Deep within the earth there are nigh unfathomable cities & connecting these cities there are tunnels that stretch for hundreds of miles in all directions like the honeycombing structure of a termite mound. These tunnels are carved by exotic technology and artistry ornate beyond anything the human has been capable of crafting, despite our best efforts. Our great pyramids are poor replicas, more closely affecting their naturally forming stalagmites than the structures they are actually meant to represent, a testament to the human inability to recognize what they cannot understand. The “creatures” that inhabit the ground beneath us are completely alien in their life-philosophy, if you could call it that, & could not tolerate our encroaching on their territory for reasons I will not get into for the sake of our collective self-esteem. Our exile & excommunication from the riches of this vast underground world was the punishment of our ancestors for their failings, the colloquial Garden of Eden existing far beneath the firmament that we now reside. But none of this is really relevant in the face of our current predicament. For some reason I am not authorized to elaborate, we are once again being slowly but surely forced away from our home, spaceward.
An immediate response to this may, at first, be one of excitement. The great beyond, a land of mystery & nigh infinite resources & perpetual novelty, awaits us outside the mundanity of the agricultural life which we have grown accustomed to over the last 15,000 years or so. But this is simply cope. Space is, & anyone in the know will admit this, fundamentally a barren wasteland. While it may be rife with opportunity in an abstract way, the massive distance between us & any of the riches of the universe requires an energy & material exchange that functionally negates itself, as the black holes that silently consume (& presumptively destroy) matter after the collapsing of dying stars. This is an ironic end for the race of earthling formerly known for openly (& in most current cases obviously coded as) being sun worshipers.
As is my way, I propose a middle ground. There is always a small potential that we can somehow reconcile our differences with our distant cousins & ancient enemies below the earths surface, but the all too real nightmares of gnashing teeth & yellow eyes peering hungrily through an endless darkness that haunt me on the nights that I feel oh so close to revelation tell me otherwise. The infinite distance of space fills me with a different kind of dread on the opposite side of the spectrum, away from the womblike warmth of the core of the earth is an empty coldness that could only contain a machine-like spirit. Passionless Apex-Predators who spend their time collecting stones and stars, operating on a cold & self-assured calculus of material & expansion. Sending signals into the dark like bait for the fish cast out of the protection of the reef that kept them safe enough to develop into a myriad colorful forms most beautiful. I simply wish for us to be wary of making an overcorrection.
There is a middle ground between the earth from which we have been made outcasts twice before, by exile & flood…& soon fire, & the allegedly infinite reaches of the great vacuum. The Earths Orbit is vast & energetic, a perfect environment for the growing of the green, protected enough by the influence of the molten core so that we may be afforded some of the benefits that are our birthright still. Tenacity is also how we’ve made ourselves renowned among the conscious & the miracles of our efforts will not end without the attempted manufacture of utopia. Let us set our sights on building botanical gardens floating in the sky.