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.

EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 2025

SOMETIMES NAMING A THING—giving it a name or discovering its name—helps one to begin to understand it. Knowing the name of a thing and knowing what that thing is for gives me even more of a handle on it.

The particular God-is-Change belief system that seems right to me will be called Earthseed. I’ve tried to name it before. Failing that, I’ve tried to leave it unnamed. Neither effort has made me comfortable. Name plus purpose equals focus for me.

Well, today, I found the name, found it while I was weeding the back garden and thinking about the way plants seed themselves, windborne, animalborne, waterborne, far from their parent plants. They have no ability at all to travel great distances under their own power, and yet, they do travel. Even they don’t have to just sit in one place and wait to be wiped out. There are islands thousands of miles from anywhere—the Hawaiian Islands, for example, and Easter Island—where plants seeded themselves and grew long before any humans arrived.

Earthseed.

I am Earthseed. Anyone can be. Someday, I think there will be a lot of us. And I think we’ll have to seed ourselves farther and farther from this dying place.

I’ve never felt that I was making any of this up—not the name, Earthseed,

not any of it. I mean, I’ve never felt that it was anything other than real: discovery rather than invention, exploration rather than creation. I wish I could believe it was all supernatural, and that I’m getting messages from God. But then, I don’t believe in that kind of God. All I do is observe and take notes, trying to put things down in ways that are as powerful, as simple, and as direct as I feel them. I can never do that. I keep trying, but I can’t. I’m not good enough as a writer or poet or whatever it is I need to be. I don’t know what to do about that. It drives me frantic sometimes. I’m getting better, but so slowly.

The thing is, even with my writing problems, every time I understand a little more, I wonder why it’s taken me so long—why there was ever a time when I didn’t understand a thing so obvious and real and true.

Here’s the only puzzle in it all, the only paradox, or bit of illogic or circular reasoning or whatever it should be called:

Why is the universe? To shape God.

Why is God?

To shape the universe.

I can’t get rid of it. I’ve tried to change it or dump it, but I can’t. I cannot. It feels like the truest thing I’ve ever written. It’s as mysterious and as obvious as any other explanation of God or the universe that I’ve ever read, except that to me the others feel inadequate, at best.

All the rest of Earthseed is explanation—what God is, what God does, what we are, what we should do, what we can’t help doing… Consider: Whether you’re a human being, an insect, a microbe, or a stone, this verse is true.

All that you touch, You Change.

All that you Change, Changes you.

The only lasting truth Is Change.

God

Is Change.

I’m going to go through my old journals and gather the verses I’ve written into one volume. I’ll put them into one of the exercise notebooks that Cory hands out to the older kids now that there are so few computers in the neighborhood. I’ve written plenty of useless stuff in those books, getting my high school work out of the way. Now I’ll put one to better use. Then, someday when people are able to pay more attention to what I say than to how old I am, 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.

That’s if everything will just hold together for a few more years.

Saturday, June 7, 2025

I’ve finally assembled a small survival pack for myself—a grab-and-run pack. I’ve had to dig some things I need out of the garage and the attic so that no one complains about my taking things they need. I’ve collected a hatchet, for instance, and two small, light, all-metal pots. There’s plenty of stuff like that around because no one throws anything away that has any possibility of someday being useful or salable.

I packed my few hundred dollars in savings—almost a thousand. It might feed me for two weeks if I’m allowed to keep it, and if I’m very careful what I buy and where I buy it. I’ve kept up with, prices, questioning Dad when he and the other neighborhood men do the essential shopping. Food prices are insane, always going up, never down. Everyone complains about them.

I found an old canteen and a plastic bottle both for water, and I resolved to keep them clean and full. I packed matches, a full change of clothing, including shoes in case I have to get up at night and run, comb, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, tampons, toilet paper, bandages, pins, needles and thread, alcohol, aspirin, a couple of spoons and forks, a can opener, my pocket knife, packets of acorn flour, dried fruit, roasted nuts and edible seeds, dried milk, a little sugar and salt, my survival notes, several plastic storage bags, large and small, a lot of plantable raw seed, my journal, my Earthseed notebook, and lengths of clothesline. I stowed all this in a pair of old pillow cases, one inside the other for strength. I rolled the pillowcases into a blanket pack and tied it with some of the clothesline so that I could grab it and run without losing things, but I made it easy to open at the top so that I could get my journal in and out, change the water to keep it fresh, and less often, change the food and check on the seed. The last thing I wanted to find out was that instead of carrying plantable seed or edible food, I had a load of bugs and worms.

I wish I could take a gun. I don’t own one and Dad won’t let me keep one of his in my room. I mean to try to grab one if trouble comes, but I may not be able to. It would be crazy to wind up outside with nothing but a knife and a scared look, but it could happen. Dad and Wyatt Talcott took us out for target practice today, and afterward I tried to talk Dad into letting me keep one of the guns in my room.

