by Michal Hall
Rediscovering the Earth
Michal Hall
Austin Macauley Publishers
Rediscovering the Earth
About the Author
About the Cover
Copyright Information ©
Chapter 1The Beginning
Chapter 2The Presentation
Chapter 3The Reason
Chapter 4The Invitation
Chapter 5The Presentation
Chapter 6The Results
Chapter 7The Repeat
Chapter 8The New Life
Chapter 9Living in Humility
Chapter 10The Conclusion
Afterword
About the Author
Dr. Hall began his formal education with advancing bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees. He has been a Presbyterian minister, taught in colleges, and produced and did numerous television series on philosophy and religion. He also started seven large organizations to meet human needs. In recent years, he has researched the surge in the knowledge of science. He became aware of the fact that we are causing our specie’s extinction as we kill off the Earth’s animals, plants and ecosystems. He sees that the only way to reverse this is by humbly returning to our mother Earth.
About the Cover
Most people recognize that something is wrong, so they blame their leaders in governments, industry, religions, and numerous others. However, more and more people are coming to see that the problems are much deeper. They lie in who we have evolved to be…they lie in our species. With that in mind, I would suggest some questions as you read it. Is this book fiction or not? Is it a true story about us, or is it something totally unfamiliar? Is it about who we are, where we are, and where we are going? Does it involve important truths, or is it more nonsensical ramblings of escapism? You must decide.
The story is about a planet that has a renegade reflective species on it that is destroying itself and everything around it. However, with the help of other reflective beings from the cosmos, as well as a man they chose to represent them, the renegade species is eventually saved. The previously renegade beings return to their natural humility, love, and peace to recognize that they are not only a part of the earth, they are the earth. This book records the journey of these beings as they gradually learn who they really are. It follows them as they grow out of their pride, hate, and fear to become free and real. It is the story of their joyful return to the earth that they had deserted and avoid their extinction to live happy, meaningful, sustainable lives with a future.
Copyright Information ©
Michal Hall (2019)
The right of Michal Hall to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528968515 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter 1
The Beginning
"Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trails its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."
William Wordsworth
“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like trees.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
My wife was away taking care of her mother, so I was left alone…which is not my forte. I was in our cubbyhole dwelling on the eighth floor of an apartment building on the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee, right beside the Mississippi River. I’d been looking at the television to come face to face with all of the violent, shocking news. It reported another school shooting, another series of bombings in Syria and Yemen, and the insane election of another right-wing idiot shouting “my country first”. Disgusted with all the chaos, I turned off the television. I was tired of living as a human being that makes me a part of all this horrible destruction of each other and the Earth.
Suddenly, I had a strong urge to go outside and look at the moon and stars over the Mississippi River. I opened the door, stepped out, walked into the polluted air and artificial light, to go three blocks to a pier jutting out from some deserted, rotting buildings beside the river. I sat on an old, weathered bench at the end of the pier that was my favorite place to get away. I loved to listen and meditate on the rushing, powerful flow of the river, and hear the sound of it crashing against the old pilings beneath me. I looked up, and, even through the pollution, I could still see some muffled indications that the cosmos still existed.
All at once, something weird interrupted me. Out of the sky came what first appeared to be a star, but as it approached, it looked more like a mystical, multicolored ball of light. It startled me, but for some reason I wasn’t frightened…in fact, it made me feel receptive and relaxed. Soon it was in front of me, and in a deep, beautiful voice, it spoke.
“We need desperately to talk with you. We would humbly request to speak with you about something that is very important.” That was all it said.
Now, I am no hero. I’m just a cautious, curious person in a meaningless, routine job running-off newspapers. It is true that I have always wanted to know everything about everything. I’ve always wanted to travel and search out historical locations to meet interesting and very different people, but I only have just enough money to survive. However, that had been balanced off by having a wonderful wife right there beside me. Still, I am very curious. My mother used to say that was why I was born breach…because I was squirming around trying to see what was going on.
