Children of the Woods

Gouache on mixed media paper. Completed 01/11/2024⁣

Deep in the woods close to Rosecloud, a kadama mother walks with her child cradled in her arms, humming softly with the music carried on the breeze. The wriggling child reaches out and touches the flowers growing all over her body, shading her from the sunlight shining through the trees.
The mother touches the door in her child’s chest; a door which opens to her heart growing beneath the Heartree, tangled in its roots, alongside the hearts of every other kadama in the Grove. Their collective heartbeats pulse throughout the land, giving rhythm to the mountains and the trees, the fields and the flowers, and to all the Maya that flows through it. With a loving kiss, and comforted by the chorus of the earth around them, the child falls asleep.