The Story of The Human Being Troubles

The Inhabitants of the Earth were concerned, and confused about how to go on living together sustainably. One of the tribes were really causing trouble, and for a long time, on many fronts… Earth is thankfully a huge interconnected web, strong in its solidarity and collective movements, each piece relying artfully on the next, and each living organism tied inextricably to the next. Because of the huge variety of environments and organisms, the vast intricacies of diverse species of living entities, the resilience seems unbounded. However, complaints kept and keep coming into Central Underground about one of the tribes - human beings. The voices have been many: humans are spreading poisons around willy-nilly; humans are shutting off the pathways that have been used since time immemorial; humans are spraying killing gases into the air; humans are killing unimaginable quantities of our other cousins, to the point of extinction, ignoring the golden rule of interconnected parts; humans are spreading their poisonous homes everywhere over the planet; humans are keeping our cousins locked up and torturing them with unheard of atrocities; humans are drying up all the water and all the oil, needed by all; humans are even spreading garbage into the heavenly spaces around the earth. And there’s more and more of them every year - they are multiplying like rabbits! (No offense meant to cousin rabbit). Finally, some of the elephants snapped and went rogue, trampling entire human villages. This only seemed to backfire. A few million generations of the mosquito tribe started poisoning humans with malaria fever, in an attempt to keep the beings’ numbers down (or at least keep them in bed.) However, this barely made a dent. The troubles have continued, and mosquitos have only worsened their reputation as annoying little creatures we wish we could all live without. Everyone has agreed, something must be done. The Earth, our beautiful generous home, can’t withstand its health forever in the face of so much difficulty. It must be allowed to regenerate its vast resources which sustain so much teeming life. That will happen quite quickly, as soon as it has a break from all these troubles. It seems like the human being cousins need some strong feedback, but no one likes to be the bearer of bad tidings. Finally a Plan came up, through the bowels of the fiery earth, from deep in the deepest rich core: We must start sending Messages to our human cousins. We must not be silent anymore. This is our fault: we let this branch of evolution proceed with bigger and bigger brains, layer upon layer of contradicting consciousness, coexisting with microbial life and to be honest, it never ever occurred to us that any Beings would choose extinction over life! But live and learn. It’s time to act for the benefit of all the Inhabitants. Our Messages must be consistent and they must permeate every human’s world. These Messages must become increasingly loud, until even the human beings cannot ignore us. We must let them know in no uncertain terms, that these unimaginable difficulties that we are all in, together, is sourced from their behaviors. Their behaviors must change, or they must go. We can all continue to develop and adventure, without our human cousins, if need be, as they are lost in their own dreamscapes and have forgotten about the rest of the family. But we cannot continue without bear, and without ant, and without fish, and bee - not to mention our trees and corals. So send the Messages, however we can. The humans themselves are besieged with all kinds of insane troubles, as all beings must be who act as they do….So these Messages from the rest of the earth family must be big and hard to ignore: send them in the form of floods and earthquakes, in blistering temperatures and ice storms, in forest fires and mud slides, in rain that never ends, and then rain that never comes. Let some of their most favored places sink into the oceans, or become inundated with seawater, or volcanic lava, or excrement. Then, if still no change, we will call on our biggest safeguards and allies, the Virus tribe. Cousin Virus’ are endlessly adaptable, essential to all life, and also hold the key to death. They can ramp up in seeming endless numbers, can shape-shift effortlessly, are flexible and economical in their needs, and never complain. Cousin Virus’ like the humans, because the humans live closely together, are incredibly stupid, have severely weakened immunity, and therefore are an easy lunch - yet in the balance of things, it is possible that cousin Virus may need to clean up this human mess so we can start again. Human beings are just too much trouble. A few plant and animal brothers and sisters spoke up in defense of the human tribe - but we’ve partnered with the humans successfully! They’ve spread our seeds for us, adapted us to many climates, made friends with us, fed us, created endless entertainment, and even helped to shape some of our newest cousins… Can’t we figure out a way to coax them to change their ways? Maybe we just throw them in bed, break their laptops, and keep them from their favorite pastimes for a few generations, as a form of habit breaking? Perhaps we could somehow infuse their brains with the ancient wisdoms, disguised in new candy coated cough drops? They are all addicted to comfort - what if we somehow take their ALL their comforts away and see if that startles them awake? Maybe, just maybe, once the human being numbers have been brought down to reasonable levels, Central Underground will reconsider this Plan once again. However, we shall have to watch the humans’ behaviors (the ones who are left standing) to see if they will let the meadows and rivers rejuvenate. Because the inhabitants of the Earth seem regretfully willing to proceed without our troublesome cousins. This is the Nature of life. This is the Wisdom of time. This is the Way of the Earth. All tribes must live sustainably, interconnected with the rest, or they will be allowed to die, cut off as they are from their pulsing umbilical cord. And the Earth shall continue its adventure of infinite growth and change, the lacy gossamer fabric of parts dancing wise intricate steps to universal rhythms of time. Listen, listen to the rhythms and rules. Box step toward forest, hop step toward stone and pause in the sunshine. Step carefully lest you step onto bears path or snakes back. Winter is for art, Spring is for sowing, Summer is for gathering, Fall is for firewood. Replace what you use, create no waste, live lightly on the Earth and add to the soil. Thats it. It’s neither complicated nor simple. Figure it out, with those big brains. We came here to play with our friends…. And they await.

Eliza Eller