FABLES & EARTH SPIRITS

Mother Earth

It was everything, and nothing. The world spread out before her, vast and unending. She saw starlight and moonlight there, shadows spread across the land, and then the sun broke over the horizon, the fiery dawn of a new day. And she stood at the edge of it all, bare feet upon desert sand, untethered. Lost.

‘You are a brave one,’ came a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice, but no woman there. Instead a swoop of white wings before the orange sun, a flurry of feathers and golden eyes that seemed to see straight to the very heart of her.

‘Who are you?’ the girl whispered to the owl, as it settled before her. ‘What is this place?’

The powerful wings lifted and spread, and a new brightness shone there for just an instant. When it cleared there stood before her an ancient woman, her golden eyes unblinking.

‘This is the dawn,’ said the woman. ‘And you may call me Mother Earth.’