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Here’s what I’m hoping for: that you will help improve the distribution of the book I’ve been working on the past couple of years. Below I give you a description of it—From Egos to Eden: Our Heroic Journey to Keep Earth Livable. 

Finally, I’ve finished the manuscript of the book. It’s been edited. I’ve made changes. Lots of them. It’s been formatted and I’ve read through it looking for changes needed in the format. And off it goes to Ingramspark who will print two review copies. Then I will go through it yet again. David Wogahn will go through it too. His company, Authorimprints (just up the road in Carlsbad, California) does the work of formatting my manuscript, getting it publish-ready. He’s good, fair, and personable. A really fine colleague to an author who’s made the choice to publish independent from publishing houses (though he can help with that too).

While I wait for the review copies (my first moment to see the book between two covers), David has given me a most challenging “Questionnaire” to complete. It’s tough. I’ve been working on it the past few days. It forces me to understand my own book more deeply. It makes me think about who might especially like to know about this particular book, given the multitudes of volumes out there. 

The part of the “Questionnaire” that I’m sharing with you here is the description of the book in 4000 characters or less (a page or so). After completing that, the next assignment? Write a description of your book in one paragraph. And when that’s finished? You may have guessed it. Write a one sentence description of your book.

So here’s what I wrote for all three. I write it as a marketing piece, so I try to be an “outside set of eyes” describing the book. Tell me, please, what makes sense and what doesn’t. I’ll benefit from your comments below or by emailing me, lee@jubilee-economics.org.

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Here’s a marketing description about a page in length.

Why does so much human activity continue in the illusionary bubble where lifestyles and societies require the resources of more than one Earth? In his first book, Blinded by Progress, Lee Van Ham contributed to a deeper understanding of that question. This book takes us on the heroic journey to relocate outside of that illusion.

With a 1.5° Celsius temperature rise above pre-industrial levels now certain by 2026, we must immediately and massively scale-up many excellent ecological efforts in order to have any chance of avoiding 2° by mid-century. It requires we take a heroic journey on which our most challenging choices are met with new thinking, aroused imaginations, and a greater consciousness where we live out our truest human capacities.

From Egos to Eden guides us on this journey, moving from ego to Self, from civilization to Earth-size living, from smaller topographeis of consciousness to transforming ones. We metamorphose into our fuller capacities as humans—people eager to leave MultiEarth living and join Earth in co-creating OneEarth societies. The powers of our imagination help us crossover into a world in which we take our place with other species in Earth’s interdependent community of life—a OneEarth livable world.

The author reclaims Eden from a morality tale of human failure and returns it to the cutting edge it had when its creators told it in protest of the coercive, over-sized ways of empires. In their case it was the Babylonian Empire of the 6th century BCE; in our case, Eden turns its spotlight on the United States superpower, China’s rapidly emerging super-status, and the globalization driven by transnational corporations. All are revealed as flawed, MultiEarth models that need to unravel or be radically re-imagined to fit with nature’s demands.

Guides on this heroic journey include First Peoples who have resisted for millennia the Civilization Project of MultiEarth living; Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who gives a psychological-spiritual basis for believing we can be new humans; and David Korten whose map shows us five topographies of consciousness through which we can and must journey.

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Here’s the one-paragraph marketing description.

From Egos to Eden ably guides us on the major heroic journey our species must take in order to keep our planet from overheating more than 1.5° Celsius above preindustrial levels—a temperature thermometers will hit by 2026. The author gently, passionately describes how we can meet our most challenging choices on this journey with new thinking, aroused imaginations, and a consciousness that is Earth-size. Our truest human capacities are evoked on the journey as we move from ego to Self, from supersize civilization to Earth-size living, from lesser topographies of consciousness to transforming ones. We metamorphose into people eager to leave MultiEarth ways in favor of joining Earth in co-creating OneEarth societies. With imaginations and spiritual energies activated, the culmination of the journey is to crossover from dominating nature to become companions with all species in Earth’s interdependent community of life. It is through our interdependence that Earth can  continue to be livable.

*****

And here’s a marketing description in one sentence.

Earth’s crises now summon us to a most heroic journey, and From Egos to Eden is a companion that ably guides us to meet the crises with new OneEarth thinking, aroused imaginations, activated spirituality, and a shift into transforming consciousness where our truest capacities act to keep Earth livable.

*****

What changes do you recommend to get wider interest and distribution for this book?