Once the welcoming was over, we moved on to the weekly discussion. Our Gatherings, aside from weddings, funerals, welcomings, or holiday celebrations, are discussions. They're problem-solving sessions, they're times of planning, healing, learning, creating, times of focusing, and reshaping ourselves. They can cover anything at all to do with Earthseed or Acorn, past, present, or future, and anyone can speak.
During the first Gathering of the month, I lead a looking-back-looking-forward discussion to keep us aware of what we've done and what we must do, taking in any necessary changes, and taking advantage of any opportunities. And I encourage people to think about how the things we do help us to sustain purposeful religious community.
This morning Travis Douglas wanted to talk about expanding our community business, a subject dear to my own heart. First he read his chosen Earthseed texts—verses that, like any good texts, could be used to start any number of different discussions.
"Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. Civilization provides ways of combining the information, experience, and creativity of the many to achieve ongoing group adaptability."
And then,
"Any Change may bear seeds of benefit.
Seek them out.
Any Change may bear seeds of harm.
Beware.
God is infinitely malleable.
God is Change."
"We have an opportunity that we have to take advantage of," Travis said. "We have the truck, and we have no real competition. I've gone over the truck, and in spite of the way it looks, it's in damned good shape. The solar wings just drink sunlight—really efficient. If we recharge the batteries during the day, we should save a bundle in fuel. For short trips there isn't even any need to use anything but the batteries. We have the best vehicle in the area. We can do minor professional hauling. We can buy goods from our neighbors and sell them in the cities and towns. People will be glad to sell us their stuff for a little less if we're the ones who do the work of getting it to market. And we can contract to grow crops for businesses in Eureka-Arcata, maybe down in Garberville."
Several of us have talked about this off and on, but today was our first Gathering on the subject since we got the truck. Travis, more than most of us, wanted to risk becoming more involved with our neighbors. We could contract with them to buy the specific handicrafts, tools, and crops that they produce well. We know by now who's good at what, who's dependable, and who's honest and sober at least most of the time.
Travis and I have already been asking around on our now more frequent trips to Eureka to see which merchants might be interested in contracting to buy specific produce from us.
Travis cleared his throat and spoke to the group again. "With the truck," he said, "only our first truck if we're successful, we've got the beginnings of a wholesale business. Then, instead of depending only on what we can produce and instead of only bartering with near neighbors, we can grow a business as well as a community and a movement It's important that we become a self-sustaining economic entity or we're liable never to move out of the nineteenth century!"
Well put, but not all that well received. We say "God is Change," but the truth is, we fear change as much as anyone does. We talk about changes at Gathering to ease our fears, to desensitize ourselves and to consider consequences.
"We're doing all right," Allie Gilchrist said. "Why should we take on more risk? And why, when this guy Jarret is liable to win the election, should we draw attention to ourselves?" She had already lost her infant son and her sister. She had only her adopted son Justin, and she would do almost anything to protect him.
Michael surprised me. "We could do it, I suppose," he said, and I waited for the "but." There was bound to be one with Michael. He obliged. "But she's right about Jarret. If he gets elected, the last thing we'll need is higher visibility."
"Jarret is down in the polls!" Jorge said. "His people are scaring everyone to death with their burning churches, burning people. He might not win."
"Who the hell do they poll these days?" Michael asked, shaking his head. And then, "We'd better keep an eye on Jarret anyway. Win or lose, he'll still have plenty of followers who are eager to create scapegoats."
Harry spoke up. "We aren't invisible now," he said. "People in the nearby towns know us, know what we are—or they think they do. I want my kids to have a chance at decent lives. Maybe this wholesaling idea will be the beginning of that chance."
Next to him, his wife Zahra nodded and said, "I'm for it too. We didn't settle here just to grub in the ground and live in log huts. We can do better."
"We might even improve things for ourselves with the neighbors," Travis said, "if more people in the area know us, know that we can be trusted, it might be a little harder for a rabble-rouser like Jarret or one of his local clones to make trouble for us."
I doubted that that would prove true—at least not on a large scale. We would meet more people, make more friends, and some of these would be loyal. The rest... well, the best we could hope for from them would be that they ignore us if we get into trouble. That might be the kindest gesture they could manage—to turn their backs and not join the mob. Others, whether we thought of them as friends or not, would be all too willing to join the mob and to stomp us and rob us if stomping and robbing became a test of courage or a test of loyalty to country, religion, or race.
On the other hand, making more of the right kinds of friends couldn't hurt us. We've already made some that I trust—near neighbors, a couple of people in Prata, and a few more in Georgetown, the big squatter settlement outside Eureka. And the only way to make more good friends is to make more friends period.
Adela Ortiz spoke up in her quick, soft, little-girl voice. She's only 16. "What if people think we're cheating them?" she said. "People always think that. You know, like you're trying to be nice to them and they just think everybody's a liar and a thief but them."
