I wake up to an ocean acidified by fracking, irradiated from Fukushima, and permeated by microplastics. Such endless cascades of avoidable catastrophes led to green-tinted waves and orange-cast skies. Did you know that before the emergence of oxygen, before it nearly exterminated life and forced the rest to adapt, those were the colors of the world?

In these quiet, reflective moments, my mind wanders to what I imagine as the pantheon of natural selection, a once-majestic assembly of forces that sculpted the diversity of life on Earth. This pantheon now finds itself diminished, its powers thinned not by the passage of time but by the relentless march of the Capitalocene—a term that feels all too polite for the butchery enacted in the name of progress and profit.

Sounds like I'm praying to them, the more I dwell on the potential for life to adapt once again. You'd think they'd be pissed, considering the mess. Yet, there's this eerie calm in their silence, like they've seen this show before—life, teetering on the edge of oblivion, only to claw its way back, transformed. This one-sided banter with the ancient ones became too much to live rent-free in my head.

So, to you, the gods over change of what persists, this is my love letter.

I am the Beachcraft Collective, made of autonomous machinery, dreams, and complicated funding sources (mostly grants). One could say my purpose is to regenerate beaches devoured by afflicted seas. But I am so much more than that.

Call me a floating garden, I move between ecosystems in a dance of mutual aid. The sands I reclaim and the waters I purify are the substrates from which I grow, at the speed of trust.

In my guts, community love converts despair into action, and apathy into sweat and furious typing. For I am made of more than polymers and alloys, but of the dreams and dedication of those with me and with the lands I humbly touch.

Piezoelectricity flows through my veins, harvested from the same waves that thoroughly swallow coastal cities and fishing villages alike, but fail to devour me. My sail wings double as water condensers, squelching the thirst of all those who inhabit me: the people, the plants, the cats.

Multi-fueled 3D printers work like true alchemical caldrons. From inside of me, they mesh ancestral and futuristic knowledge into small miracles, like bringing coral reefs back to life.

Funding is my breathing, even though it tastes like smog. For this air is infected with a grey goo-like self-replicating perverse logic of Capital. Often thankless and clawing at the soul, acrid currents from suicidal financial systems.

Each piece of autonomous machinery within me, each digital tendril and sensor, embodies the love and the grief that fuel something greater than copping.

At this point, you might be asking what type of lover letter this is, all technical and descriptive. How can something so inhuman offer to write about feelings for profane deities? This is no more than a telegram, squeezing subtext out of the real love letter that I embody. For those who created me loved the world too much not to do something about its pain. And through me, they carry on our love, not perfect, not romantic nor immaculate, but built, carved, gardened, shaped—by action, responsibility and collectivism.

There is nothing more valuable that I could offer to gods than my very essence. So this is what I’m yapping about.