he is unworthy of the most profound kind of love.  Bella rescues him from that self-loathing (it takes her almost the entire series to apparently erase his conflict over whether he has a soul), and in doing so, this “young” spirit teaches the older one a new wisdom he never allowed himself.

 2) Both Bella and Nessie have mates who originally focus on the need to “protect” them.   The significance is destiny often comes in small, humble, seemingly frail or weak packages, but we should not underestimate its transformative power and grace.   Edward’s and Jacob’s first instincts when they start to understand their feelings for Bella and Nessie, respectively, are to try to control every moment and circumstance to protect their mate.   It takes both Edward and Jacob a while to fully appreciate that part of Edward’s and Jacob’s destiny is to be saved by their mates, however “weak,” “clumsy” or “fragile” their mates might seem at first.

3) Both Bella and Nessie are vehicles for transformation for their mate.   Because of Bella, Edward finally sees himself as whole and worthy of her love as an equal and spiritual partner.  Because of Nessie, vampires from all over the world join the Cullens and the wolves to protect her, which facilitates the discovery by Jacob that he is not actually a werewolf.  He is more (a shapeshifter), and therefore he is not actually limited by the lore of wolves or their form.

4) Both facilitate new bonds between enemies.  Bella was the positive Light who brought the Cullens and the Quileutes together after centuries of not understanding the other’s motives.  (Remember even Edward is shocked to learn the reason the wolves are active in the present day is because the Cullens returned to Forks.)  The wolves and the Cullens believe they understand each other, and accordingly hate each other, but Bella is the shining connection that crumbles those boundaries (literally boundaries — remember Sam escorts Alice over the tribal land in the last book, which would have been forbidden before).  Because of the love Bella brings into all of their lives, the wolves and Cullens become more than friends; they become family.  (See Duality, http://twilightsagaarchetypes.com/duality/.)

Similarly, Nessie is the divine Light that brings not only the Cullens and the wolves more closely together, she actually brings vampires together from all over the world to see each other in a new light, the wolves in a new light, and even her “kind” in a new light.  She also liberates the only other member of her species into someone who can finally see his own self-worth.  Through her gift of projected mental images, she is able to project love into the minds of everyone she touches, which instantaneously melts the ice in their hearts and consequently, brings all of them together as one.

The lesson is preconceived barriers between people or groups should not limit us.  We should instead project our own version of love and light to embrace everyone in the same unconditional way, and we should do our part to melt the divide that keeps us from seeing the beauty and grace in everyone and everything.

5) Both Bella and Nessie skipped being a “newborn.”  The significance is that when we fight destiny, we have to wait for our awakening because we remain stuck in fate.  (See Fate and Destiny, http://twilightsagaarchetypes.com/fate-and-destiny/.)  When we finally surrender to destiny through faith, our transformation is not held back by linear time or “ordinary” hurdles. As Bella and Nessie both demonstrate, when we engage new experiences with total and utter faith, our growth and perspective to see clearly can be rather instantaneous.

6)  Both of their mates were initially repulsed by them, to the point that Edward and Jacob both wanted to kill them when first in their presence.  This is a peculiar parallel because of the extreme hatred for Bella and Nessie when Edward and Jacob first interact with them.  The significance is that destiny absolutely terrifies most of us because we do not understand the circumstances when destiny is first presented, and we do not have any instructions or the benefit of a guaranteed happy or safe ending to give us the courage to initially engage destiny with faith.

It is also interesting to note that in contrast, both Bella and Nessie see Edward and Jacob, respectively, as the most beautiful people they have ever seen upon first sight.  They have a totally, 180-degree opposite reaction as Edward and Jacob.   Bella and Nessie’s initial and immediate reaction shows us that when we surrender to faith, destiny sucks us in and captivates our fantasies, our passions, and our ability to believe in the possibility of anything.  

Bella and Nessie had to captivate Edward’s and Jacob’s imagination in a very different way because destiny announces its presence in different ways for each of us depending on whether we choose to engage it with fear or faith.  We all end up in the same place when we finally choose faith, but these four characters demonstrate beautifully how we can either be repulsed by it at first because of fear, or we can immediately be attracted to it if we engage it with faith.

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