I was sitting near her, so I answered. "People will think whatever they like." I said. "It's our job to show by our behavior that we're not thieves, and we're not fools. We've got a good reputation so far. People know we don't steal. They know better than to steal from us. And they know we're neighborly. In emergencies, we help out. Our school is open to their kids for a little hard currency, and their kids are safe while they're here." I shrugged. "We've made a good start."
"And you think this wholesaling business is the way for us to go?" Grayson Mora asked.
I looked over at him with surprise. He sometimes manages to get through a whole Gathering without saying anything. He isn't shy at all, but he's quiet. He and his wife were slaves before they met. Each had lost family members to the effects and neglects of slavery. Now between them they have two girls and two boys. They're ferocious in guarding their children, and suspicious of anything new that might affect those children.
"I do," I said. I paused, glanced up at Travis who stood at the big handsome oak podium that Allie had built Then I continued. “1 believe we can do it as long as the truck holds up. You're our expert there, Travis. You've said the truck is in good shape, but can we afford to maintain it? What new, expensive part will it be needing soon?"
"By the time it needs anything expensive, we should be making more money," he said. "As of now, even the tires are good, and that's unusual." He leaned over the podium, looking confident and serious. "We can do this," he said. "We should start small, study the possibilities, and figure out how we should grow. If we do this right, we should be able to buy another truck in a year or two. We're growing. We need to do this.''
Beside me, Bankole sighed. "If we're not careful," he said, "our size and success will make us the castle on the hill—everyone's protector in this area. I don't think that's wise."
I do mink it's wise, but I didn't say so. Bankole still can't see this place as anything more than a temporary stop on the way to a "real" home in a "real" town—that is, an already established town. I don't know
how long it will take for him to see that what we're building here is as real and at least as important as anything he's likely to find in a town that's been around for a century or two.
I foresee a time when our settlement is not only "the castle on the hill," but when most or all of our neighbors have joined us. Even if they don't like every aspect of Earthseed, I hope they'll like enough of it to recognize that they're better off with us than without us. I want them as allies and as members, not just as "friends." And as we absorb them, I also intend to either absorb some of the storekeeper, restaurant, or hotel clients that we'll have—or I want us to open our own stores, restaurants, and hotels. I definitely want to begin Gathering Houses that are also schools in Eureka, Arcata, and some of the larger nearby towns. I want us to grow into the cities and towns in this natural, self-supporting way.
I don't know whether we can do all this, but I think we have to try. I think this is what a real beginning for Earth-seed looks like.
I don't know how to do it That scares me to death sometimes—always feeling driven to do something I don't know how to do. But I'm learning as I go along. And I've learned that I have to be careful how I talk about all this, even to Acorn. Bankole isn't the only one of us who doesn't see the possibility of doing anything he hasn't seen done by others. And... although Bankole would never say this, I suspect that somewhere inside himself, he believes that large, important things are done only by powerful people in high positions far away from here. Therefore, what we do is, by definition, small and unimportant. This is odd, because in other ways, Bankole has a healthy ego. He didn't let self-doubt or the doubts of his family or the laughter of his friends stop him from going to college, and then medical school, surviving by way of a combination of scholarships, jobs, and huge debts. He began as a quietly arrogant Black boy of no particular distinction, and he ended as a physician.
But in a way, I suppose that's normal. I mean, it had been done before. Bankole himself had been taken to a Black woman pediatrician when he was a child.
What I'm trying to do isn't quite normal. It's been done. New belief systems have been introduced. But mere's no standard way of introducing them—no way that can be depended on to work. What I'm trying to do is, I'm afraid, a crazy, difficult, dangerous undertaking. Best to talk about it only a little bit at a time.
Noriko, Michael's wife, spoke up. "I'm afraid for us to get involved in this new business," she said, "but I think we have to do it This is a good community, but how long can it last, how long can it grow before we begin to have trouble feeding ourselves?"
People nodded. Noriko has more courage than she gives herself credit for. She can be shaking with fear, but she still does what she thinks she should do.
"We can grow or we can wither," I agreed. "That's what Earthseed is about on a larger scale, after all."
"I wish it weren't," Emery Mora said. "I wish we could just hide here and stay out of everything else. I know we can't, but I wish It's been so good here." Before she escaped slavery, she'd had two young sons taken from her and sold. And she's a sharer. She and Gray and his daughter Doe and her daughter Tori and their sons Carlos and Antonio—
all sharers. No other family is so afflicted. No other family has more reason to want to hide.
We talked on for a while, Travis listening as people protested, then either answering their protests or letting others answer them. Then he asked for a vote: Should we expand our business? The vote was "yes" with everyone over 15 voting. Only Allie Gilchrist, Alan Faircloth, Ramiro Peralta, and Ramiro's oldest daughter Pilar voted "no." Aubrey Dovetree, who couldn't vote because she was not yet a member, made it clear that she would have voted "no" if she could have.
"Remember what happened to us!" she said.
We all remembered. But we had no intention of trading in illegal goods. We're farther from the highway than Dovetree was, and we couldn't refuse this opportunity just because Dovetree had been hit.
