The Great Healing

The meerkat lookout above is an exquisite creature. In German, he is called  Erdmännchen which means “Little Earth Man.” He is one reason I was compelled to write this book. Hazel, our photogenic triplewart sea devil is another. As are Sherneka Johnson and Sky Smith, Thomas Quicksilver, Brady Kluge, Lucinda Monarch, Earl “the Worm,” Marlon Foster, and Wendell Berry. As are you.

I am an author and an environmental and animal rights activist for over 30 years. I’ve been fortunate enough to make a living with my writing for my entire career, yet The Great Healing is my first manuscript. I have B.A. degrees from the University of California San Diego in both Visual Arts and Economics, along with a minor in Psychology to help me figure out why I did both. I received a M.F.A. in Film and Television from the graduate film school at UCLA.

At UCLA the MFA was a three year endeavor, but it took me six years. An advanced screenwriting class on the quarter system was ten weeks, during which time you could develop an original story idea into a feature screenplay first draft. You’d get comments and figure out how to improve it and all too soon, another quarter would begin. So I’d take a pair of first drafts and hit the road. I’d travel and find an interesting job somewhere for six to nine months and rewrite them, then return to UCLA to craft something new. I was twice awarded the department’s highest writing honor, but only one of those scripts was produced. I wrote and directed the feature film The Stonecutter.

While shepherding my own projects in development I found a way I could help advance the exceptional work of other filmmaker’s. As an entertainment executive, I originated and established one Home Entertainment label and then ran another, overseeing the licensing, development, marketing and worldwide release of nearly 400 programs onto broadcast, DVD and digital delivery platforms.

I did that while starting a family and fathering my three children. I helped raise them on this fascinating planet during a short window of time that may prove to have been the most magnificent years for human beings ever to be alive.

Global warming now, during our lifetime, threatens to bring about the end of our Anthropocene Epoch — and us along with it. Over one million species of plants and animals at this very moment are facing extinction. Things are going to get worse, much worse, and there’s no way we can avoid that. I wrote this book for all of us, but particularly for my children, for millennials, and for Generation Z — because you need to mobilize in a big way immediately, to protect what remains of your opportunity to one day raise your families in a stable society and an environment fairly similar to the one we now enjoy, as opposed to being trapped in a sweltering, ugly, calamity — humanity’s increasingly chaotic, stricken, and panicked exit from the global stage.

We are, each one of us, more than exquisite creatures — we are a special generation. This book will explain why. You have a choice. Compassionate awareness and activism — or not. Saving a habitable Earth — or not. The Great Healing cannot manifest without you, without impactful numbers of inspired compassionate activists. Join us in what will become the most important cause of all of humanity’s endeavors to date.

As a storyteller, I’ve tried my very best to be a good lookout, to engage your interest, to introduce you to exquisite creatures, and take you on an emotional journey — while alerting you to a dire threat, and revealing the path to our singular solution.

Important challenges are upon us. Rise.

-Stephen

Follow us at @TheGreatHealing on Twitter, on Instagram at thegreathealing, on Facebook at thegreathealing, or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/the-great-healing