THE CHANGE

The plates of the family’s plant-based dinner had been cleared away. The crumbs ritually left on their plates were scattered by the Child outside in the field as a gift to the feathered ones waiting in the trees that ringed the field. When the Child finished this chore, she joined her parents in the family story area in front of the fire lit for the evening’s review of values. The value of the interconnectedness of all life was the main topic of review. They discussed this Truth. The discussion ended with the Mother singing a song she had created and the Child reciting a poem she had written titled Song to the Earth inspired by the Mother’s song.

Song to the Earth

                 Oh Earth, we love you

We thank you for your gift

Of life, so precious

We promise to live by the Truths

To maintain the balance

That all Life may not only survive

But thrive.

Thank you for the Change.

The fire still burned bright. The family wouldn’t leave to sleep until the fire’s embers could be banked saving a spark for the morrow. The Mother nursed the infant Child who was the newest member of the family group. The Child sat between the nursing Mother and the Father.

“We have much fire-time left,” the Father stated and then asked, “any story requests?”

“Oh, yes,” the Child quickly answered, “could we hear the story of the The Change. I never tire of it.”

“Nor should you, my child,” answered the Father. “Thank you for the request. It is the perfect story for tonight.”

He launched into the story.

There were early warnings of the existential threat of climate change, as it was called in 2020. Scientists had been talking about it and writing about it in their published papers since the 1970s. By 2020, there were voices of doom quoting studies filled with measurements and data and these were matched by louder, mostly political, voices clamoring about loss of freedom all the while stuffing their pockets with profits from the lasts gasps of the massively powerful energy industry created around extracting fossil fuels from deep underground and from the oceans as well. Corporations falsified and suppressed data that didn’t augment their profit bottom line. The greedy ones presented arguments that turned out to be deadly, saying that economic prosperity couldn’t be had unless a blind eye was turned to the effects on the planet, our Mother Earth, from a product or process connected to human activity. The fact that caring for our planet and its biosphere was caring for ourselves was almost drowned out by power-driven humans consumed with greed who had zero vision for a sustainable future which would include sustainable life practices across all sectors of society. All the public communication systems presented a great deal of lying and denying in those early years instead of supporting positive systemic changes to combat the climate crisis.

“Don’t forget Wise Greta,” urged the Child.

At this point, the Father paused to take a sip of storyteller elixir. He nodded and patted her hand before continuing the story.

Yes, my child, Wise Greta was a powerful voice who sought out and shared truths that our later Elder-Guides used in shaping our world. We honor her for her courage, empathy, and persistence to speak truth to power her entire life. We know about her because her voice reached millions, all of whom remembered her, and some of those were survivors of what happened. She is the source of the seed-wisdom that we needed to change and follow the science.

In the end, it was our Mother Earth who was the greatest teacher of all. Our Mother Earth herself silenced all the voices of the liars and deniers by 2050 amidst the full onslaught of the destructive phase of The Change which had started in 2020. We know this part of the story because there were survivors. They and their descendants retold the story of all these years generation after generation. Our family’s ancestors were among the survivors.

Throughout all the stories one thread ran bold and clear. Humans caused the The Change through their greed and self-interest and by refusing to accept and understand, much less appreciate, the interconnectedness of all life on Earth.

So, in 2020 came the first of a series of three deadly virus-based pandemics which came once a decade over the next thirty years. These pandemics had the cumulative effect of drastically lowering the human population on Earth. In later centuries, records were found that substantiated this period. These pandemics had intermittent periods of “recovery” when some shift in the worldview of survivors caused them to adapt to a new “normal.” But then, each time before a true settling toward balance could occur, another deadly pathogen would be released upon humans from the continuously thawing permafrost, which had kept such pathogens frozen and inert for millions of years. Between 2020 and 2030, the permafrost was being unlocked. Meanwhile, the polar ice and glaciers continued to melt and seas continued to rise making less habitable land available for human use. Other plant and animal species suffered decimation as well. Our ancestors became seed-savers. It’s a practice we continue.

