First Published by Lavender Grace in the Real Estate Magazine Issue 736 - August , 2020
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
How Will Our Future Unfold?
Generations from now, will our children's children look back at the actions of our
generation and say, "We had amazing ancestors! Faced with monumental changes in
climate, the sixth big extinction*, and the disappearance of their natural resources, they
woke up! They remembered the stories of their ancestors about how to live in abundance,
and re-learned how to be in good relationship with our planet and all life. They learned how
to change the way they lived—and did change—for us. Look at all we have because of their
foresight; we are so thankful!"
*The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene
extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the
more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity. —Wikipedia
LET ME SHARE THIS TALE WITH YOU
This is an optimist story, a fable of how the earth was brought back to health, one home,
one business, one community at a time. It is a story whose promise inspired visionaries in a
small coastal region of Northern California to dream into being an extraordinary plan, a plan that
literally has the potential to save the world...
It all began when the bees said, "We have had enough!” For years, bees had been treated like
a disposable commodity, compelled to live in overcrowded conditions, constantly moved from
place to place to pollinate fields of trees and crops that were full of poisons, then prevented from
reaping the benefits of their own labor. They were force-fed food with no nutritional value, and
eventually their immune systems just could not take it anymore.
So they disappeared.
Soon the people began to notice their gardens empty of flowers. The trees no longer bore fruit,
and the farmers’ fields and prairie lands dried up. Before long, the land became a barren waste.
People tried laboriously pollinating crops by hand, but pollination is not naturally the work of
human beings. At last, the cost was too much—people were no longer able to feed themselves.
In this desolate landscape, the people grew hungry, not only in their bellies but in their spirits,
for all the beauty they had once known had disappeared along with the bees. They knew they
could not continue to exist unless they did something to heal the devastation.
Thankfully, some of the elders still remembered stories that were told to them by their elders’
elders, who remembered how to call back the spirit of the bees. They remembered how essential
bees are to the abundance and diversity of all life and understood the divine role bees hold in
the circle of life.
The elders said, "Remember the songs of gratitude," and told of long-forgotten songs that
were sung when the earth was bountiful and abundant.
The elders said, "Begin with the earth, where all life comes from and all life returns." So the
desperate people began again to honor the earth.
Every morning, they expressed gratitude for all that was given and all they hoped to repair, singing the
ancient, supplicating songs as they amended the soil and planted seeds in every field and backyard.
As the people did this, slowly, surely, the earth began to heal from the poisonous thoughts and
deeds that had afflicted her for so long.
The elders said, "Remember that water is life!," so the people again began to respect the water.
Every morning and every night the people gave thanks for precious water that quenched their
thirst and the thirst of all plants. They gave thanks for the salt waters of the oceans, and birth waters
that nourish and grow new life.
As the people began to honor the earth and respect the water, the bees that were left took
notice. They heard the people's songs of gratitude and more and more bees began to find the
flowers and crops that had been planted for them. The flowers returned to bloom, along with
the abundance of food; the green of the fields came back, and the trees shot up with perfumed
resins full of diverse and bountiful pollen.
As the people's honor and respect for the earth returned, so did the bees. With the bees
came the return of the sweet beauty of life. Barely averting certain disaster and amazed at
the regeneration of their world, the people were careful to teach their children the importance
of these practices so that future generations would not again forget and fall into the same
troublesome patterns that sent the bees away. All the children were taught that living in gratitude
is essential for the survival of the planet.
And this is how the earth was brought back to health, within the songs and prayers of
thanksgiving, within each heart, one home, one community at a time.
Read full article here