The Deities’ World: Papa Legba: Choosing to Connect (part 3)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1
Part 2

I have a lot of stories to tell. Being the Gatekeeper puts me in a unique position and it’s something no one can quite understand, because they aren’t me. You know there was a time when I wasn’t the Gatekeeper, when someone was in the position before me, and it wasn’t until she chose to move on that I really came to understand what it meant to be what I am. We don’t just open the door between our world and yours, although that is a large part of our job. No, we also gather stories, gather memories, and when we get the chance to we pass them on, but, sadly, we don’t often find someone who can connect with us in the way we need them to.

The more we continue with this the more certain I am that there are going to be people who argue with what has been written. I would like to remind them that they know only the part of me that I have chosen to show them. As with all the loa there is much more to me that I have chosen to show the people of your world, because of what we are. We are immortal, unless we chose to move on, and most of us live for millennia, at the very least, so that we help those who need us. Sometimes there are many and sometimes there are few, but there is always someone who needs our guidance. Unlike the other loa I am the one who is always there.

Why have we chosen to wait? It made the most sense to us, when we were young, because we were still learning then what we were. The angels, we believe, were created by need and they have it hard, as they didn’t have anyone to help them during their early years. Of course if we’d known about them we would have been there, but they appeared in a place between here and the afterlife. Until the first of them met Hades we had no idea that they even existed and sometimes I feel very guilty about that – as we had help. Even then there were deities here, although not the same ones that you know, and they helped us to work out where we fit in.

Now I think it’s important for you to realise that we’re all guessing where we fit in. There’s no one in control of us, no greater deity who shows us the way we should be taking. It’s all guesswork and sometimes I wonder if we made the right choices. Should we have been the same as the deities and go to those who need us? Did we do the right thing by choosing to wait for those who need us to make contact? I was the one to suggest, when we were ready, that we made the first move, to show that we existed, otherwise I had a feeling we were going to have a very long wait. Fortunately the others, of whom you currently know nothing about, agreed with me.

Even though I wasn’t chosen to be the Gatekeeper then they asked me to make the connection. I remember the man I thought of as my mentor said there was something about me, something he thought the races of Earth would accept, in a way that they might not be able to accept the other loa. Maybe that was due to my early friendships with the deities, like Hekate, who chose to help me when I didn’t expect someone as busy as her to. She always was the same – connecting with more people than I could imagine, working on hundreds of worlds in different guises, but she explained to me why she did it. The offer that was made to her was one she knew very few people got and, in her early years, she wanted to prove herself, which is understandable. When I asked why she still did it she smiled at me. It was one of those smiles I will never forget.

“If I know that someone needs me I can’t walk away,” she said, her hand reaching out to brush some of the hair off my face. “That’s why I helped you in the beginning, it’s why I will offer my help to the angels when they finally ask for it, and it’s why I can’t walk away from the worlds that have chose me to be their deity. On every one of those worlds there is someone who needs me – there always has been. When I first became a deity I could feel their calls in a way the others couldn’t, maybe because I was once one of them, and I made certain that I answered all of them.

“I remember my mentor telling me, more than once, that I needed to step away from some of the people I had connected with, otherwise I’d end up burning myself out. Even though I tried I could never explain to her that I didn’t think that was possible. All of the connections I made were made for a reason, and, occasionally, I would find myself walking away from someone feeling slightly drained, but more often I would walk away feeling energised and ready for more. Being a deity was a choice, so I think, in some way, I am different from the others, although I have noticed that some of the younger deities are more like me.”

“Evolution.” I looked at Hekate as I said that and knew that I would love her for the rest of my life. She always was and always will be special to me. One day I might ever be lucky enough to convince her to slow down for long enough so we can have that child we always talked about, but I have no idea when that will be, and I honestly don’t mind. “The longer the deities exist the easier it will be to be one of you.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Comments

Feedback

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

The title should say "Papa" above.