Back to The Future

In the scope of our Gaia program, we have been talking about climate changing and all the consequences that can arise if we continue and don't change our awareness and behavior towards the Mother Earth.

In the scope of our Gaia program, we have been talking about climate changing and all the consequences that can arise if we continue and don't change our awareness and behavior towards the Mother Earth. In one of those works we were asked to write a hypothetical essay about the future of the planet, the personal story about the past that we are telling to the children of the village. All the imagination was allowed and one of the stories came up as follows:

“We are in the year 1983 and I'm still a child. In my small village in the countryside of Portugal, life was simple. I remember going with my school friends to one of our two rivers. Clear water and big fishes were common. After some splashing in the water and trying to catch frogs, we sat under the shadow of a tree eating some wild berries. Life was good!

Spring brought us flowers and running water. The perfect time to get out and enjoy the beauty of nature: to take a walk, having the flowers all around us dressed in all their rainbow colors. The summer brought sunshine and hard work to secure our harvests and lead to the brown leaves, the sweet smell of fruits, the re-encounter of school friends in the beauty of autumn. Winter was peace and quiet, I loved to spend my evenings in the lap of my father near the fireplace, enjoying his stories about life. We waited impatiently for the gifts on Christmas morning along with the softness of the snow knocking on our window. So life in the countryside was simple and beautiful.

But the world kept spinning and I grew a little bigger. I had to move to the big city, but from the beginning I didn't like it. The air was full of smoke and dust, I didn't know my neighbors, and people in the streets didn't say hello when we met. The houses and the smiles were gray, and we couldn't see the stars in the sky because of the artificial lights. But, there I found love and happiness again in the dancing eyes of a girl. We had a child; a beautiful, indigo eyed boy. We didn't stay in the city for long. The heavy air of the city caused some respiratory problems for our son, and quickly we moved to the countryside.

The year was 2010 and the land was starting to get deadly dry. We became farmers in my birth-town on a small piece of land my parents left me before they died. We felt happy, but things were not as they used to be. One of the rivers had dried out and the other was so polluted that we couldn't swim any more. The school had been closed and the forests around the village had been burnt by the summer fires.

 Life became harder on a daily basis. The soil was not fertile anymore, and the shortage of water was telling us that it was time to move again. Summer became desert hot, and winter colder so we could only grow some tough species of root vegetables and indoor chickens.

A few years later we decided to join a group of travelers that were moving north. We could only travel at dusk and dawn hours, when it was not extremely cold or hot. The rest of the day, we stayed in shelters built by others but now left abandoned.

We started to get food only from some roots and mushrooms that were surprisingly surviving this calamity. On our way to the north we heard about the thousands that had been killed in the big cities all around the world, especially coast cities that were inundated by the rise of the oceans.

When we reached the Pyrenees we came across a big sea where once was the country of France! The high mountains gave us protection but we needed a way to get further north.

After seven years surviving there we found one special resistant giant mushroom species that could be carved just like wood. So we started to build a boat to cross the sea.

After another year of preparation we got on our way. We managed to get to the highlands of the north where we could meet some other survivors like us. The land was called SECONDVIA (once called Scandinavia), which means second way or opportunity as I want to call it.

Even if we didn't have so much to eat, we started our new lives simpler and happier. Communication among all that melting pot of people was surprisingly easy. Instead of words we used our body language and thought, as we started to develop a higher consciousness.

Here we also learned about other human societies that had survived this Armageddon. Two new continents were formed NEWBI1 and NEWBI2 (new British Island), where in the past stood Greenland and Antarctica. There we know that humans used solar power to energise their mechanical body parts. Most of them were rich in the old world and could afford a body part supply. Of course we here also use the sun as energy, but directly into our bodies as a sort of prana energy throughout our meditation early in the morning and in the night.

It is now the year 2050. I grew old here and my wife died after our second grandchild was born. I don't grieve for her too much because I know that we'll met again, but not in this form. I regret that I could never meet a human from the new continents, but I hope they are as nice and peaceful as we are here.

I'm telling you this story, for you to remember that life is impermanent and that things are always changing. The question is: Do we want to be part of that change? I hope you children can have a nice future ahead. I am old now, in my 65^th year. I have seen a lot of suffering and despair. Maybe you could not know and so I leave you with my story and with a hope for the future.”