The Luminous Planet E-Book

Hannah Klinge

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 189

Beschreibung

"An original, important book. It certainly deserves to be shared widely with the world, and in schools in particular." - Suzanne Brøgger, bestselling Danish Author The Luminous Planet is a poetic utopia about the UN's 17 Development Goals. On a star in the universe lives the creature Orion, until the day his longing for truth brings him on an adventure towards the luminous planet. Here he meets 17 creatures whose stories give the reader an insight into the problems of the Development Goals and the necessity of their achievement: The fight for a world without war, poverty, famine, natural disasters and inequality. The book shows the disastrous consequences if the goals are ignored, or the bright future if they are achieved. The idea of an 18th Development Goal, which brings together the UN's 17 alignments 'transforming ourselves to transform the world' is presented when, on his journey, Orion feels that there is a battle within himself that must be fought before the luminous planet can shine in all eternity. "It is truly a wonderful artistic effort we have been given with Hannah Klinge's The Luminous Planet." - Steen Hildebrandt, Professor emeritus, PhD

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Preface

I wonder how many international resolutions have received the kind of attention that the 17 Development Goals have received. I’m referring to the seventeen goals for sustainable development adopted by the United Nations’ General Assembly on 25 September 2015, formally known as: R 70/1: Transforming our world, and sometimes also called Agenda 2030.

All the members states’ 193 heads of state and parliament voted in favour of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. I don’t know of any other resolution that has become the focus of so many presentations, talks, articles, conferences, seminars and webinars, decisions, books, courses – and now, and this is truly wonderful: artistic attention in the form of poetry, sculpture, art installations, essays, stories, songs, theatre, paintings, photos, and much else – and now: a fairy tale.

And it is truly a wonderful artistic effort we have been given with Hannah Klinge’s The Luminous Planet. Bestselling Danish author Suzanne Brøgger wrote to me in an e-mail regarding Hannah and the book: “What a magical girl she is, and such an original, important book. It certainly deserves to be shared widely with the world, and in schools in particular.” I was given permission to share Suzanne Brøgger’s words, and I do so with great pleasure, because they encapsulate precisely and beautifully the significance of the book. The Luminous Planet is an original and important book, and right on point: the schools, the children, are so infinitely important in this context – as, indeed, in all contexts. And the deeply serious fact of the matter is precisely that we are talking about the world that our children are going to inhabit, that our children are going to inherit, the world that we are currently stewarding on their behalf. And as we so often say: We must hand on to our children a better world than the one we ourselves inherited. Easy words to say, but what do they mean? What does the word “better” mean in this regard? What kind of better world are we talking about? The Sustainable Development Goals and The Luminous Planet can tell us something about that. Indeed, that is what the goals and The Luminous Planet are all about, or – it is what they are also about. A better and different world.

What I found particularly remarkable about The Luminous Planet is that Hannah Klinge’s narrative is integrally linked with the 17 Alignments ‘transforming ourselves to transform the world’ which are concerned with the fact that our inner world, our thoughts, feelings, and ideas, create our outer reality. In order to contribute to the positive development of the world, we each therefore must examine our own inner development.

I send my very best wishes to Planet Earth and to The Luminous Planet on its onward journey. It has been an honour and a great delight to read and to be allowed to recommend the book in this manner.

Steen Hildebrandt Professor emeritus, PhD Frederiksberg, Denmark, July 1st, 2021

1

The planet shone with such warmth that it humbly captured the full attention of its admirers. Somewhere in the universe it flourished and grew brighter day by day. It radiated a love so sincere that anyone immediately felt welcome simply at the sight of it.

Orion tilted his head back and peered dreamingly through the small round window in the ceiling. It was impossible for him to describe what he was seeing using mere words that always proved inadequate when he reached this point. “… simply at the sight of it.” Orion concluded his last sentence on the paper without feeling that it was complete. He sighed and got up from his chair at the desk, where he spent most of his time.

The old desk was placed at the centre of the room, surrounded by eighteen walls that together formed Orion’s home in the shape of a star. Not that Orion had ever thought about this, because it was hard to get a general view of the house from the inside. He had never been out on the other side of the star’s walls and knew only the truth he could see through the ceiling window.

