January Archetype Experiment: A Deep Dive into the Guardian
Dearest Readers,
I am holding each of you in love and blessings as we head into a new year. May you feel the strength of sacred boundaries protecting what is most precious to you. May you walk with the knowing that you are both guarded and a guardian—held in care and empowered to hold space for yourself and the collective. 💖💖💖
I want to try something fun and different for the month of January, and I can’t wait to see what you guys think of it. In place of my usual Sunday posts featuring a unique archetype and tarot card pair, I want to try going really deep with a single archetype for the entire month. Each week, I will draw a tarot card to pair with this archetype, allowing us to receive fresh messages about its many aspects. I’m thinking this experiment might be an opportunity to become really familiar with this archetype, get super clear on how it shows up in our lives, and attune to the wisdom it has to offer. Instead of a surface exploration, it’ll be a deep dive.
The archetype I’ve chosen for this month-long experiment is The Guardian.
A few weeks ago, one of my ancestor guides and I were deep in conversation about archetypes when he shared a vision with me that profoundly reshaped how I understand them. He showed me that when he was alive, many tens of thousands of years ago, people lived collectively. There was no focus on individuals, but rather the focus was on the collective. Each individual served a function in the collective. They could fluidly move from one function to the next depending on how they were best able to serve the collective in any given moment.
These functions were sort of like the very first archetypes. My ancestor guide showed me that, for his community, there were 8 of these (and many of the archetypes we’re familiar with in our modern times can fit under the umbrellas of these 8). In no particular order, these 8 were: The Procurer, The Companion, The Maven, The Genius, The Healer, The Sovereign, The Artist, and The Guardian. I love this vision he showed me. It really made it clear that the archetypes have always been an essential part of our shared human story.
The Guardian carries the responsibility of protection, boundaries, and preservation, ensuring the collective’s safety and continuity. This archetype holds so much—protection and preservation, yes, but also the courage to defend what is sacred, to confront fear and betrayal, to navigate separation and rebellion, and to seek truth. Sometimes, the Guardian retreats into the cave to gather its strength. Its light aspect empowers us to create sacred space, maintain integrity, and safeguard what is most precious. In its shadow, the Guardian can become overprotective, rigid, or consumed by fear, creating prison walls instead of healthy boundaries.
Ultimately, the Guardian reminds us that to be guarded doesn’t mean to shut out the world; it means to stand in the sacredness of boundaries (ours and others’), where we safeguard the power to choose. It calls us to ask questions like: How can we act as Guardians of the spaces we hold sacred? How do we mind our boundaries in a way that protects not just ourselves but also the collective energy we’re part of? Boundaries, after all, are not only personal; they ripple outward.
These ideas feel like the heart of what we’ll explore in January. Each week, as we pair the Guardian with a new tarot card, we’ll uncover another layer of its teachings. Together, we’ll consider how this archetype moves in our lives. Where do we feel called to set boundaries, to hold space, or to step into the role of protector? How can we embody the Guardian in ways that honor both our inner selves and the wider collective?
Through this January experiment, my hope is that we’ll walk deeper into the Guardian’s wisdom. I’m so looking forward to sharing this journey with you!
To begin our time with the Guardian, I created a ritual for intentionally inviting a connection with this archetype. Enjoy! 💖
A Ritual to Meet and Embody the Guardian
This ritual is designed to help you attune to the Guardian archetype, to meet it as an ally and embody its wisdom within your life. It calls on the power of protection, sacred boundaries, and the courage to safeguard what is most precious—both within and beyond yourself.
The Guardian has come up for us this month, which means we are being called into relationship with it. So let us pause and ask: How will we respond to this call, this invitation? Notice, without judgment, your initial and automatic responses. Do you feel resistance? Curiosity? A sense of duty? Relief? A mix of all these?
The Guardian may stir within us fears of overprotection or old wounds around safety and trust, yet it also invites us to explore new ways of honoring our sacred spaces. As you move through this ritual, challenge yourself to expand your responses. Can you soften into trust? Can you courageously embrace this archetype as an ally, knowing it brings gifts of strength, integrity, and sacred discernment?
My first thought is brilliant. You, Jenna, are brilliant to teach us in the manner. It's delicious, which is why my second thought was, "this should be a book" - and I haven't even got into the information yet!
Lastly, I felt relief that we are starting with The Guardian. I welcome this presence in myself and my life.
So Beautiful, as ALWAYS! It is interesting that The Guardian has stepped into my own sphere very powerfully in the last week or two - always Connected, Spirit Connections! I <3 U!