Earthseed: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

The Santa Barbara beach

Now, amid the outdoor tables, firepits, pines, palms, and sycamores, trust seems not to be a problem.

Haha

the ever-flowing river of people moving north.

Living behind walls? Beaching it withhold armed?

Haha

we know a lot, the three of us, the five of us. We know how to do a great many things. There must be a way to put it all together and make us something other than domestic servants working for room and board. We make an interesting unit.

Water is very expensive here—worse than in Los Angeles or Ventura Counties.

Why? Question

How did they die? Question

a local Hanning Joss.

Paying to wash clothes was a luxury we could not often afford, yet none of us found it easy to be filthy. We weren’t used to it.

If the gun failed us when we needed it, we could be killed.

I reached down, picked up a small stone, and put it on the table between us. “If I could analyze this and tell you all that it was made of, would that mean I’d made up its contents?”

This from a 15-year-old?

“I was looking for God,” I said. “I wasn’t looking for mythology or mysticism or magic. I didn’t know whether there was a god to find, but I wanted to know. God would have to be a power that could not be defied by anyone or anything.” “Change.” “Change, yes,”

Haha - isn’t any good an idea?

Or the Heraclitean fire Hopkins poem: https://www.bartleby.com/122/48.html Analysis: https://interestingliterature.com/2017/09/a-short-analysis-of-gerard-manley-hopkinss-that-nature-is-a-heraclitean-fire-and-of-the-comfort-of-the-resurrection/

She had to take a job as a live-in cook, but she went on teaching me.”

Of course. Slaves did that two hundred years ago. They sneaked around and educated themselves as best they could, sometimes suffering whipping, sale, or mutilation for their efforts.

The son of the cook marrying one of the maids. That was like something out of another era, too.

In slavery when that happened, there was nothing the slaves could do about it—or nothing that wouldn’t get them killed, sold, or beaten.

How many other people were less lucky—unable to escape the master’s attentions or gain the mistress’s sympathies.

How far did masters and mistresses go these days toward putting less than submissive servants in their places?

“Earthseed deals with ongoing reality, not with supernatural authority figures.

Worship is no good without action. With action, it’s only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.”

“That isn’t what God is for, but there are times when that’s what prayer is for.

And there are times when that’s what these verses are for.

the nature of God—not punishing or jealous, but infi...

There’s comfort in realizing that everyone and everyth...

There’s power in knowing that God can be focused, diverted, shap...

But there’s no power in having strength and brains, and yet waiting for God to fix things for ...

God will shape us all every day of our lives. Best to understand that and return the effort: Shape God.”

Haha - music to a Baptist’s ears

mashed or mother-chewed bits of whatever we were eating.

Haha

Earthseed community.

I took a chance. I told Travis about the Destiny.

Why personify change by calling it God? Since change is just an idea, why not call it that? Just say change is important.

“Read a poem?” “Or remember a truth or a comfort or a reminder to action,” I said. “People do that all the time. They

God isn’t good or evil, doesn’t favor you or hate you, and yet God is better partnered than fought.”

“Your God doesn’t care about you at all,” Travis said. “All the more reason to care about myself and others.

All the more reason to create Earthseed communities and s...

‘God is Trickster, Teacher, Chaos, Clay.’ We decide which aspect we embrace—and how ...

“The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars,’”

the ultimate human change short of death.

It’s a destiny we’d better pursue if we hope to be anything other than smooth-skinned dinosaurs—here today, gone tomorrow, our bones mixed with the bo...

Now is a time for building foundations—Earthseed communities—focused on the Destiny.

my heaven really exists, and you don’t have to die to reach it.

‘The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root am...

or among the ...

Haha

if you want to put together some kind of community where people look out for each other and don’t have to take being pushed around, I’m with you.