What he saw, he had written countless, countless thoughts about. His books filled the room from floor to ceiling and would soon make it entirely impossible for Orion to see what was outside in the unknown, should he wish to. Yet, Orion couldn’t find a single sentence in his many books that adequately described the luminous planet.

For as long as he could remember, he had been pondering the existence of this planet. The story of its past. If it had always been as bright as it was now, even before Orion’s time.

The frustration of ignorance tormented him more and more as the days went by. Most of all, he longed to be able to answer the question he asked himself every day: Was there life on the luminous planet? What else could be the cause of such glittering colour and energy? Something definitely distinguished this planet from the other seventeen that Orion could also see through the window in his star.

One of them was large and in constant motion. One emitted light in colours of violet and crimson. Around another, a dark grey cloud circled, making it difficult to see if the planet itself was even there. One was incredibly small, and it was only occasionally that Orion was able to see it.

Each of these planets was unique but Orion knew one thing they all had in common: negativity. They radiated an emptiness and mysterious silence, as if they had been abandoned. They seemed bleak and Orion sensed a sadness about them.

He had written books and stories about all the planets. Seventeen volumes that each carefully described the individual planets. Together they formed a series demonstrating what the universe looked like and how it was interconnected, seen from Orion’s point of view through the round window.

But his work was not yet complete, and it bothered him immensely. There was still one book that Orion never managed to finish. The book about the luminous planet, which all the other planets orbited.

It was time for Orion to complete the eighteenth volume. It was as if the universe increasingly urged him to finish the book. And he did not intend to let it down.

2

The future belongs to everyone. Although some claim that a few own it, this is untrue. The future hovers everywhere, forever, and is constantly transformed into present. Thus, future can never be grasped, and we might as well say that the future belongs to no one.

The future is known by being unknown. It is hard to size up, and often surprising.

This morning on a little star in the universe, the future’s unknown face knocked on the door.

Orion jumped out of his chair, causing a storm of letters on the papers that slowly fell toward the floor.

Never before had he heard a sound from the outside. It repeated itself. A low knocking on the other side of Orion’s walls. He couldn’t hear exactly where the sound came from, but it was with a frightening certainty from the outside. Orion looked around the room where he had lived for so long. He knew every nook and cranny and knew where every book was placed. Not that there was any system in the many piles that formed an untidy wall around the centre of the star. And yet the many books now seemed to him like a systematically created border whose purpose it was to keep Orion trapped within. He felt a sudden urge to break through this wall of words – an urge he had never felt before.

Orion therefore did the only thing that at this moment seemed right to him. He grabbed one book after another and removed them from the path he was eagerly trying to make. As bricks that are broken apart and open the way for new possibilities, Orion had now created a clear path toward one of the star’s corners.

He stood with his nose pressed against the wall as an unfamiliar thought was born in his mind: How could he have allowed himself to describe the planets of the universe as if it were the final truth, when he had never met them? Spoken with them or explored them? When the only thing he had done was to study them from this one perspective that was his own.

Now Orion could not think of anything more wrong than all the descriptive words he had written down in his books. The suddenly empty words that he had thought expressed the whole truth. He tried to imagine someone writing about Orion and his life on the star in the same way that he had written his books. He was certain that no living being was able to get near the truth at such a distance. It would simply be impossible to know Orion’s detailed writings, his well-reflected thoughts, his life, and – most unthinkable – his perspective. All the things that described Orion. All the things that Orion had let himself express about the other planets without a second thought.

Decisively, and with a clear sense of doing the right thing, Orion picked up a stack of blank papers and his writing tools and stepped out of his safe, familiar home, into the universe.

In that moment, he stepped into a future that for the first time in Orion’s life would be completely unpredictable and surprising. A future that, second by second, was followed by the present of an adventure. An adventure about the search for truth.

3

A quiet rustling of the wind through the fresh green leaves could be heard between the trees. Tall boughs that through long ages had patiently pushed closer to their source of life, the sun. Beneath them lived their smaller siblings, confident and respected despite their small size. Bright seedlings encountering the rays of the sun for the very first time. Flowers in unimaginable, impressive colours that painted the forest floor as a reflection of the rainbow in the sky. Shrubs carrying fruits with a sweetness that came as no surprise considering their exotic appearance.

