Planet Earth Incorporated
Spring has begun. Buds are opening on all the deciduous trees. The days are getting longer, the air is fresh, birdsong prevails. The high winter flow of the Sacramento River has begun to subside. I sit on my porch embracing, collecting, and soaking in the feelings of a fresh and healthy spring season. The year is 2050. It has been twenty-six years since the great turn back to our planet, back to our connection with Mother Earth. I sit in my seventieth year and reflect on how we got here. To this now sustainable connection with the planet. I look back at the steps that happened to provide us with this new world of hope, life, and a renewed connection and love for this beautiful world.
It all started back in 2024. I was at the breaking point. I would go to work as a nurse in an Emergency Department and be exposed to unrelenting suffering as seen by drug abuse, homelessness, and poor mental and physical health. My heart would break caring for all these people. When not working, I completed schoolwork for my master’s in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at California Institute of Integral studies. I was a new student in the program, and this first semester was a shocker. The earth was at its breaking point. I heard the cry of the planet as its resources were being sucked dry. I communed with my cohort over the atrocities against our species and our cousins in the animal and plant kingdom. I had no idea how it got so bad; I had no hope of it getting any better. I lay awake at night, fantasizing, dreaming, of what could be done. I thought of the money I had saved up for retirement, that the way things were going I would not be alive to retire. What was the point of this money earning dividends invested in the very corporations that were destroying this planet? I was a part of this problem.
One night I realized, enough is enough. Nothing is going to happen unless I make it happen.
The next day, I began the start of Planet Earth Incorporated. Incorporated because this company was going to be the start of a united force to turn around this catastrophic trajectory that doomed us. I pulled out my retirement funds and invested them in what I began to see as the hope for the planet. I bought five acres of land. I hired an architect and a contractor to build a small planet friendly home that consisted of only the basics needed. I worked with these people on a sound sustainable structure using green materials or materials that were available elsewhere and only slightly used. South facing windows allowed in light during the winter months, tile floors released heat back slowly to the home, a composting toilet negated the need for a sewer system and the research was done to reuse the human use we made. Rain catchment devices were utilized. A garden was established that supplied us with more vegetables and fruit than we could ever use! Bee hives toward the back of the property provided the pollinators that the plants needed and the extra benefit of honey. There is an ample chicken run that provided eggs and comic relief as these funny feathered creatures demonstrated the source of phrases such as “hen house” and “pecking order.”
We met neighbors. We exchanged vegetables. We had gatherings with music and social interactions. We invited the local schools to come and tour the land and take home seedlings to their homes. We went into town with excess produce and offered these to the homeless population. We met some homeless kids and took the time to hear their stories. A few of these people came and camped on our land, this land. They helped with the harvest and preservation through canning and drying. We bought additional acreage. We built this and the people came. Planet Earth Incorporated began to grow out into the surrounding area. We provided resources to help people to become self-sufficient. We met with people who needed help to build their own eco-friendly homes. We offered classes on gardening, green building, and foraging. People wanted to take their investments in the stock market and invest it in Planet Incorporated. Here they saw what their money was building on, hope for the future.
As the years progressed, the town became more self-sufficient and turned towards the local people who were providing them with the food that they needed. The gatherings became larger and more diverse and the connection between the people and the land became more apparent and more important. We learned the importance of holding each other up, we learned to help the people who needed help so that they too could thrive. As more communities read about what was going on up here, more people followed. As more and more people pulled their money out from the hands of large corporations, the larger industries began to collapse. We told them that we do not need their products, their shale oil, their greed, and their disregard for all species of this world. The workers from the oil fields, the manufacturing companies, and the mega supermarkets, returned home. They returned home back to communities that needed their help in rebuilding infrastructure that valued the health and safety of everyone. They became apiculturists, farmers, and musicians. They worked with their hands and learned to laugh again.
All around, people lived where they lived. They rode bikes to get into town. They met their neighbors. They put down their phones and instead picked radishes and apples. The military lost focus. How could they wage war when they were no longer protecting their claims to the Earth’s resources? This became a grand homecoming that spread all over the Earth. Each person returned to their own. They reestablished their connection to the planet and to their local communities.
Night has fallen. The sound of crickets and frogs down in the creek rushed towards me. I can look out over the valley and see the bonfires of some neighbors who are having gatherings. The stars are brighter than they have ever been. With the cessation of gas vehicles and factory pollution, the air quality has improved. The nights are darker now as most communities have become dark sky communities. Most people go to bed earlier so they can rise with the sun.
I reflected on my fears from the early days of this endeavor. What if we fail? But we were already failing. We take back the money from this capitalistic society and we reinvest it in the Earth. This is how we win. This is the dream of the planet, a renewed kinship with the humans that live here.