***
Before I go on, let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Carl and I grew up in a loving, supportive family. My parents went to church every Sunday, and I would tag along until I went to college. I didn’t do very well in school, but I did manage to pass. I found most of the classes boring, as well as most of those who were suffering around me. When I graduated from high school, I went to a two-year community college close by, but I never went on to finish in the four-year college as my parents expected, because I got tired of playing school. I wandered from one job to the next, not really caring what I was doing, and spent the rest of my time drinking beer, watching TV, and reading. I’ve been an avid reader ever since one of my teachers in the sixth grade required us to read The Count of Monte Cristo, so now I read all the time.
I worked a while as a meter reader where I also got bored, so I got a part-time job making furniture in a furniture store. One day, the owner said he would pay me more if I would work on some old used furniture he was buying. He wanted me to make it look like it was new. The money was good so I did it, and I worked repairing this old furniture for a year. However, I knew he was selling this furniture as new furniture, and I thought that was deceitful. Thus, after a heated argument, I quit. However, it was not a total washout because I met a really nice girl named Akari who was working in the furniture store. We started dating, and after I quit the job, I got a more lucrative one building new houses. The girl I had been dating came with me.
Building houses was interesting while I was still learning how to do it, but then it also go
t routine and boring. My next job came when I met a man, who was looking over one of the houses I was helping to build. He stood there a while watching me. Then he walked over and said he would double my salary if I would be willing to work putting shingles on roofs. I liked the idea and took the job. I did that for two more years, until one of the men who was working beside me, fell off the roof and really hurt himself. That’s when I got the job running off newspapers.
I married the girl that I had met at the furniture store after living with her for a year and a half. She was wonderful. She was a second-generation citizen of Japanese descent. I loved her dark, oriental, exotic looks, and she was really very quiet and kind. I met her family along the way, and for some reason they liked me. Two months later, we were married, and we have supported each other on our journeys ever since.
At some point in my endless reading, I found, and became fascinated with, cosmology and the world’s religions. Both of these were things I had known very little about, but I got more and more excited about them because both of them were constantly unfolding new information. Cosmology was having new discoveries every day, and new translations of the world’s religious writings were coming out every day, so each day brought me fresh information. This also continued to read other things like psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, and many of the other sciences.
My mind really exploded when I started studying about the Earth with its complex ecosystems and countless life-forms. Often I would go outside to see, experience, and stand in awe of nature, and then reflect on how I am a part of it. However, I was always frustrated because I couldn’t really take it in. Eventually, all of this led me to something frightening and shocking. I began to see how we have become a renegade species, caught up in ancient tribalism, that will soon be extinct. We are defying the cosmos and the Earth as we wipe out the plants and animals, and destroy the ecosystems that support us…and, of course, we are destroying each other too. I came to see that not only was our species going extinct, but that there is something basically wrong with it. I began to realize that our species is going crazy.
I tried to find other people who were open to talking about this, but I could find no one. I think a part of it was because the subject was too threatening, and also because it would conflict with all of the religious superstitions. Fortunately, my wife, Akari, was willing to listen to me without blind negativity or judgment. I knew that she was smart, as well as kind, and even though everyone else thought I was crazy, she never did…so we talked and talked.
***
However, getting back to that weird night when a strange light was talking to me out by the river, I thought I had gone crazy! A stray cat I called Bilbo, that I had sort of adopted by feeding him in the apartment’s basement, jumped up on my lap to be petted. It interested me that he was not afraid of the strange light since he was usually afraid of everything, but I made up for it because I was becoming more and more frightened. Still, even though I was scared, I was also curious. It took me a few minutes to sputter out my agreement to talk with them. So there I was on a pier awash in the Mississippi River, shaking, dazed, and confused while in a conversation with a talking light that was directly in front of me. At one point I panicked and thought, What in the heck are you doing here!
Chapter 2
The Presentation
"My best Acquaintances are those
With Whom I spoke no Word—
The Stars that stated come to Town
Esteemed Me never rude
Although to their Celestial Call
I failed to make reply—
My constant—reverential Face
Sufficient Courtesy. Oh Matchless
Earth, We underrate the chance to dwell in thee."
Emily Dickinson
“‘Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like?’ …It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth.”