This beautiful and eternally budding forest encircled a bright meadow that stretched over a hilltop. Like a sea of gold, the grain waved gently in the morning breeze. A few flowers glinted like stars in this field, showing the way towards the meadow’s edge near the top of the hill. Up there, a large tree with a mighty crown stood as king over the peaceful landscape. The eye could not see what was on the other side of the tree. But it was tempting to go there, through the soft leaves calmly swaying back and forth in the breeze. The sun had just risen and cast a magical light over the entire meadow.

Everything about this place was so beautiful and comforting that one hardly dared to describe it with words. It would be like trying to draw the sun with a piece of coal. All around this meadow resided a tranquillity and an energy that made anyone feel understood and made better. This place was created in love – there could be no doubt about that.

Orion smiled at the words he had carefully chosen to put down on the paper. His eighteenth volume, about the luminous planet, was now begun, and he felt a great joy in anticipation of all the stories that would fill the now blank, but expectant pages. Orion folded up the sheet containing his description of the meadow and gently drew his hand over the heads of grain. They were soft and warm. He was filled with a sense of calm that encouraged him to pass through the bright meadow.

Step by step he moved closer to the tree on the hilltop that would welcome him with a heartfelt joy.

Orion placed a hand on the wide trunk of the magnificent tree and looked up at its dark green crown. He smiled at the tree with respect and admiration before he continued toward the unknown slope of the hill. There he stopped, gaping at the sight that greeted him.

In the valley behind the hill, life and energy flourished in a way that Orion had never before seen. It was entirely impossible for him to describe the many unfamiliar objects he saw, so he simply stood there gaping, for once unusually lost for words. There were so many things happening, and every moment Orion noticed something new. His curiosity led him closer to this strange, impressive place that he intensely desired to know better. On closer hand, Orion saw several enormous objects in different white shapes. Circles, triangles, rectangles, and shapes of five and six sides he noticed. They grew larger with every step he got closer to them. The hollow shapes were connected by winding paths of white stones.

Orion noticed something shimmering encircled by the white path. It was something smooth and mirrorbright that reflected the sun so perfectly that it looked as if a piece of the sun had fallen to the ground and shone from there. It was a lake with the clearest water, without a single ripple to disturb the glimmering peace of the lake. Between the white shapes, whose purpose was yet inscrutable to Orion, grew flowers of all the colours of the rainbow. Tall trees of different kinds stood as guardians of the peace of this place. Not that there appeared to be any need for guardians.

Under a particularly remarkable tree in the distant valley, Orion suddenly caught sight of something that at once overwhelmed him and made his heart race furiously. On a bench beneath the green canopy of leaves, a figure was sitting, which by its activity revealed the answer to one of Orion’s most intensely pondered questions about the luminous planet – whether it contained life. This figure was a being. A living being. Orion stared at it, dumbstruck, filled with a heady combination of fear and euphoria. Who was this being? Despite the long distance between them, Orion sensed a warmth when he regarded the strange being. Suddenly, it stood up, and Orion’s eyes followed it as it moved down the white path.

After a short while, it arrived at a circular square. Orion’s heart rejoiced upon hearing the sound of hearty laughter and happy noises as the being reached the small square. On wooden tables and chairs sat several other beings. In his excitement and bursting with curiosity, he went closer to the valley.

Near the square where several of the beings were assembled, a large, white, noiseless object suddenly appeared. It contained more of the beings, which now seemed to be leaving the vehicle that had brought them. Without so much as a whisper the large, white object quickly departed again, heading toward a place further away.

Orion squinted into the distance again and noticed fields, and rows of tree trunks forming long walls that sheltered smaller plants growing against them. It looked like edible plants, judging from their colourful fruits in orange, green, red, and purple shades.

Orion’s thoughts were interrupted by a light breeze that caused a distant rushing sound. He looked toward the sudden sound only to discover a forest of towering, peculiar moving trees. They were all white and each had three long branches that rotated at the same speed in the wind. Orion had never seen anything like it.

He shook his head and expected to see these odd trees change colour to the natural green, but no. White, rotating treetops.

