Earthseed: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

People steal that way for money. They’re not desperate. Just greedy and dangerous.

She was like Joanne all over again—denial personified. What planet do people like that live on?

“Nehemiah four,” Dad said. “Verse 14.”

Question? v. 13 I stationed the people according to their families,[g] with their swords, their spears, and their bows. v. 14 .., I stood up and said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your kin, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your households.” v. 17 The burden bearers carried their loads in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and with the other held a weapon. 18 And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. (NRSVUE)

fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses.”

Haha

but not at my suggestion.

Question

Richard Moss’s

stubborn, arrogant, and greedy,

In fact, it’s much better than what a lot of people live in now on the outside.

Haha

Now = when? Question

Alejandro Montoya and Julia Lincoln, one of Shani Yannis’s sisters.

Haha!

All the wire had been cut in spite of our efforts.

It’s either that, or might as well open the gates and doors.

How long does a thief stay content? And what’s it like to starve?

“I don’t care about them! It’s you I’m worried about!”

I guess I’m as good at denial as anyone.

Haha

God prevails. But God exists to be shaped.

It isn’t enough for us to just survive, limping along, playing business as usual while things get worse and worse. If that’s the shape we give to God, then someday we must become too weak—

There has to be more that we can do, a better destiny that we can shape.

the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.

Name plus purpose equals focus

The particular God-is-Change belief system that seems right to me will be called Earthseed.

Name plus purpose equals focus

plants seed themselves, windborne, animalborne, waterborne, far from their parent plants.

Even they don’t have to just sit in one place and wait to be wiped out.

I am Earthseed. Anyone can be.

discovery rather than invention, exploration rather than creation.

I’ve written plenty of useless stuff in those books, getting my high school work out of the way.

Haha

I’ll use these verses to pry them loose from the rotting past, and maybe push them into saving themselves and building a future that makes sense.

My 72nd birthday! Maybe I should make a survival pack too?

a grab-and-run pack.

plantable raw seed,

Very smart

Haha

his cluttered office.

Yay!

So maybe Dad’s right. I hate his decision, but maybe he’s right.

There are no jobs up there. Newcomers work for food if they work at all. Experience doesn’t matter. Education doesn’t matter. There are just too many desperate people.

“Oregon, Washington, Canada.”

“But people do leave. People are always moving north.” “They try. They’re desperate and they have nothing to lose. But I do.

A tree Cannot grow In its parents’ shadows.

What does this one mean if you live in a cul-de-sac with a wall around it?

What does it mean if you’re damned lucky to live in a cul-de-sac with a wall around it?

the big Anglo-Japanese cosmological station on the moon.

That station has been detecting new worlds for a dozen years now, and there’s even evidence that a few of the discovered worlds may be life-bearing.

Life alone is enough.

I find it … more exciting and encouraging than I can explain, more important than I can explain. There is life out there.

I think people who traveled to extrasolar worlds would be on their own—far from politicians and business people, failing economies and tortured ecologies—and far from help.

Well out of the shadow of their parent world.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sixteen.