The Great Healing
Five Compassions That Can Save Our WorlD
More and more of us are realizing that we are facing humanity’s greatest challenge. Global warming now, during our lifetime, threatens to bring about the end of our Anthropocene Epoch — of us and virtually every multicellular life form. Today as you read this over one million species of plants and animals are facing extinction.
Stephen Erickson introduces you to exquisite creatures, human and non-human. The challenges they face reveal the immensity of the threat facing each one of us — and its urgency. Their stories also reveal the path to a solution through Five Compassions, which are the topics of each chapter: Compassion for Animals, for Self, for the Land, for Community, and for Democracy.
These exquisite creatures are an emotional invitation, a way in to easily grasp our situation. Living in different regions across America, their stories each call out a unique and significant problem. Yet they are all related — well related — to our Arch-Villain. Most of us don’t realize who our Arch-Villain is — the main cause of our predicament. We all need to. We can’t win this fight, we can’t survive, without a clear, widely acknowledged understanding of who our Arch-Villain is.
Our climate Arch Villain is Big Ag. Big Agriculture’s behemoth dark twins, industrial agriculture and factory farming, contribute as much as 57% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Big Ag is far and away the main cause of global warming.
We have only one existing solution to significantly drawdown atmospheric carbon: regenerative agriculture. Big Ag is especially pernicious as industrial agriculture kills healthy soil and its microbiome and as a consequence ends soil’s ability to sequester carbon. Industrial agriculture is the polar opposite of regenerative agriculture: it turns healthy carbon sequestering soil into lifeless carbon releasing dirt.
The path to achieving regenerative agriculture at necessary scale is through the Five Compassions. Inspired compassionate activism can create The Great Healing: the healing of our planet, the halting of the ongoing sixth great extinction, and the preservation of as many species and living creatures in our biosphere as possible.
More than a “call-to-action” book, this is a book with a plan. Stephen has succeeded in making scientific, multifaceted ideas understandable, even interesting. For readers interested in a deeper dive, this book is encyclopedic in that each of its 930 end notes contains a link to the source material.
This is a “save-the-planet” book with an important role for each one of us.
Philosopher Joanna Macy realizes in World as Lover, World as Self, “We are now at a point unlike any other in our story. Perhaps we have, in some way, chosen to be here at this culminating chapter or turning point. We have opted to be alive when the stakes are high to test everything we have ever learned about interconnectedness and courage — to test it now when it could be the end of conscious life on this beautiful water planet hanging like a jewel in space.
“In primal societies rites of passage are held for adolescents, because it is then that the fact of personal death or mortality is integrated into the personality. The individual goes through the prescribed ordeal of the initiation rite in order to integrate that knowledge, so that he or she can assume the rights and responsibilities of adulthood. That is what we are doing right now on the collective level in this planet-time. We are confronting and integrating into our awareness our mortality as a species. We must do that so that we can wake up and assume the rights and responsibilities of planetary adulthood.”
There is a reason you were born here in human form at this very special time. You matter. You. You have the power to help create the future you want to see — and to save our planet. Join us in what will become the most important cause of all of humanity’s endeavors to date.
Find your voice. Rise.
You have the power. More than you realize. You’ll see.
And for now — just for now — we have the time.
“ “I would love to have your voice on Thrive’s media platform.” ”
Visit ThriveGlobal.com as I adapt and serialize Chapter 2, Compassion For Self. Click here to go to Part 1. It’s a good read. Promise.
““The ambitious book’s five chapters highlight compassionate approaches toward animals, self, the land, community, and democracy. Erickson’s writing displays passion, clarity, and a grasp of every topic he tackles.” ”
““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 for community, college, and university library Contemporary Social Issues collections in general, and Climate Change Environmental supplemental studies curriculums in particular. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, environmental activists, governmental policy makers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that ‘The Great Healing’ is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).””
““A comprehensive entreaty to save a rapidly dying Earth with compassionate activism… Emotional descriptions (often illustrated by vivid photos) of animal cruelty, oceanic dead zones, and Farm Bill subsidies for ‘Big Ag’ elicit compassion, outrage, and shame. Erickson takes care to balance his concerns with suggestions for solutions… This alarming but not alarmist work provides purposeful, accessible, and concrete ways to counter and prevent ecological damage.””
Ice cap at Nordaustlandet, Norway, August 7, 2014. The waterfalls cascading 700 feet into the Atlantic Ocean are Arctic ice meltwater. ©Paul Nicklen
endorsements
““Everyone with an interest in Agriculture (that is any person that consumes food) MUST READ ‘The Great Healing.’ This book will catapult the agriculture revolution of Modern Times.””
““I wanted to know more about this forward-looking, insightful, and highly inspirational work. Gladly, Erickson was able to answer a few questions about his landmark book.””
““I’ve been aware for some time of what the world has in store if we don’t band together and give to our earth and animals the nutrients and care they deserve. However, The Great Healing prompted me into action in a way I never expected. It has truly changed my life. I’m a chef and how I eat, what I buy to prepare for my family and others, how I even look at my backyard with visions of ways to rejuvenate my own soil and create a small farm, fills my mind daily. This is a life-altering read. I’m not one to proselytize, but after reading The Great Healing I’ll take to the streets and spread the word. Believe.””
““Big job, great contribution.””
““This is so good! You captured perfectly the majesty of Green Leaf - the farm, the neighborhood, the people. So evocative! I was magically transported to a place I frequent in my real life.””
““It all looks really good to me — even inspiring — all so important to cultural transformations we need to embrace in our common future.””
““This is critical for humanity.””
““I am happy and honored at the way you used my work here.””