Earthseed
From SolSeed
Earthseed is a fictional religion created by Lauren Oya Olamina, one of Octavia Butler's characters in her wonderful science-fiction novels The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents. Earthseed serves as an intellectual ancestor for its namesake SolSeed, a real-life movement which has some quasi-religious aspects. While SolSeed itself makes no statements about God, it is as compatible with the Earthseed core belief that "God is Change" as with any other belief system.
The following excerpts of poetry from Octavia's Earthseed books (The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents) have been extracted under "fair use" provisions of copyright law. They are intended to provide someone new to the topic with a gestalt of Earthseed as religion. The isolated verses presented below cannot substitute for an actual reading of the highly recommended books from which they have been excerpted.
- EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
- by Lauren Oya Olamina
- ----
- The Destiny of Earthseed
- Is to take root among the stars.
- ----
- All that you touch
- You Change.
- All that you Change
- Changes you.
- The only lasting truth
- Is Change.
- God
- Is Change.
- ----
- A gift of God
- May sear unready fingers.
- ----
- We do not worship God.
- We perceive and attend God.
- We learn from God.
- With forethought and work,
- We shape God.
- In the end, we yield to God.
- We adapt and endure,
- For we are Earthseed,
- And God is Change.
- ----
- God is Power---
- Infinite,
- Irresistible,
- Inexorable,
- Indifferent.
- And yet, God is Pliable---
- Trickster,
- Teacher,
- Chaos,
- Clay.
- God exists to be shaped.
- God is Change.
- ----
- Intelligence is ongoing, individual
- adaptability.
- Adaptations that an intelligent
- species may make
- in a single generation, other species
- make over
- many generations of selective
- breeding and
- selective dying. Yet intelligence is
- demanding.
- If it is misdirected by accident or by
- intent, it can
- foster its own orgies of breeding and
- dying.
- ----
- A victim of God may,
- Through learning adaption,
- Become a partner of God.
- A victim of God may,
- Through forethought and planning,
- Become a shaper of God.
- Or a victim of God may,
- Through shortsightedness and fear,
- Remain God's victim,
- God's plaything,
- God's prey.
- ----
- Prodigy is, at its essence,
- adaptability and persistent,
- positive obsession. Without
- persistence, what remains is
- an enthusiasm of the moment. Without
- adaptability, what remains may
- be channeled into destructive
- fanaticism. Without positive
- obsession, there is nothing at all.
- ----
- Belief
- Initiates and guides action---
- Or it does nothing.
- ----
- Drowning people
- Sometimes die
- Fighting their rescuers.
- ----
- We are all Godseed, but no more or less
- so than any other aspect of the universe,
- Godseed is all there is---all that
- Changes. Earthseed is all that spreads
- Earthlife to new earths. The universe is
- Godseed. Only we are Earthseed. And the
- Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among
- the stars.
- ----
- Why is the universe?
- To shape God.
- Why is God?
- To shape the universe.
- ----
- A tree
- Cannot grow
- In its parents' shadows.
- ----
- To get along with God,
- Consider the consequences of your behavior.
- ----
- All struggles
- Are essentially
- power struggles.
- Who will rule,
- Who will lead,
- Who will define,
- refine,
- confine,
- design,
- Who will dominate.
- All struggles
- Are essentially
- power struggles,
- And most are no more intellectual
- than two rams
- knocking their heads together.
- ----
- Civilization is to groups what intelligence is
- to individuals. It is a means of combining the
- intelligence of many to achieve ongoing
- group adaptation.
- Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well,
- serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive
- function. When civilization fails to serve, it must
- disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying
- internal or external forces.
- ----
- When apparent stability disintegrates.
- As it must---
- God is Change---
- People tend to give in
- To fear and depression,
- To need and greed.
- When no influence is strong enough
- To unify people
- They divide.
- They struggle,
- One against one,
- Group against group,
- For survival, position, power.
- They remember old hates and generate new ones,
- They create chaos and nurture it.
- They kill and kill and kill,
- Until they are exhausted and destroyed,
- Until they are conquered by outside forces,
- Or until one of them becomes
- A leader
- Most will follow,
- Or a tyrant
- Most fear.
- ----
- Any Change may bear seeds of benefit.
- Seek them out.
- Any Change may bear seeds of harm.
- Beware.
- God is infinitely malleable.
- God is Change.
- ----
- All successful life is
- Adaptable,
- Opportunistic,
- Tenacious,
- Interconnected, and
- Fecund.
- Understand this.
- Use it.
- Shape God.
- ----
- We are Earthseed
- The life that perceives itself
- Changing.
- ----
- There is no end
- To what a living world
- Will demand of you.
- ----
- We are Earthseed. We are flesh---self-aware,
- questing, problem-solving flesh. We are that
- aspect of Earthlife best able to shape God
- knowingly. We are Earthlife maturing, Earthlife
- preparing to fall away from the parent world.
- We are Earthlife preparing to take root in
- new ground, Earthlife fulfilling its purpose,
- its promise, its Destiny.
- ----
- In order to rise
- From its own ashes
- A phoenix
- First
- Must
- Burn.
- ----
- Kindness eases Change
- ----
- Earthseed
- Cast on new ground
- Must first perceive
- That it knows nothing.
- ----
- Embrace diversity.
- Unite---
- Or be divided,
- robbed,
- ruled,
- killed
- By those who see you as prey.
- Embrace diversity
- Or be destroyed.
- ----
- Once or twice
- each week
- A Gathering of Earthseed
- is a good and necessary thing.
- It vents emotion, then
- quiets the mind.
- It focuses attention,
- strengthens purpose, and
- unifies people.
- ----
- Changes.
- The galaxies move through space.
- The stars ignite,
- burn,
- age,
- cool,
- Evolving.
- God is Change.
- God prevails.
- ----
- God is neither good
- nor evil,
- neither loving
- nor hating.
- God is Power.
- God is Change.
- We must find the rest of what we need
- within ourselves,
- in one another,
- in our Destiny.
- ----
- The Self must create
- Its own reasons for being.
- To shape God,
- Shape Self.
- ----
- As wind,
- As water,
- As fire,
- As life,
- God
- Is both creative and destructive,
- Demanding and yielding,
- Sculptor and clay.
- God is Infinite Potential:
- God is Change.
- ----
- Your teachers
- Are all around you.
- All that you perceive,
- All that you experience,
- All that is given to you
- or taken from you,
- All that you love or hate,
- need or fear
- Will teach you---
- If you will learn.
- God is your first
- and your last teacher.
- God is your harshest teacher:
- subtle,
- demanding.
- Learn or die.
- ----
- Respect God:
- Pray working.
- Pray learning,
- planning,
- doing.
- Pray creating,
- teaching,
- reaching.
- Pray working.
- Pray to focus your thoughts,
- still your fears,
- strengthen your purpose.
- Respect God.
- Shape God.
- Pray working.
- ----
- Create no images of God.
- Accept the images
- that God has provided.
- They are everywhere,
- in everything.
- God is Change---
- Seed to tree,
- tree to forest;
- Rain to river,
- river to sea;
- Grubs to bees,
- bees to swarm.
- From one, many;
- from many, one;
- Forever uniting, growing, dissolving---
- forever Changing.
- The universe
- is God's self-portrait.
- ----
- We have lived before.
- We will live again.
- We will be silk,
- Stone,
- Mind,
- Star.
- We will be scattered,
- Gathered,
- Molded,
- Probed.
- We will live
- And we will serve life.
- We will shape God
- And God will shape us
- Again,
- Always again,
- Forevermore.