The pandemics caused by these reawakened pathogens were wreaking devastation on the human species on the planet, irregardless of ethnic origin, geographic location, age, or anything else. First and foremost, the death toll world-wide was devastating. The human population was steadily decreasing. The first pandemic in 2020 caused a global human population decrease of one billion by the time it ended in 2022. Despite this, world leaders did not make enough effort to re-evaluate human behaviors and practices like heavy consumption of natural resources. Generally, the attitude was resume “business as usual” with only a few modifications. Greed and self-interest were still rampant. There was massive migration and chaos amongst surviving populations, most of which caused more misery and punitive responses from governments. The second pandemic in 2030 caused a greater loss of human lives. At this point, more humans cried out for change, but government and powerful corporations didn’t respond vigorously. Corruption, greed, and self-interest were still the dominant forces. The bulk of humans struggled and suffered and two billion deaths were the total when that pandemic ended in 2032. The third and by far the most damaging pandemic began just eight years later in 2040. This one brought about three billion human deaths by its end in 2046. By 2050, governments collapsed, civilization structures ceased to function and the human species teetered on the brink of extinction. Mother Earth silenced the voices of deniers and liars forever. No more extraction and burning of fossil fuels for energy occurred. No more harvesting and burning of trees (biomass as it was called) occurred. No more mining of ores occurred. No more industrial pollution occurred. The Industrial Age and all its concomitant luxuries and woes ended with a whimper fading into silence, just as the poet T.S. Eliot poetically predicted in the early 20th century when he wrote "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."  

Yet, against all odds there were human survivors such as our ancestors. Within the space of three decades, the world’s human population had decreased from seven billion to one billion spread across the habitable land that was left. There were areas of the Earth which had to be abandoned by humans. It was noted in later centuries that it was those areas no longer influenced by humans where nature healed and restored balance first. By 2150, humans had retreated in smaller groups to land areas which had new boundaries marked by the rising seas. These small groups of survivors had to respect and cooperate with each other to sustain life. There were Elder-Guides within the groups who remembered the Dark Times, as the years of the 21^st Century became called. These Elder-Guides taught others to work with nature rather than against nature. The mindset of the Elder-Guides was to seek balance above all else. The mindset and knowledge of the elder guides was passed down from generation to generation. The Story-Holders worked within the circle of Elder Guides.

The Dark Times, which came to be known as the Sixth Extinction, were chronicled by these Story-Holders whose responsibility following The Change was to keep alive the knowledge of the interconnectedness of all life on Earth. Each species that survived the Dark Times was accepted by humans as valuable to the web of life called the biosphere. One of the consequences of this was that humans almost exclusively converted to a plant-based diet. Flesh foods were shunned out of respect for life and the burgeoning realization that raising flesh food to eat had contributed vastly to the ills afflicting the biosphere that led to the Dark Times. No one wanted to repeat the mistakes that had been made.

The Father paused. He smiled into the shining eyes of the Child and the Mother who rocked her infant in her arms. They knew this infant would be their last addition to the family unless one of the Children died before maturity. Reproduction of humans and other species of animals and plants was closely monitored within each small group in order to maintain the balance necessary for the ecosystem to support sustainably.

The Child and the Mother nodded. Everyone knew the story of the impact of the human species becoming overpopulated beyond its ecosystem’s ability to sustain it. The Father smiled at his family with love and continued with the story.

Time passed. Generations were born, lived, and died. The cycle of life continued. The Earth settled and balanced itself, its climate stabilized, and healing occurred. Seasons returned, surface waters flowed clean in rivers and streams, seas healed and transformed into thriving ecosystems. Coral reefs reformed offering sanctuary to new life aborning. Precipitation as rain and snow followed new, but predictable, geographic patterns. Seas in the Greater North and Greater South had ice again. Lands and waters supportive of life emerged anew over the course of the centuries. New species emerged. All this while, the greening of the Earth was seen, nurtured, enhanced, and celebrated by the human species who had been hammered by Mother Earth into working with her rather than against her.

The cost of the Change was massive and global. Surviving humans accepted the responsibility for making decisions going forward that would continually support the greening of Earth. The suffering experienced by humans in the 21^st century became generally accepted as pivotal to bringing our species to where we are today, in our home hearing the story in our family circle centuries after the Dark Times.

The Father paused and took another sip of the storyteller’s elixir.

The Child asked, “Father, may I ask the ritual questions?”

“You may,” he answered.

Knowing this was a very important part of the story, the Child stood up and faced her parents saying, “What were the important ideas that brought about the necessary shifts in human behavior, and what were the lessons we learned from these shifts that enabled us to live sustainably in harmony with each other, other life forms, and nature?”

