The Destiny of Earthseed: Practical Applications

 

Imagine a practitioner of Earthseed on another planet, in thousands of years. Just by being alive, they are fulfilling the destiny of Earthseed. Destiny to them is not in the future, it is a present action. Earthseed for a practitioner living on another planet is ‘proven’ by Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Take for example, Chapter 5 of Parable of the Sower Lauren is arguing with her friend Joanne about change. Lauren understands that “People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.” (57). She has also accepted the inevitability of leaving the walled community. She has prepared herself by reading books about how to use local plants as food and medicine, as well as raw material, she is preparing for dramatic change. Joanne however doesn’t think that preparation for radical change is necessary, because she is focused on a return to “the old days” - “We can’t make the climate change back, no matter why it changed in the first place. You and I can’t. The neighborhood can’t. We can’t do anything.” (57) Joanne thinks that nobody can prepare for the future, because the only thing that would help would be to “make the climate change back”. She shuts herself off from the possibility of shaping God, in her own lack of preparedness. Lauren gives Joanne a plant book (59) and tells her to read it, so that Joanne could be better prepared in case she gets stuck outside (the wall) or in case the wall goes down. 

Chapter 6 opens with Verse 9 of Earthseed, “Drowning people/ Sometimes die/ Fighting their rescuers” and immediately, Lauren learns that Joanne has gone and told her mom - her message of preparedness was warped by Joanne’s sense that she “can’t do anything” (57) - “The message went all the way from, “We’re in danger here and we’re going to have to work hard to save ourselves,” to “Lauren is talking about running away because she’s afraid that outsiders are going to riot and tear down the walls and kill us all.” (62) 

We can see that this section speaks to the innate discomfort that we feel when change is imminent, this is especially relevant right now, when almost half of Americans don’t believe in man made climate change. But, to consider the practitioner of Earthseed, living on another planet, thousands of years in the future, this story (which would be very distant, and mythologized to them) this section of Parable of the Sower would instruct them to be prepared for change themselves. Lauren’s story is simply evidence of Earthseed, and it is to be used after the destiny of Earthseed is already fulfilled. 

One aspect of man made climate change that I think sets it apart from other ‘radical changes’ that the Earth has experienced, is that we have been able to map and quantify its causes and effects with an unprecedented capacity. We can predict at what points different carbon thresholds will be crossed, when certain ice sheets will collapse, and we can experience variations in climatic patterns as change, instead of anomaly. But we are a young species, and the earth is incredibly old. We have flourished in the relative stability of the Holocene, which is defined by a glacial and interglacial climatic system but the Earth as a whole changes chaotically. 2.5 Billion years ago, cyanobacteria evolved. These were the first photosynthetic creatures, before they evolved, the Earth did not have much free oxygen in the atmosphere. As cyanobacteria proliferated, they pumped large amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, which to most forms of life on earth at that time, was toxic. A huge die off of bacteria ensued, yet today, most multicellular life forms depend on this oxygen (that has existed in our atmosphere since the evolution of cyanobacteria) to survive. (Plait) 

We have also had as many as six mass extinction events, where less than 50% of all life has survived. (Greshko) Climate change is a relatively new phenomena, we live at the very precipice of its consequences, which may influence the Earth’s climatic system for millions of years. Climate change is, in a way, familiar enough to us that we can understand the hostility of a changing planet, but we also must remember that the Earth changes all the time. Events that may render the earth uninhabitable to us, may actually assist other forms of life. Humans require very specific climatic conditions to survive, and it is foolish of us to think (if we are to survive for hundreds of millions of years) that we can do so on one planet. 

We need the stars… we need purpose, we need the image the destiny gives us of ourselves as a growing, purposeful species. We need to become the adult species that the destiny can help us become. If we’re to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize and die, we need the stars. That’s why the destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. 

We are so lucky as intelligent beings, to aspire to travel through space. Imagine if we could travel great distances in space, we could cherry pick planets that were perfectly suitable for us, live there for a couple million years, and then find another one once it changes. Along the way, we could bring life with us, plants and animals and bacteria and fungi and protozoa. As planets change, and become uninhabitable for us, perhaps some of this life will proliferate.. Imagine that people survive to the end of the universe, we would become some sort of answer to this great question of nothingness, and the experience of the universe itself would be our legacy. All of these things are made possible by the destiny of Earthseed. Why would we consider it irrelevant? Or far off? Why would we pass it off as ‘tacky’ or necessary to ‘turn Earthseed into a religion with goals’? 

In a lot of ways, practiced Earthseed is to the Parables as Christianity is to the Bible. Many practicing Christians today use the Bible to understand God, they use it to understand the ways that their life has meaning, and the ways that their life should be experienced. Yet the events of the Bible occurred over 2000 years ago. The bible does in a lot of ways set a precedent for the ‘role’ of the planet in terms of human life, and so, I would consider this quote from Parable of the Sower, 

Go home and look again. And like I said, use your imagination. Any kind of survival information from encyclopedias, biographies, anything that helps you learn to live off the land and defend ourselves. Even some fiction might be useful.

The Parables offer us a sort of accessible fiction. Our class had a very easy time relating to the circumstances that define Lauren’s journey. The climate crisis, and its many manifestations, are used in the Parables as a sort of proof, that life responds to change in its own self refinement. If used as a religious text, the Parables encourage preparedness, the expectation of change, and they provide tools that can transform change into opportunity, all while reconciling the conditions necessary for the maintenance of human life. 

The Bible, through its many redactions, retellings, editings, is a sort of fiction as well. The Parables offer us an opportunity to reconsider which fictions we are using to inform our understanding of our place, our future, and our legacy. 

We have searched for alien life for a short time, but my suspicion is that there is none. There is only life on earth. We overlook this wonderful cosmic event of the advent of life, which happened on Earth. Maybe, the universe is counting on us to spread life throughout it, maybe we have evolved as an intelligent species to be the mechanism by which life is established throughout the whole universe. To me, the destiny of Earthseed is so promising because of its possibility. The destiny of Earthseed is infinity. 

∞ = Δ

(QL)

Image source: https://media.wsimag.com/attachments/8a2ba82ec00f821a6c43903c68add9ccd603e8d4/store/fill/1090/613/65798303979cd8de58301b74bed203eb2f4cc722508c2b4ca3f60799b302/Is-there-life-in-other-planets.j 

Bibliography:

“Americans On Climate Change.” Climate Chat, www.theclimatechat.org/americans-on-climate-change

Halstead, John. Earthseed, godischange.org/

Michael Greshko and National Geographic Staff. “What Are Mass Extinctions, and What Causes Them?” Science, 26 Sept. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction/

Plait, Phil. “When a Species Poisons an Entire Planet.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 28 July 2014, slate.com/technology/2014/07/the-great-oxygenation-event-the-earths-first-mass-extinction.html