Father Sky and Mother Earth

Father Sky and Mother Earth have lived in harmony for millions of years; marriage made in the heavens, each complementing the other perfectly.

Father Sky is the sun. Providing warmth and light in daytime. He is the moon and stars at night. He is power and strength. He is the wind, the lightning, the thunder. He carries the rain and snow in the clouds. He can create storms and tempests with his fury or he can provide warmth, subtle winds and gentle rain.

Mother Earth needs warmth, light, water, and nutrients with which to grow food for their children. Mother Earth nourishes their children and teaches them all the important things they need to know to live happily and harmoniously. The most important things she teaches her children are obedience and respect so they can all live in harmony.

Mother Earth has many types of children, from the smallest insects in the soil to the largest mammals in the ocean. She loves and nurtures them all, her favourite children though are the humans. She put them in charge of all the other creatures.

She explained to her human children how to care for all the plants and creatures, she showed them how father sky provided the elements that were necessary for their continued survival and how to observe the laws of nature to keep everything in perfect balance.

She explained how Father Sky provided air for both plants and animals to breath. Sun for warmth and for light so plants could grow for animals to eat. She explained how Father Sky sent water in the form of rain, ice or snow for the plants and animals to drink. She showed her human children how all living things were made of carbon.

That it was in the oceans, the air and even the rocks. She taught them how plants used carbon dioxide and sunlight to make their own food and grow.

That water needed to be constantly moving to remain fresh and so not only came down from Father Sky onto the hills, where it ran into creeks and rivers to the oceans. But also how it was evaporated by the warmth of the sun and taken back up into the atmosphere so it could be purified and fall again on another part of the earth.

Mother Earth taught her children about respiration of plants and of animals and how what animals breathed out plants breathed in, and what plants breathed out animals breathed in, and how important it was to have the right balance of plants and animals to have the right mix of air needed for each.

Mother Earth was a good mother, she taught her children everything she could think of that they would need to know to take good care of their brothers and sisters, the insects, birds, reptiles and animals.

Humans took great care of the creatures and were careful to observe all the laws of nature as they had been taught by their mother to do. Under their care all things grew and multiplied.

For many generations all went well. In fact it went so well that the creatures on the earth became very numerous. They were happy and lived together harmoniously and lived in accordance with the laws of nature.

But Father Sky looked down one day and noticed how numerous his children had become and wondered at his ability to provide for them all. Surely we cannot continue to multiply so rapidly. From where will come the food to feed so many creatures?

From that moment a subtle change began to take place in the minds of mankind.

Mankind who had been given pre-eminence over the other creatures, began to feel the burden of responsibility for the well-being of all the creatures, and what was once a pleasant duty began to weigh heavily on him. If there was not enough for all, he didn't want to be the one blamed for Father Sky and Mother Earth's inability to provide.

What mankind was once happy to share was now shared a little more grudgingly. A division began in their minds making them feel superior and therefore more worthy of the greater share of all that they had once shared equally. This pattern of thinking gradually developed to a point where mankind separated himself from the creatures and instead of being equal with them, and living among them, mankind looked down on the animals and lived together in family groups separated from the other creatures.

The animals were left to fend for themselves as best they could, while mankind began to store up a greater portion of the food for themselves saying that as they had the greater responsibility they should also get the greater share of the food.

They began to store away more than their fair share of the food in case the next harvest didn't yield as much as needed, and slowly but surely mankind's mentality, which had once been one of plenty, began to change to one of scarcity.

Even when there was plenty they believed there would come a time when there wouldn't be enough. Like an insidious cancer their thinking changed over time to not only resent sharing food with the other creatures but to only wanting to share with humans that they considered more worthy than others and divisions began to appear between the people.

Some wanted more than others even though they already had enough, but felt they deserved more due to their higher level of responsibility. Those in charge of the harvesting of food saved some of the best food for themselves. When the food was distributed the strong got more by pushing in front of the weak. Corruption began to become accepted as a way of life.

Some of the people could see what was beginning to happen and left the groups that had now become large enough to be called cities. But they had already been exposed to the warped thinking of mankind and although they tried hard they were never really able to get back to the way things were before the disharmony occurred. They returned to the fields to live with the animals.

Some became farmers and took care of animals in return for the milk or eggs or wool the animals were able to provide. Others grew crops of seeds, fruits, nuts or herbs that could be used for food. These they exchanged for other items among each other and food became a type of currency.

