From Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina is a young Black woman who, in her humble, adaptive, resilient way, gathers a community around herself to safety in a post-collapse 2023 Southern California. As she suffers the loss of her parents and her fragile-but-stable life in a walled community, she hits the road and deepens her understanding of the cosmos, viewing herself as Earthseed, who is able to “shape change” as it happens. She writes, 

 

All that you touch you change,

all that you change changes you. 

The only lasting truth is change. 

God is change. 

 

Parable of the Sower is a foundational book for me. Lauren is someone who, fully and painfully aware of the change happening in the world, embraces the change, actually viewing herself as an agent of that change. She is an inspiration to me. May we all see ourselves as Earthseed capable of intentionally shaping the change already happening.