For a few years in the 1990s, Octavia Butler called Altadena, California, home. It was where she wrote, loved, and lived. She predicted wildfires in her speculative novel, Parable of the Sower, but how could she have possibly known?
The recent fires in Los Angeles tore through historically Black Altadena, including the cemetery where Butler is buried. (Fortunately, there was minimal damage.) But from beyond the grave, Butler’s words retain their power.
Her epitaph is drawn from her Parable of the Sower, "All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you." Butler is urging us to accept change as the only lasting truth. We have the power to change everything around us, because everything is connected.
Octavia Butler moved through this world with conviction. She used her words to inspire us to imagine new realities where our people are free from the ways anti-Blackness works to destroy us. Close your eyes and imagine what that world looks, feels, tastes, and sounds like.
As Butler knew, we must believe our deserved reality is already written. We can confidently create change right now. Despite how hard they try to stop us, the foundation can never be burned when we build it ourselves.