Some groups of people became nomads, they moved from place to place eating the food in each area and moving on to other places as the food began to deplete.

Still the numbers of creatures increased as did the population of humans, and those who considered themselves leaders of the people wondered how much longer this could go on for. A meeting of those who held positions of authority was called to discuss possible solutions to the future dilemma of not enough food for all.

There were many knowledgeable and important humans present from many different cities. Some were good at talking, some were good at listening. For many days discussions took place with many ideas being put forth as solutions to the future problem. Finally one of the most knowledgeable and important humans stood up and proposed a solution that seemed harsh but logical to the others. The fact that it was harsh made it a little difficult to swallow for some, but it was voted on and passed by the majority of humans and so became the solution.

What was the solution to the problem of too many creatures and not enough food for all?

Mankind who had up to this time been herbivores and ate only vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds now became omnivores. That is; eaters of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and also the flesh of animals.

When the animals witnessed the change in humans who they had previously thought of as their protectors, they became frightened. The animals now instead of being comfortable in man's presence, hid from him whenever he came near. There were no animals to be found near the cities where men gathered in great numbers, and those that stayed soon became food for humans.

Mother Earth wept when she saw what her favourite child was doing. Father Sky became enraged and reacted with bolts of lightning and great claps of thunder, he hid the sun behind great clouds so the earth became cold. Father Sky's anger began to bring about a change in the earth. Strangely it brought about the very change that mankind had feared. Crops began to fail to thrive because of too little rain or too much rain, too little sun, or too much sun.

Mother Earth noticed her seasons beginning to become unbalanced. She noticed that the waters on the surface of her oceans were changing temperature. That snow and ice were forming in places that didn't used to have snow and ice, while in other areas there was very little if any rain and the temperatures increase to the point where it was difficult for crops to grow. The animals had to roam further and further to find food and mankind had to roam further to hunt them to satisfy his appetite.

As fewer areas of land were arable, fewer crops could be grown. Humans began to leave the cities and till the fields that animals once grazed on, to produce enough food to feed their families. They used up more and more of the land to grow more and more crops to provide food for the people that lived in the cities. The animals continued to move further away and their manure that once used to fertilize the fields, returning the nutrients to the soil for the healthy growth of soil micro-organisms, was no longer available.

The soil began to become impoverished and produce less. To stop certain types of animals that provided good meat from moving too far away from the cities, farmers built fences that held them. The animals could then be kept until they were big enough to be slaughtered for meat without having to travel great distances to hunt for them. The animals needed pasture to eat to be fattened to provide food for humans and the humans also needed more land to grow crops for human food on.

They also needed timber for housing so more land was cleared, forests were felled and the wood used to build more houses. Wood was also burned as fuel to warm the houses, and this created smoke which polluted the air. The harmonious balance of nature was beginning to erode.

Father Sky became angrier and angrier he sent hurricanes, floods, droughts, earthquakes, tidal waves and all kinds of unusual weather patterns but mankind had forgotten all the things that mother earth had taught them long ago. They had neglected to pass the knowledge of the natural cycles, and the laws of nature on to their children. Instead they built schools and taught them other things that weren't about how to care for the earth and the creatures they shared it with.

Eventually the knowledge became lost. Father Sky and Mother Earth had no way of turning humans back to the ways of harmonious living. Humans had no recollection of ever having lived in harmony. It seemed for as long as anyone could remember that they had had to strive and struggle with nature to make it produce what they needed, in order for them to survive.

The more mankind struggled with the earth, the less food it produced and soon the people again were seeing that before too long there would come a time when there would not be enough to feed them all. Again they held a meeting of all the most important and knowledgeable people from all the countries and cities in the world to discuss a solution to their future problem.

Again the discussions took place for many days until a group of men called scientists convinced the other important and knowledgeable representatives of the other countries, that they had a solution that they believed would work.

They had been conducting experiments for some time now and had produced chemicals that would nourish the plants when applied while the crops were growing. It was voted upon and as there was no other solution that seemed to promise the same results, it became the plan for increasing food output. The scientists were given large prizes for their cleverness and as much money as they needed to develop the chemicals that were needed to spray on the crops to make them grow.

Scientists also developed ways of making food last longer by adding chemicals to slow down the process of decay, which enabled food to be stored for longer times. They developed ways to keep food cool on hot days which also slowed down the process of decay and soon most people who could afford to, had one of these devices in their own home.

