Fallen Daughter: Unpublished short story about the fall of Goddess culture

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Once upon a time, it is said, in quite murmur, there was the Goddess. The wind brings the whisper to our feeble ears. Listen. Listen carefully. She was female and male, old and new, reason and passion, life and death. She was shining love and joy, dressed in her heavens. Flowers blossomed beneath her feet. Bees were dancing around her. She dreamed, urged, created, lived through us. All her creation was sacred as they shared her secret. They felt unity in her presence. They felt her presence in their unity. Her womb was the universe and the darkness was a peaceful rest.

Then one day she wondered. What if I become the other? What if I could love my creation as the other and not as myself? The God was born from her what if.
Her beloved son had to go through the cycle of birth and rebirth like all her creation. With him, she experienced sadness. Sadness grew each time he died though he was always reborn.

Goddess of Life

"Mother, I want to die no more.", said he one day. "Make me immortal. We will always stay together."
"My son," she sighed. "Life and death spring from the very same root. Making you immortal will be the denial of the sameness. Life will be separated from death, waking from rest, youth from age."
"You talk well." God was unimpressed. "You don't know what it is like to start all over again, never learning anything from each life. You tell me you love me. I have only one wish."
She felt somewhat ashamed of herself. What was she afraid of? Can't she trust even her very special child? If she can be trusted with immortality, why not her son? She reached out her hand to bring him up and sat him next to her as her consort.

Her once beautiful son grew in his power. As his power grew, he started war, favoured some animals over others, some tribes over others and men over women, enslaving all those who were less favoured. With her son by her side, she degenerated into the goddess of war and fear. Her beloved son's favourite games became her own. She forgot who she was. She was no longer the sacred mother who loved all. Yet her temple was still crowded.

The God grew more and more discontent. "The creatures on earth still worship you. Didn't they hear that I die no longer? Didn't they realise I grew stronger? Your temple is still crowded and how deserted my temple looks!"
"Your temple is growing," she protested. "You will be soon recognised as my true equal."
"I do not wish to remain as your equal."
With his mighty strength, he raped her. The moon turned away her bright face. The birds fell silent. He stood proud. She looked up to him, baffled.
"That is how you should look at me." He laughed a little and continued. "You have no name. You have so many names and that is why you have no name. So you are nothing. And I give you the name. You are 'the fallen daughter'. Remember I have created you from nothingness. For matter without form is nothing."

He was now the farther of the Goddess. He was for a while occupied with his new business. He went about naming things, thereby engaging in the act of creation. He felt even happy till he finished naming everything, visible and invisible, in the universe. His unhappiness came back and grew stronger. "You are only my daughter and yet they worship you more. You should have been discouraging them from frequenting your temple. You have done nothing."
She looked at him, once her son now her father, his boyish delight lost in his ever-growing power. How angry he looks! No more sweet smile. No more tender caress. And so much discontentment. The pain of unhappiness unnerved her. 'I brought differentiation into the world for you and you alone. Yet you are so unhappy.'
The long buried gem of understanding and compassion was growing in her weary heart. She thought of the little creatures brought to the God's temple. She heard the screams of battle fields, of sacred wars. With their forgotten anguish and grief, she forgot herself.

"No one will remember you," he declared, still angry and dejected, lifting his thunder to vanish his daughter, deep in thought. At that moment, he remembered blissful moments and tender feelings that were once his. He felt her eyes resting on him, sad and loving. He felt moved by her love. Here was love without fear. He turned his back, trying to walk away.
'I was happy with her. And no longer.' He thought bitterly. He has lost the best gift of life. Longing without promise. Hope without certainty. Nothing was desirable for he had everything. He was cursed into eternity. What is left with him should be his and his only. He has to be Supreme. I shall rule alone. If I cannot be happy with her, I must be without her. He chose loneliness. He chose to be without the only being who loved him without the fear of his power.
"You will be no more where I rule. For I shall be lonely in my power and I must be lonelier for its meaning."

She was thrown into the underworld, leaving the realm of consciousness to the hands of the solar God, living only in the unconsciousness of her children, calling them softly and timidly. But the underworld is her womb and it is a place for regeneration. She will re-emerge, rested and strengthened. She will come back to us again as the goddess of love and joy.