The Father continued answering the ritual questions of the values review.

We had to learn and adapt. It was urgent. We had to change or survival would not be sustainable going forward. This did not happen overnight, but faster than anyone before The Change would’ve thought possible. Mostly this pace of the Change was because a new human mode of communication developed out of necessity. The behemoth of communication known as the internet died, and in its place rose a network of humans who developed their mind’s thought transmission abilities…crude at first but over the centuries these abilities became very refined and effective. The interesting feature of the phenomenon of mind thought transmission is that lies could not be transmitted. Messages also could not be hacked or taken over by another mind. I personally never understood how that all worked, but it worked and here we are.

He paused and sipped the storyteller’s elixir and then continued.

So, the following Truths became principles embedded in the minds of every survivor and accepted by each survivor group around the globe, transmitted through the Thought Transmission Network (TTN), which as you know, is still used today.

Truth #1

We had to learn that all life is interconnected and express our understanding of that truth in our species’ life practices.

Truth #2

We had to learn the truth that we had to consume less of our resources in order to have enough to sustain life on going.

Truth #3

We had to recognize that overpopulation of our species was a factor in our civilizations collapsing. Thus, we had to practice replication behaviors in such a way that kept the number of births below or equal to the number of deaths.

Truth #4

We had to review, examine, and commit to our values on a regular basis at every level, beginning with weekly family circle reviews. These family circle reviews were part of a larger semi-annual review undertaken by each community. Whenever it was determined that human behaviors didn’t align with our values, the process for reestablishing alignment was enacted. The Elder-Guides created this process and it was solemnly sworn to by every individual in every community. Where there was no alignment or very little alignment of behavior and values, the individuals were expected to self-correct. This self-correction was difficult for some humans, but with patient, consistent teaching from the Elder-Guides, and encouragement from family and community even the least adept at self-correction improved. This kept the recidivism rate for lack of alignment low.

Truth #5

We had to constantly observe our natural world, noting where it was coming back to life (lands, waters, and other species) and where it was failing to do so and why. If we didn’t know why, then we had to seek the answer. Accurate information gathering was prized as essential. Falsification and/or suppression of data was considered criminal and dealt with as such, mostly through shaming, shunning and sanctioning meted out from the community on individuals or groups. This monitoring of our natural world was essential to restore and maintain balance and sustainability. Thus, less consumption of resources was a basic value. Greed, hoarding, polluting, and profligate waste were abhorred. They still are.

Truth #6

We learned that empathy for other species and the world we share had to become a key component in the education of the young. It was lack of empathy in world leaders at all levels of society that contributed to the devastation of the Dark Times.

The Father paused and smiled lovingly at his family, who lovingly smiled back at him. Then, he continued.

These Truths that were the foundation of The Change brought about a cascade of changes in human behaviors over the centuries between then and now. These Truths opened the space for civilization as we know it today in 2820 to develop in alignment with the ecological realities of this planet Earth we call “home of the human species,” where we now live and thrive sustainably. With every step away from greed and selfishness, a seed of hope was planted. The great Rachel Carson, Mother of Ecology in the 20^th century, was an early warner of the danger of collapsing ecosystems. She said then that humans had to solve what she named as the problem of sharing our Earth with other creatures. Wise Greta in the 21^st century said, “Hope doesn’t come from words. Hope comes from actions.” Our ancestors, survivors of the Dark Times, translated the seed of hope into reality by their actions. We are committed to continuing to do so on and on without end.

The family sat in silence for a while after the Father ended the story.

“Thank you, Father, for the story of The Change,” the Child spoke quietly.

“You’re welcome, my Child,” he responded.

“Are we there yet, Father, is it solved?” the Child plaintively asked.

The Father held the Child’s face gently in his hands, and replied, “I fervently hope so. I hope all the suffering and sacrifice of our ancestors will not have been in vain. We must remain committed to the Truths. But, truly, only time will tell.”

The Child nodded solemnly.

Then, the Child, the Mother, and the Father repeated together the ritual closing, “We are committed to living the Truths with the understanding that only time will tell.”

The last flames of the fire died into embers. As was his task in the sweet silence following the ritual closing, the Father banked the embers with ashes so that a spark of the fire’s light would be preserved for the morrow, just as the family’s commitment to the Light of the Truths would also be preserved for the morrow.