You know that feeling when an idea just won’t go away? Whenever this happens to me, good things have usually come from following along, so when the idea to collaborate with a writer would not leave me alone, I knew I needed to follow that inspiration.

Of course, I was hesitant… for multiple reasons. Apart from a tiny bit of fear over what people would think of this idea, I also didn’t really want to relinquish control (I am a huge control freak, especially when it comes to my art). However, while I consider myself a storyteller just as much as an artist, creating tales with words has never been my forte. And so regardless of my fears, I decided it was time to work with someone else to create a readable story to go along with my images.

After mulling through my vision for this collaboration, I hosted a mini-contest for writers to submit their ideas. While reading through the entries, one story particularly spoke to me and so today I wanted to share A Mother, a collaboration between myself and Heather LeighAnne Barnes.

You can catch the story either on my Facebook or Instagram pages, or you can read the story in its entirety below:

 

A dazzling light awoke her on a stiff bed of grass. A balmy breeze lifted her hair, tickled her nose, and filled her lungs. She blinked as sweet morning dew beaded on her lashes, and sat up slowly to gaze at the expanse before her. She awoke in a new world, a world untouched by any but she. With a dizzy head and timid feet, she set out to know it, this world of hers.

 

 

 

She awoke in a world dying. A world forgotten and full of sorrowful crying. A world that begged for life and fun and laughter. A world without a voice, without a Mother.

Her hungry eyes searched the landscape before her. Eagerly, she drank it all in. All of the sadness and decay, all of the want and the need, all of the potential and promise of hidden treasures, of every imaginative possibility she dared to conceive. This is her canvas, her heaven, her landscape.

 

 

With a tentative hand she reached out. She reached out with her mind and heart and soul. She touched the earth with all of her dreams, all of her hopes and all of her fears. This world of hers would roil and rip, bend and break, flower and grow. This world would flow with water, with grass, and trees, and flowers. This world would know joy and life and fun and laughter!

With a tentative hand she tugged on the roots of the dying twigs and scraggy bushes. She pulled from the ground old, ancient life, and breathed into it a fresh, balmy breeze that lifted its stems, tickled its seeds, and filled its bedrock.

 

 

 

Wherever she walked, grass grew green. Wherever she reached her hands, trees and bushes and flowers sprang up. Wherever she lay her palms, life erupted. She let the earth drink from her, she told it to take from her all that she had. She gave it happily and wantingly. She fed the earth with her love and her light, and with her own faith that her world could take it all in.

She did not rest. She walked along the fissures of the earth and healed all wounds that had been torn asunder. She nestled her blossoms. She tended her fruits. She kissed her trees. She loved it all.

 

 

 

Wonder stole her breath as she gazed out at the land before her. Her beloved world had taken on life in a new, spectacular way that had surprised her. She stood there for a moment, unaware of this fictive thing we call time passing her by as the lush earth bloomed.

Life stole from Death, and Life had done it fantastically, with a flourish unmatched.

 

 

 

She ran and she laughed and she jumped! She called the water to her then dashed to the place where the land met the sea. She filled the water with fish. She filled the sky with birds. She filled the land with creatures and insects and crawling things that she loved dearly with all of her heart. She poured her soul into the world, and from it came Life.

Life crept up the mountainside. Life burst from the clouds. Life sprang from the oceans and the waves. And she reveled in it all. Crying out with delight, she rejoiced in her heaven until she breathed in the sweet, teeming air, and then she watched. She stood at the brink of her new world and she watched Life take it over.

 

 

 

With deep breaths and heavy feet, she climbed to her soft bed of grass. She raised the earth to overlook her sea and all of her creations. She walked slowly, filled with weary happiness that carried her along. She would build a home, the first home, from which she could sit and lay and watch her new world. She built a hearth in her home and sat by it as the sun rose and fell. She lit the hearth so that this home, too, would be filled with warmth, and love, and life, even in the darkness of a night she came to know as well as that first dazzling light.

 

 

 

She let the world drink from her, and it took from her all that she had. She gave it happily, as would any Mother who grows a child from her own womb, nourishes it with the milk from her own breast. Everyday she walked her earth, and with every step she continued to press into it her dreams and her hopes, her sorrows and her fears. She pressed into the world all that she knew and all that she had.

 

 

 

Life needed a Mother when she came.
And so a Mother she became.
She had taken Life into her own heart and raised it this new world, her world, touched by all.

But Life had stolen from death with a fantastic flourish. A flourish that left Death with a need to upstage it, a need to not only match Life but raise it a step higher. Death had nothing now; no world, no light nor darkness, no Mother.

She lay down on her soft bed of grass, and she breathed in the sight of her creation.
She sighed a balmy breeze that lifted the leaves, tickled the waves, and filled the Earth.
And so, a Mother she is.

 

– A Mother, by Heather LeighAnne Barnes

 

 

Now I have to know: what do you guys think? Was this collaboration fun for you to follow along? Does this need to become a tradition when I have more mini-series? Comment below which image and/or story segment was your favorite and I’ll tell you mine!