We would expand our business, then. Travis would put together a team, and the team would talk to our neighbors— those without cars or trucks first—and talk to more merchants in the cities and towns. We need to know what's possible now. We know we can sell more at street markets because now with the track we can go to more street markets. So even if we don't manage to get contracts at first, we'll be able to sell what we buy from our neighbors. We've begun.
When the Gathering was over, we shared a Gathering Day meal. We spread ourselves around the two large rooms of the school for food, indoor games, talk, and music. At the front of the room near the podium, Dolores Figueroa Castro was planning to read a story to a group of small children who would sit at her feet. Dolores is Lucio's niece, Marta's daughter. She's only 12, but she likes reading to the younger kids, and since she reads well and has a nice voice, the kids like to listen. For the adults and older kids, we were to have an original play, written by Emery Mora, of all people. She's too shy to act, but she loves to write and she loves to watch plays. Lucia Figueroa has discovered that he enjoys staging plays, shaping fictional worlds. Jorge and a few others are hams and love acting in plays. Travis and Gray provide any needed music. The rest of us enjoy watching. We all feed one another's hungers.
Dan Noyer came over to me as I helped myself to fried rabbit, baked potato, a mix of steamed vegetables with a spicy sauce, and a little goat cheese. There were also pine nut cookies, acorn bread, and sweet potato pie. On Gathering Day. the rule is, we eat only what we've raised and prepared. There was a time when that was something of a hardship. It reminded us that we were not growing or raising as much as we should. Now it's a pleasure. We're doing well.
"Can I sit with you?" Dan asked.
I said, "Sure," then had to fend off several other people who wanted me to eat with them. Dan's expression made me think it was time for him and me to have some version of the talk that I always seem to wind up having with newcomers. I thought of it as the "What the hell is this Earthseed stuff, and do I have to join?' talk.
Right on cue, Dan said, "The Balters say my sisters and I can stay here. They say we don't have to join your cult if we don't want to."
"You don't have to join Earthseed," I said. "You and your sisters are welcome to stay. If you decide to join us someday, we'll be glad to welcome you."
"What do we have to do—just to stay, I mean?"
I smiled. "Finish healing first. When you're well enough, work with us. Everyone works here, kids and adults. You'll help in the fields, help with the animals, help maintain the school and its grounds, help do some building. Building homes is a communal effort here. There are other jobs— building furniture, making tools, trading at street markets, scavenging. You'll be free to choose something you like. And you'll go to school. Have you gone to school before?"
"My folks taught us."
I nodded. These days, most educated poor or middle-class people taught their own children or did what people in my old neighborhood had done—formed unofficial schools in someone's home. Only very small towns still had anything like old-fashioned public schools. "You might find," I said, "that you know some things well enough to teach them to younger kids. One of the first duties of Earthseed is to learn and then to teach."
"And this? This Gathering?"
"Yes, you'll come to Gathering every week."
"Will I get a vote?"
"No vote, but you'll get a share of the profit from the sale of the crop, and from the other businesses if things work out. That's after you've been here for a year. You won't have a decision-making role unless you decide to join. If you do join, you'll get a larger share of the profit and a vote."
"It isn't really religious—your service, I mean. You guys don't believe in God or anything."
I turned to look at him. "Dan, of course we do."
He just stared at me in silent, obvious disbelief.
"We don't believe the way your parents did, perhaps, but we do believe."
"That God is Change?"
"Yes."
"I don't even know what that means."
"It means that Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God."
"But... what can you do with a God like that? I mean ... it isn't even a person. It doesn't love you or protect you. It doesn't know anything. What's the point?"
"The point is. it's the truth," I said. "It's a hard truth. Too hard for some people to take, but that doesn't make it any less true." I put my food down, got up, and went to one of our bookcases. There, I took down one of our several copies of Earthseed: The First Book of the Living. I self-published this first volume two years ago. Bankole had looked over my text when it was finished, and said I should copyright and publish for my own protection. At the time, that seemed unnecessary—a ridiculous thing to do in a world gone mad. Later, I came to believe he was right—for the future and for a reason in the present that Bankole had not mentioned.
“Things will get back to normal someday," he had said to me. "You should do this in the same way that we go on paying their taxes."
Things won't get back to what he calls normal. We'll settle into some new norm someday—for a while. Whether that new norm will recognize our tax paying or my copyright, I don't know. But there's a more immediate advantage to be had here.
People are still impressed, even intimidated, by bound, official-looking books. Verses, handwritten or printed out on sheets of paper just don't grab them the way a book does. Even people who can't read are impressed by books. The idea seems to be, “If it's in a book, maybe it's true," or even, “If it's in a book, it must be true."
I went back to Dan, opened the book, and read to him, "
Do not worship God
Inexorable God
Neither needs nor wants
Your worship.
Instead,
Acknowledge and attend God,
Learn from God,
With forethought and intelligence,
Parable of the Talents p-2 Page 7