“No,” he said, sitting down, tired and dusty, behind his desk in his cluttered office. “You don’t have anywhere to keep it safe during the day, and the boys are always in and out of your room.”

I hesitated, then told him about the emergency pack that I had put together.

He nodded. “I thought it was a good idea back when you first suggested it,” he said. “But, think, Lauren. It would be like a gift to a burglar. Money, food, water, a gun… Most burglars don’t find what they want all bundled up and waiting for them. I think we’d better make it a little harder for any burglar who comes here to get hold of a gun.”

“It will just be a rolled up blanket mixed in with some other rolled or folded bed clothes in my closet,” I said. “No one will even notice it.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, the guns stay where they are.”

And that’s that. I think he’s more worried about the boys snooping around than about burglars. My brothers have been taught how to behave around guns all their lives, but Greg is only eight and Ben is nine. Dad just isn’t ready to put temptation in their paths yet. Marcus at 11 is more trustworthy than a lot of adults, but Keith at almost 13 is a question mark. He wouldn’t steal from Dad. He wouldn’t dare. But he has stolen from me—only little things so far. He wants a gun, though, the way thirsty people want water. He wants to be all grown up—yesterday. So maybe Dad’s right. I hate his decision, but maybe he’s right.

“Where would you go?” I asked him, changing the subject. “If we were forced out of here, where would you take us?”

He blew out a breath, puffing up his cheeks for a second. “To the neighbors or to the college,” he said. “The college has temporary emergency accommodations for employees who are burned or driven out of their homes.”

“And then?”

“Rebuilding, fortifying, doing whatever we can do to live and be safe.” “Would you ever think about leaving here, heading north to where water

isn’t such a problem and food is cheaper?”

“No.” He stared into space. “My job down here is as secure as a job can be. 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. They work their lives away for a sack of beans and they live on the streets.”

“I heard it was easier up there,” I said. “Oregon, Washington, Canada.” “Closed,” he said. “You’ve got to sneak into Oregon if you get in at all.

Even harder to sneak into Washington. People get shot every day trying to sneak into Canada. Nobody wants California trash.”

“But people do leave. People are always moving north.”

“They try. They’re desperate and they have nothing to lose. But I do. This is my home. Beyond taxes, I don’t owe a penny on it. You and your brothers have never known a hungry day here, and God willing, you never will.”

In my Earthseed notebook, I’ve written,

A tree Cannot grow

In its parents’ shadows.

Is it necessary to write things like that? Everyone knows them. What do they mean now, anyway? 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?

MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2025

There was a long report on the radio today about the findings of the big Anglo-Japanese cosmological station on the moon. The station, with its vast array of telescopes and some of the most sensitive spectroscopic equipment ever made has detected more planets orbiting nearby stars. 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. I’ve listened to and read every scrap of information I could find on this subject, and I’ve noticed that there’s less and less argument against the likelihood that some of these worlds are alive. The idea is gaining scientific acceptance. Of course, no one has any idea whether the extrasolar life is anything more than a few trillion microbes. People speculate about intelligent life, and it’s fun to think about, but no one is claiming to have found anyone to talk to out there. I don’t care. 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. There are living worlds just a few light years away, and the United States is busy drawing back from even our nearby dead worlds, the moon and Mars. I understand why they are, but I wish they weren’t.

I suspect that a living world might be easier for us to adapt to and live on without a long, expensive umbilical to Earth. Easier but not easy. Still, that’s something, because I don’t think there could be a multi-light-year umbilical. 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.

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2025

Tomorrow, I’ll be sixteen. Only sixteen. I feel older. I want to be older. I need to be older. I hate being a kid. Time drags!

Tracy Dunn has disappeared. She’s been depressed since Amy was killed. When she talked at all, it was about dying and wanting to die and deserving to die. Everyone kept hoping she would get over her grief—or her guilt—and get on with her life. Maybe she couldn’t. Dad talked with her several times, and I know he was worried about her. Her crazy family hasn’t been any help. They treat her the way she treated Amy: They ignore her.

The rumor is that she went outside sometime yesterday. A group of Moss and Payne kids say they saw her go out of the gate just after they left school. No one has seen her since.

SUNDAY, JULY 20, 2025

Here’s the birthday gift that came into my mind this morning as I woke up— just two lines:

The Destiny of Earthseed

Is to take root among the stars.

This is what I was reaching for a few days ago when the story of the new planets being discovered caught my attention. It’s true, of course. It’s obvious.

Right now, it’s also impossible. The world is in horrible shape. Even rich countries aren’t doing as well as history says rich countries used to do. President Donner isn’t the only one breaking up and selling off science and space projects. No one is expanding the kind of exploration that doesn’t earn an immediate profit, or at least promise big future profits. There’s no mood now for doing anything that could be considered unnecessary or wasteful. And yet,

The Destiny of Earthseed

Is to take root among the stars.

I don’t know how it will happen or when it will happen. There’s so much to do before it can even begin. I guess that’s to be expected. There’s always a lot to do before you get to go to heaven.