The Great Healing

Book excerpt: This is a "save-the-planet" book. More and more of us are realizing we are facing humanity's greatest challenge. Over the next two decades, the global warming climate crisis threatens to bring about the end of our Anthropocene Epoch - of us and virtually every multicellular life form. Stephen Erickson introduces you to exquisite creatures, human and non-human. The challenges they face reveal the immensity of the threat facing each of us - and its urgency. Widespread awareness is essential. Most of us don't realize who our Arch-Villain is - the main cause of our predicament. We all need to. And we can't win this fight without a clear understanding of the one solution we have. Key to achieving this solution rapidly and at necessary scale are Five Compassions: for Animals, for Self, for the Land, for Community, and for Democracy. Compassionate activism can create The Great Healing: the healing of our planet and the halting of the ongoing sixth great extinction. More than a "call-to-action" book, more than a book of compelling stories, this is a book with a plan. Four esteemed thought leaders have joined Stephen, contributing 3 new short essays, photos, and a poem: Wendell Berry (essayist, novelist, poet, farmer, national treasure), Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (author of 6 New York Times bestsellers including Eat to Live and The End of Diabetes), Alan Lewis (guides Food and Agriculture Policy for Natural Grocers), and investigative photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, whose images are as heartbreaking as they are beautiful.There is a reason you were born here in human form at this very special time. You matter. You are part of a special generation. You can create the future you want to see. Find your voice, use it. Join us in what will become the most important cause of all of humanity's endeavors to date. You have the power. More than you realize. You'll see."An exceptionally well and persuasively written clarion call to personal and collective action, The Great Healing - Five Compassions That Can Save Our World is unreservedly and urgently recommended." - Midwest Book Review