Luxuries like fridges were expensive to purchase but as temperatures increased and food decayed more quickly, they soon became necessary items and each household wanted one so more needed to be built which required factories and people to work in the factories. To be able to travel the long distances to the factories families needed new inventions called cars.

As the parents of the families were both out earning money to pay for items like fridges, and cars to take them to work. Children needed to be taken care of by other people if they were too young to go to school and this costed money too.

Televisions were invented to help people all over the world see new things and be entertained in their spare time. Televisions became an addiction, but they also made great babysitters. Spare time decreased and people started to rush because there was too much to do and too little time to do it. Clothes were no longer made by grandmothers but in factories, grandmothers were busy watching televisions.

More and more factories were required to produce necessary items that were once made at home and also luxuries to help humans enjoy their spare time, which they had less and less of. Homes became full of inventions to help with cleaning and cooking because that required more time than humans wanted to give since they now had so many things to do in their spare time that were more entertaining. Telephones enabled people to talk to friends or relatives who lived a long way away, or next door. Other things were invented which enabled you to send messages to people so you didn't even need to speak to them.

Farmers had machines called tractors that replaced the need for horses to be used to plough the land. Horses ate too much grass, tractors didn't eat grass they drank a liquid fuel that was refined from oil found under the earth's crust. Tractors didn't go lame or get sick or need days off, they were able to work seven days a week, so they did. Farmers worked 7 days a week too, the land had to be ploughed, the seed planted, the weeds removed, the crop sprayed with chemical nutrient and then when it was ready, harvested.

Farmers worked hard and produced many good crops year after year. They found though that the crops were being eaten by insects and strange diseases were starting to appear that they had never seen before. Scientists went to their laboratories and made chemicals to kill the insects and chemicals to address the imbalance in the nutrients that was causing the disease.

The tiny micro-organisms in the soil which were already weak from not having received manure from animals, died when the chemicals were applied. The worms that lived in the soil that helped to get air to the plants roots, and produced nutrients for the plants, also died. The earth became hard and difficult to work, it lost its ability to hold water because there was very little of the sponge-like humus left in it.

It required farmers to purchase large irrigation sprinklers to water the crops continually in the warmer months as the ground had no way of storing water. The insect pests were no sooner killed by chemicals than another type of insect appeared to take the place of the last. The new insect was not affected by the chemical poison that killed the last, so different chemicals had to be found.

The chemicals sprayed on to the crops found their way into the creeks and rivers when it rained and eventually made their way into the oceans. Fish died, frogs died, insects and small animals that lived near the waterways died.

People in the cities complained that the farmers were killing the fish and polluting the water, which was true, but the farmers were not doing it alone.

Households had chemicals in their cupboards for cleaning every different type of surface, they even had chemicals for cleaning themselves. Each household had one or two cars that ran on fuel that produced nasty smelling toxic air. Their houses were full of furniture, carpets, appliances and toys for entertaining themselves and their children. All these things were made in factories that belched toxic chemicals into the air and the waterways.

It never occurred to mankind that scientists wouldn't be able to find a way to fix every problem.

Human minds and bodies began to get sick. One out of every three people got cancer of one form or another, some, the scientists were able to cure, and some they weren't. New types of diseases cropped up so rapidly that Doctors were able to treat the symptoms of one only to have another type manifest itself soon after in another part of the body. It seemed that what was happening on the land was also happening in the bodies of humans.

Mother Earth was exhausted. Her air was polluted, her rivers were fouled, and her soil was barely alive. Father Sky was distraught, he didn't know what he could do to help her. She was dying. He had used as much force as he dared to try and turn his children from their destructive ways, but to no avail. Mother Earth needed complete rest if she was to recover that much was clear to him. Things had started off so well. Where did they go wrong?

The only way he could think of to keep her alive was to kill all their children so she could recover. He seemed to remember a time, thousands of centuries ago when he had had to make this same decision. Did it work then, he couldn't quite remember.

Perhaps they could start again when she had recovered and produce more children, but next time they would do it differently. Children needed firm boundaries with instantaneous reactions if they step outside them. They needed to be able to see the consequences of their actions, so they can modify their behaviour sooner rather than later.

All that is for the future if there is to be one.

And with this thought Father Sky drew one almighty breath into his powerful lungs and prepared himself to do all he could to help Mother Earth to get the rest she needed.

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