The Guardian Goddess
Helen Rose
March 2019

I wouldn’t quite call this fiction or nonfiction, so I’m going to call it a short story and invite you to draw your own conclusions.

An audio version of this post can be found here.

The call went out.

“Soul’s 25-Earth-years-old human feeling utterly defeated and alone. Hurry. They really need a good cry and someone to stroke their hair and tell them it will be ok, but they only have 15 minutes left of their lunch break.”

The calls had changed over the years.

The very first one was life or death. The Soul’s infant human could not protect themselves from Nature, which was on schedule to send a tree flying through their bedroom window. The Guides had to call in outside contractors to wake the mother human from her slumber.

The Guides knew then that this would not be an assignment gently handled.

Earth years passed, and the Soul managed alright. It learned very quickly about othering but was slow to develop an affinity for self-control and consideration of consequences.

The Guardian Goddess had much work to do with this Soul.

Early in the Earth years, the Guardian Goddess would sit beside them in forts and hidey holes, fanning the flames of their imagination and passion. She guided them delicately toward the just and romantic while the Guides stayed near and observed. Sound judgment was not a gift this Soul was yet graced with, though creative energy flowed through them like rapids.

This creative energy and the subtle mentorship of the Guardian Goddess were not enough to keep the Soul from Earthly trouble. Not that they should have been entirely, of course, the Soul did choose Earth for the learning experience, after all.

They fell away from the Guardian and the Guides, trusting Earthly vices over inner voices; long choosing the few reliefs this fifth-hardest planet had to offer over the turmoil of the true path Home.

The Guardian Goddess became fatigued by this mission. Too many times had she been called upon to be the Soul’s eyes when they could not see the Light, protection when they could not find any for themselves, their whole being as they catapulted themselves dangerously and intentionally toward mortal danger.

Too many times had she driven them home when the Soul poisoned their human body to the brink of extermination.

She’d had enough.

The Guides kept on, faithful to their charge, and continued helping the Soul out of Earthly predicaments. The Goddess planted herself firmly on the steps of the Soul’s true home and waited. Either the Soul would return, humbled and once more receptive to guidance, or she would have a nice long rest. Either way, she would not be indulging their self-destructive detours for another minute more.

Much Earth time did pass before the Soul returned home. The Guardian Goddess, not yet convinced, was unmoved, but a tentative smile did escape her lips as one of the Soul’s companions flew down the stairs to greet them.

The Goddess watched as the Soul returned home more frequently, as their human body changed, and their Light became visible once more. The scars that Darkness left became faded, though they would never truly disappear.

The call went out, and the Goddess answered.

The Soul was distraught. For all their growing, they were still very much the small human child who read about a Secret Garden from a quiet, Secret Place where the Goddess sat by their side and whispered to them about the Secret Garden of the Divine.

The call went out, and the Soul’s human, distracted and dismayed by the intricate tragedies of human life, knew they were not alone, and never had been.

That which was Godde had never left, never faltered, never sat pouting on the steps of the Soul’s true home, but had been forgotten for a time, made ambiguous by pain and other humans’ concepts of the Divine.

The call went out, and the soul looked in – finding the Guardian Goddess an inextricable facet of their own being, finding, in the warm glow of their own knowing, the fortitude to carry on.