The Earthseed quotes are at an end. I find it interesting that there is a certain synchronicity in having gone through all these just at this moment in my life. The central message of Earthseed—however fictional it may be—is that God is Change. What better way to see the universe and to reveal divinity than to see what is apparent all around us. Why would we be any different?

On the way to work this morning I was thinking back through many of the different quotes and putting them into perspective. I was suddenly struck with a thought that hit with such clarity.

Our Holy Book says, “a feast for life and a greater feast for death!” (AL 2.41). There is much life to be feasted after, to be sure. But we usually interpret these as physical life and physical death. We even have ceremonies for an individual’s “Greater Feast.” Certainly this is part of it, of course. But I think that there is something more here.

God is Change. Change is Death. We see this principle in the Death card of the Major Arcana. Death is rarely indicative of a “real” death but of natural change in the course of life. Resistance to Change is usually fatal in some way, either physical or psychological or some other. But Change cannot actually be resisted in the first place. It will happen. It does happen regardless of our desires.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed the Earthseed material. I couldn’t find it anywhere else on the web in a complete form, but now there is one resource at least. It’ll have to go through the category link to get them all in once place, but that’s the breaks. Maybe someday I’ll create a page for them broken down by year or something.

To survive,
Let the past
Teach you—
Past customs,
Struggles,
Leaders and thinkers.
Let
These
Help you.
Let them inspire you,
Warn you,
Give you strength.
But beware:
God is Change.
Past is past.
What was
Cannot
Come again.

To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Are you Earthseed?
Do you believe?
Belief will not save you.
Only actions
Guided and shaped
By belief and knowledge
Will save you.
Belief
Initiates and guides action—
Or it does nothing.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

All religions are ultimately cargo cults.
Adherents perform required rituals, follow
specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally
gifted with desired rewards—long life,
honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth,
victory over opponents, immortality after
death, any desired rewards.
Earthseed offers its own rewards—room
for small groups of people to begin new lives and
new ways of life with new opportunities, new
wealth, new concepts of wealth, new challenges to
grow and to learn and to decide what to become.
Earthseed is the dawning adulthood
of the human species. It offers the only
true immortality. It enables seeds of the
Earth to become the seeds of new life, new
communities of new earths. The Destiny of
Earthseed is to take root among the stars, and
there, again, to grow, to learn, and to fly.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Beware:
All too often,
We say
What we hear others say.
We think
What we’re told that we think.
We see
What we’re permitted to see.
Worse!
We see what we’re told that we see.
Repetition and pride are the keys to this.
To hear and to see
Even an obvious lie
Again
And again and again
May be to say it,
Almost by reflex
Then to defend it
Because we’ve said it
And at least to embrace it
Because we’ve defended it
And because we cannot admit
That we’ve embraced and defended
An obvious lie.
Thus, without thought,
Without intent,
We make
Mere echoes
Of ourselves—
And we say
What we hear others say.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

All prayers are to Self
And, in one way or another,
All prayers are answered.
Pray,
But beware.
Your desires,
Whether or not you achieve them
Will determine who you become.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

The Destiny of Earthseed
Is to take root among the stars.

It is to live and to thrive
On new earths.

It is to become new beings
And to consider new questions.

It is to leap into the heavens
Again and again.

It is to explore the vastness
Of heaven.

It is to explore the vastness
Of ourselves.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

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.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Take comfort.
Each move toward the Destiny,
Each achievement of the Destiny,
Must mean new beginning,
New worlds,
A rebirth of Earthseed.
Alone,
Each of us is mortal.
Yet through Earthseed,
Through the Destiny,
We join.
We are purposeful
Immortal
Life!

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

       Self is.
       Self is body and bodily
perception. Self is thought, memory,
belief. Self creates. Self destroys. Self
shapes. Self adapts. Self invents its
own reasons for being. To shape
God, shape Self.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

When vision fails
Direction is lost.

When direction is lost
Purpose may be forgotten.

When purpose is forgotten
Emotion rules alone.

When emotion rules alone,
Destruction … destruction.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Beware:
Ignorance
Protects itself.
Ignorance
Promotes suspicion.
Suspicion
Engenders fear.
Fear quails,
Irrational and blind,
Or fear looms,
Defiant and closed.
Blind, closed,
Suspicious, afraid,
Ignorance
Protects itself,
And protected,
Ignorance grows.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Choose your leaders
            with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward
            is to be controlled
            by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool
            is to be led
            by the opportunists
            who control the fool.
To be led by a thief
            is to offer up
            your most precious treasures
            to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
            is to ask
            to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant
            is to sell yourself
            and those you love
            into slavery.

—Earthseed: The Books of the Living