Today, I want to do something a bit different. I believe that writers, like architects, drawing blueprints. I hope that each word I write ignites in you a passion for a better world. So, today, I am fast forwarding time to give you a glimpse of the world that together you and I can birth through Reconciliation and Regeneration.
Grandfather’s ranch, Comfort, Texas – The harvest blessing, 204?
“Stop,” Angel Raventruth commanded her prototype self-driving, zero-emissions hydrogen car. She could already smell it. Not merely the various ethnic foods that they would share with extended family today, but the earth herself. Great Mother. PachaMama.
Angel knew as many of her names as anyone living. She had been studying it all for over a quarter of a century. Almost since she could read. Since the day they brought her to this place.
She wiped the tears from her eyes as she thought of him. He had been gone for over a decade. But Raymond Greywolf could never die. He lived on in her. And her daddy and brother. In her cousins. In this land itself. The old man had taught her that life was a never-ending circle of birth, pain, joy, and death. She knew that one day his spirit would rejoin them. But until that time, she had his work to continue.
“Angel,” her mother squealed when she noticed her arrival. She ran towards her oldest child with arms open wide.
This woman had endured so much, fought so hard to keep her alive before they came here. Back then, Jaycee Ranger’s life had been as haunted by demons as her young mind was. And she knew that trusting Rex had not been easy for her mother. But she was eternally grateful that her mother had.
“Mama,” even as she opened her arms, Angel noticed more white hairs among the dark curls that fell to her mother’s waist.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Her father embraced them both. You had to look closely to see the silver among the dark blond, but those crow’s feet and laugh lines were more pronounced now.
Though in their sixth decade now, Her parents remained as vital as ever. “Where’s the little coyote?”
“I wouldn’t call me little anymore, sister,” the deep voice called from behind her. Angel turned her head, and for a moment, the air caught in her lungs. Joseph Ranger looked so much like their father.
And he was ‘their’ father. Her memories of the tortured man whose seed had given her life were sketchy. When she thought of Sean Riley, she preferred to remember the spirit that had visited her dreams, not the misguided human form.
“Everyone will be so glad to see you,” her mother dragged her towards the long table that had been set up near the house. It was at least half the size of a playing field. “They’re all here this year.”
“All?” The idea of their entire network of extended family, their circle, in one place, at one time, was mind-boggling. They must number in the hundreds? Some of them, Angel had not seen in years. And some like Grandfather no longer walked this earth. But she felt them. She always had. But not until he came into her life and taught her how to control all those spirits speaking at the same time had Angel knew peace.
“We saw your interview. You did well, sweetie.”
Angel shook her head; she was never comfortable when people praised her. Didn’t they see it was not her? She was not remarkable. The work was special.
Since the introduction of Ecocide to the Roman Statute as the fifth Crime Against Peace by the International Criminal Court, the tide had begun to turn. But after hundreds of years of abuse and degradation, it would take decades, if not centuries, to regenerate the planet on which we lived. But there was hope. Hope and peace. It was a better place. Not perfect, but better.
And hers was only a small piece of that work. Admittedly as chief prosecutor for the ICC’s Ecocide Division, it was an important one. But certainly not the only one. Each of these people and so many billions of others worldwide worked daily to do their bit. To first and foremost, do no harm.
It was a new vision. A new way of living. It had not been easy coming. Its birth, like all labors, was intense. Wars, famines, and pandemics had woken people up. We could not continue to abuse the earth or one another.
As Grandfather had taught her, the prophecy of the ancient Amazon was coming true. The Eagle people and the Condor people were coming together. She would not live to see that prophecy fulfilled any more than he had. Those things took generations to see to fruition. But she knew it would happen.
The hundreds of people of all ages and colors that milled about them testified to that. Many she recognized, though not all. In some faces, she saw resemblances to the children they had once been. And in others, like her parents, she beheld the passing of time and that circle of life.
Tears clouded her eyes, and for a moment, she felt that surge of energy that had once heralded another seizure. But she had only to reach inside herself, connect to the goddess, and her feminine power to find peace once more.
Angel did not want to imagine what might have been. Had they not come to this place. Had this man not take her into his heart, every bit as much as the son that her mother bore him. He, too, carried on Grandfather’s legacy in this place. Reestablishing a natural habitat for the animals that had once called it home. While practicing the ancient ways in conjunction with a few modern ones, Rex, her mother, and Joe fed their family and others in this community.
Comfort, Reconciliation, Agartha, Green Acres, and thousands of Earth Protector Communities worldwide were leading the way, not merely regenerating the planet but in righting millennia of wrongs and prejudices.
“Thank you, Grandfather,” she whispered to the wind, knowing that he heard her. Somewhere.
“He’s here. You feel him, too, my daughter.” Her father’s arm about her offered the comfort that this place was named for.
Angel was glad to be home. No matter where she went in this world, this place and these people always called her back.
Yes, today and every day, she had so much to be thankful for. Even though there were many lifetimes of work left to be done.
***
The rotund woman walked beside the old man among the people. She occasionally stopped to touch someone’s hand or shoulder as they moved to the edge of the crowd. Her heart burst with joy.
“Are you sure about this?”
The man’s gray head nodded. His dark eyes filled with tears as he looked about the gathering. “Yes. It is time.”
“You don’t have to, you know? You have earned your place among us.”
“No, there is work still to be done. And I want to be a part of that.”
“Have you chosen then?”
His chuckle carried on the gentle breeze among the fragrant trees. “Was there ever any doubt?”
She smiled at him, “So be it then.”
They watched the young man approach the dark-skinned beauty. And so it began again. The circle of life, laugh, laughter, joy, pain, and ultimately death and renewal.
Oh, and if you’re curious more information about Ecocide Law can be found here:
And that Eagle and Condor prophecy is a real thing too:
https://blog.pachamama.org/the-eagle-and-the-condor-prophecy
These among others are things effect my writing as well as my personal life choices.
May the goddess bless each of you with a spirit of thankfulness, not merely today, but every day,
Tara
Tara Cox - Literary Erotica 