This was without doubt a mysterious place, unlike anything Orion knew from his little star. Yet, he had no intention of turning around. He wasn’t sure what he had expected when he set out, but certainly not this. He had had no idea that the beautiful, luminous planet would also contain so many details. Perhaps he had just expected to arrive at a sphere of light. A globe of warmth. A loving radiance, smiling and gleaming, as he knew it from his window in the star. Never had he imagined that the luminous planet would be filled with so many unique creations. So much beauty for the eye that it was impossible to take it all in at once.

Although all these details only fuelled Orion’s curiosity about the planet’s story, he deliberately kept his distance from the valley.

Because for so long he had been observing this planet from afar. So many times had he wondered about it. Imagined and tried to guess what it might be. What it contained. But always from a viewpoint far away from it. Now he had zoomed in and dived right into the very thing his eyes had until now only seen across a great distance. Orion tilted his head back and tried in vain to see his comfortable home in the skies. For a brief moment he wanted nothing more than to return to his old, familiar perspective.

But the gentle breeze surrounding him wanted something else and it now softly swept Orion down into the planet’s little valley, the luminous centre of the planet.

4

“Are you alive too?” Orion asked.

By a beautiful tree with flaming red leaves, a being sat with its back leaned against the trunk of the tree. A being, calm and with a dreaming look in the large, dark brown eyes. Eyes that now dwelt on Orion’s small figure with wonder and curiosity.

“That depends on who you ask. If you ask the clock that stopped, it will certainly answer that I am alive. If you ask never-ending time itself, it will probably answer that my short lifespan is not even worth counting. But since you ask me, I, from my point of view, will answer yes. A heartfelt yes!”

Orion again stood speechless while he tried to search his mind for the right words. He was really speaking to one of the planet’s living beings.

“Are there others like you on this planet?” Orion finally asked.

The being gave a warm laugh and gently picked one of the many red flowers that formed a living mat under their feet.

“There is no other flower like this one. It is entirely unique and possesses its own story. However, it has a whole field of brothers and sisters that look just like it and partly are like to it. But this beautiful red flower is definitely its own.” He smiled at Orion before continuing: “I would guess that you haven’t been here very long. Come, sit here under the tree. I want to tell you about this red flower, which is simply one shade in the colourful story of the planet where you are right now – and which you are so curious about.” Orion carefully sat down and leaned against the tree under the umbrella of leaves that looked so much like wisps of fire. He breathed deeply of the fresh air.

“I want to know if your planet was always as luminous as it is now. It is not like the other planets. It is full of unique details, but I cannot figure out if it was always so. It is like a radiant centre, but I cannot see why.”

The being with the loving eyes replied: “I understand your wondering about that. In short, I can tell you that this planet of life and joy was not always as flourishing as it is now. Just like everything else, it has passed through its own development. Begun as a humble seed and grown into a mighty and complex tree. Growing it will be always. But the story of this place is long, and you cannot receive the whole truth from a single mouth.”

Orion interrupted the being, eager to know more: “Please, just tell me what you know. About your story.”

The being laughed again, impressed by the stranger’s curiosity. He himself was just as curious to know more about the stranger’s story and origin, but he sensed that he would not get a single answer to his questions until he had told the stranger about his own past. He cleared his throat before beginning: “Well, my story you shall have. First my name you shall learn. I am Terra. My name comes from a place far, far from here. A place that hardly exists any-more.”

5

A loud crash sounded on the other side of the wooden walls of the house. The impact shook the little table, making the hot tea splash and burn Terra’s small fingers. He winced and glared with reproach out of the window. Dark clouds glided over the forest as a warning of catastrophe. The forest that shrank with every passing second. The little saplings could not keep up with the efficiency of the sharp knives and were forced constantly to whisper goodbye to their elder siblings.

“Get more wood!” a deep voice shouted through the door, and a muscled arm pointed at the fire that had nearly gone to sleep and no longer performed its duty – to keep the little hut warm.

Terra got up and was met on the other side of the door by a merciless cold. He looked down at the large pieces of wood lying beside the old axe. How he hated this task. When the blade split the wood in two, he heard a cry of pain that rent his ears. Murderer, he thought.

Emptyhanded, he returned to the hut and put on one more jumper.

“I painted it when I was about your age. Look at all the green colours. I can barely recall that sight any-more.” The old woman sighed and gave the painting to her grandson, the thoughtful and now young man.