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Then the light began to speak again, and, as it did, I began to relax, because the pleasant sound that came from it really did calm me down. This strange voice further intoned, “We need to introduce ourselves. We are not one, but we are many. Each one of us is from a different planet in the cosmos so our numbers are large. We have traveled from over a thousand light years away because we’ve observed that your planet is in need of us.”
At this point, the cobwebs went out of my brain, and I found myself leaning forward to hear more. I guess a part of it was because I certainly agreed that our planet needed something. If I ever thought that they might be an alien species trying to take over the world like I’d seen in the movies, or that they were some brilliant way to advertise a science-fiction book that was coming out, it all vanished before the kindness and peace that poured out of this mystical mystery talking before me. The light continued to clearly be heard above the roar of the rising Mississippi.
“You, of course, could not know that your solar system is a very new one. In the endless magnitude of the cosmos, all of the planets of our federation are much, much older than yours. Our planets, and the other planets in this League of Planets, all evolved several billion years before yours. We are also made up of planets where reflective life has evolved beyond anything you could ever imagine.”
It shot through my mind that this might be a very complicated dream or hallucination. However, I couldn’t help being intrigued enough to keep quiet and let them continue. "We have been able to observe a large number of the planets that have reflective life in the cosmos, and we have seen that a lot of the reflective life on these planets has gone extinct. It would be destroyed very quickly and we have found that this is because of a sinister sickness of their emotions, thoughts, and actions. You identify it with names such as pride, arrogance, selfishness, greed, exclusiveness, and many others. It insanely separates the reflective beings from each other, from other groups, and from all the other species on their planets. It works against cooperation and sharing to worship selfishness and hoarding that brings about violence, conflict and war.
“However, the most shocking thing about all of these reflective beings was that in their pride they turned not only on each other, but they even saw their planet that had given them life and nourished them, as their enemy too. Thus they have even turned on it. That is the result of the deviant culture of pride that has caused all of the reflective beings on those planets to go extinct, while dragging with them most of the other life-forms on their planets. All of these reflective species have quickly died off, and we find that to be a real tragedy!”
At this point, it hit me that this strange thing that they were talking about could also be applied to my reflective species that we call humans. Could this also apply to our species amid all of its divisions, wars and the disintegrating ecosystems of our planet? At first this frightened me, but then it began to fascinate me. I sat back slowly and listened eagerly for more.
They continued, “Of course, this sickness has not come to all evolved reflective beings in the cosmos. Most of the reflective planets that we know of in the cosmos have evolved naturally under the influence of a very different culture or milieu that brings them together rather than tearing them apart. It appears that you might call this entity, that brings things together, things like humility, love, kindness, compassion, giving, peace, sharing, and many others of your words. We have found that if any reflective species evolved into this rather than a culture of pride, they would unselfishly work together, with each other and with their planet, to survive. They would not see each other or their planet as an enemy that must be fought, controlled, or killed, but as valuable friends with which to join in advancing their evolution and all evolution. Of course, as I’ve indicated, this means that these reflective beings do not go extinct! No, they are able to keep advancing in their evolution through humility, mutual respect, love and cooperation. These things allow them to grow and work together, rather t
han pridefully be competing, fearing, and distrusting everything.”
I decided to ask some questions. "So you’re saying that pride is an evil thing that is leading us into extinction, instead of being something positive in our individual, group, and species relationships? You’re saying that it is our pride that is causing us to abuse each other to be miserable…and make us soon go extinct?
In a kind and tender voice the light simply answered, “Yes.”
There was a pause, so I asked another question, “How can you be billions of years more advanced than us? Our scientists have found that our Earth is four and a half billion years old, life on this planet is four billion years old, and the cosmos is around fourteen billion years old. For you as a complex, reflective being to be so much older than us seems impossible.”
The light quickly replied, “We can’t share our advanced knowledge with you, because you must evolve into your own knowledge of things, but let me say that your pride has made you think that you can know far more than you actually do, and your scientific knowledge is no exception. The cosmos is much bigger than you or anyone else could ever measure or imagine, and it is also much older.”
They paused a moment and then said, "An amazing person we found as we were searching for you, called Albert Einstein, once said, ’The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
