Jaal and I have had children in many of our gnome lifetimes. Watching them grow up to become loving, moral and successful gnomes is very rewarding.

  Gnomes are somewhat similar to humans in how we live and how we raise our children. However, our lives are much longer than humans: about 1200 years on average instead of 100 years. Our childhood and adolescent years are only slighter longer than humans. We are considered adults by age 35.

  As with humans, deciding to have a child is a big event for the parents and their extended families. Female gnomes generally give birth to a single child, or sometimes twins. Gnome couples may have just two or three children during their long lifetimes. The parents often wait 50 to 100 years between children.

  Our society dictates that both parents leave their jobs for twenty years or so after each baby is born. This means we could have two or three twenty-year breaks in our careers, depending on how large our family becomes. During these breaks in working, the entire extended family spends a large amount of time together on whichever gnome planet the family has decided to call home. The twenty-year work gap is a lovely family time spent helping the child or children grow.

  Raising children is a special and rare time, so it is the parents’ focus until the children reach the age to begin university or other training. The parents and grandparents could easily fall into an intense “helicopter parenting” style, but that is strongly frowned on in our culture. The offspring eventually graduate and now it is their turn to find jobs, then possibly marry and have their own children.

  Not all souls who incarnate as gnomes will stay as gnomes. There are many beings who spend just one or two lifetimes as gnomes. It’s the best way to receive a hands-on, short training on how to take care of planets. Just a few lifetimes may be enough knowledge for that being’s purposes.

  There are some souls who try out gnome life to see if it suits them. Being a gnome is rather specialized, so they may end up moving on to other incarnations quickly. There is no requirement to stay or go, except to set up whatever feels like the best option for the next lifetime.

  This mix of many personalities with varied goals is the best way to keep our gnome worlds from becoming too insular and narrow-minded. A balance of old souls who have already decided on their pathways and new souls who are still making decisions allows everyone to learn from each other.

  Everyone incarnating as gnomes will, of course, go to school. Remember that it is only on Earth where human beings do not remember their previous lifetimes. We are able to easily review previous knowledge and increase our education with each lifetime.

  Gnomes aren’t required to have much education after their teenage years. If they prefer, they can live happy and productive lives with just some basic classes on natural sciences. That’s enough education for gnomes to have long careers as caretakers for the plants and animals of any world.

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  If gnomes opt to advance their knowledge and experience, they could eventually become responsible for designing and managing an entire complicated and multifaceted project. They could even become part of a team responsible for an entire solar system instead of just a single world. At that point, it is possible to move into a sophisticated and prestigious career working directly with the creator gods.

  However, before children can even dream of trying any of these professions, there is a skill they must work on during each lifetime. It must be mastered before moving into any planetary fieldwork.

  The skill that must be attained is the ability to effortlessly manipulate the energies of the universes. This is learned by playing a schoolroom exercise called the creation game. Children must become not only proficient, but learn to keep a high level of concentration for hours at a time.

  The training is set up as a fun game, but it is not a simple game.

  The first step of the creation game is learning to create triangles, circles and squares in the air. Children must use only one arm to summon the energy and turn it into smoke shapes. Next, the children must create these smoke shapes using only their minds. It takes years to master these skills.

  The next step is to make the smoke shapes travel, change size and go through each other. After succeeding at that challenge, a combination of directing smoke, fire and multi-colored visual effects must be mastered.

  An older child who has attained full mastery will be able to summon the pure energy of a universe and use it in whatever manner is desired. Universal energy has an infinity of uses. There are entire textbooks and classes dedicated to that topic.

  This final stage of mastery is not achieved until the child reaches mid-teens or older. It is a proud day for the family when a teenager reaches this highest accomplishment level. The son or daughter can now easily be accepted as an apprentice or choose a prestigious university.

  In this lifetime Jaal and I have two daughters: Liveta and Rinja. We have proudly watched them succeed at learning to manipulate universal energy. They have inherited their love of the natural world from Jaal and me, and we are so proud that both have achieved advanced degrees in biology and chemistry.

  Liveta uses her universal energy skills to manipulate molecules and edit genes in greenhouse plants. She designs the most suitable plants for each new terraforming project. She works on the molecular biology of plants and soils within her elaborate laboratory, instead of working on a planet.

  Rinja is a landscape design professional who directs planetary renovation projects. She’s also a specialist in evaluating how well the repaired and upgraded landscapes are meeting expectations.

  I think Liveta and Rinja are very much like Jaal and even me. Jaal is an expert at organizing her work so she can smoothly take advantage of universal energies, instead of using her own muscle power to complete any landscape project. I am not as creative and dedicated to my work as Jaal, but I like to think I’ve passed along the perseverance and adaptability learned during my early hardscrabble temporary jobs. Some of those jobs were more successful than others, but that’s how life goes. I am happy working in the Round Woods now.

  I’ve often told Liveta and Rinja about the difficult Earth years Jaal and I spent working on the dinosaur project, and that I later spent in the Garden of Eden. We only succeeded at our work because our gnome groups could harness the energies of the universe to complete all of our projects. They roll their eyes a bit at hearing about Earth so much, but I think they will eventually treasure those long-ago stories. After all, those stories are now legends, and still famous to this very day.