We have, as a society, experienced wars, economic recessions, pandemics, and political upheaval throughout our history. It is easy to see that the cycles of these events that we are in now, could be seen as an inevitable repeating of history. Beneath the psychosocial and political-economic instability that we are surrounded by in this time, is a story of life on earth in freefall.

The biologic markers for planetary vitality, including quality measures in water, soil, air, biodiversity of flora and fauna, and ultimately human health are all demonstrating extreme biologic dysfunction and collapse. In just a few brief decades we have seen it all coming apart on a planet that has evolved over 4 billion years to support the extreme beauty that we can still glimpse amidst the scars of our consumptive and destructive behaviors. The sea turtles, dolphins, rays, and the ancient wisdom of the whales still surface in their glory to exhibit the raw beauty that is the fabric of the nature of the universe, and the sun still sets into the western horizon of an ocean filled with invisible plastic.

We will, in the coming decades, march into our well-deserved extinction, dragging with us millions of other species great and small into the energetic reservoir within the ethers of space, or we will change everything. If we want to stay, then we must become the change that has to happen in the world. That change is a fundamental shift in our perception of the origin of life. This course is a starting point for us.

Together we will examine the very elements of life on earth, we will challenge the common paradigm, the beliefs and narratives that have set us in opposition to these building blocks of life. We will seek to reintegrate our understanding of HUMAN in the context of LIFE on EARTH.