My Story

I Did Not Begin With a Movement. I Began by Paying Attention.

For most of my life, I have been listening to the Earth.

I have listened through the lens of a camera while waiting quietly for wildlife to emerge. I have listened beneath a sky filled with stars, watching the Milky Way rise over landscapes that were dark enough to reveal it. I have listened in gardens, forests, wetlands, mountain communities, coastal habitats, and in the changing rhythms of my own life.

Over time, all of those experiences began telling me the same thing.

Humanity has become separated from the natural systems that were meant to sustain us. We have moved away from living soil, nourishing food, clean water, true darkness, wildlife, community, stillness, and the deeper intelligence woven throughout creation. That separation is affecting our health, our emotional well-being, the stability of the Earth, and our understanding of who we are.

But I have also learned something far more hopeful.

What has been damaged can be restored.

That understanding became the foundation of my books, my photography, my workshops, my night-sky work, and what has grown into the 8th Day and New Earth movement.

The Earth Has Been My Teacher

Long before I began writing about restoration, I was a nature, wildlife, and night-sky photographer.

Photography taught me how to become still. It taught me to notice the details most people pass without seeing: the direction of light through a forest, the movement of an animal before it steps into view, the subtle change in the sky before a storm, and the extraordinary complexity of life within even a small piece of land.

For many years, I have photographed and taught others about the Milky Way, meteor showers, the Moon, solar and lunar eclipses, light painting, and DSLR astrophotography. My work has taken me into parks, natural landscapes, and some of the few remaining places where the night can still be experienced as it was meant to be.

The more time I spent beneath truly dark skies, the more clearly I understood that darkness is not an empty space.

The natural night is a living habitat.

Birds navigate by it. Pollinators depend upon it. Sea turtles, insects, amphibians, mammals, and countless other species organize their lives around ancient patterns of light and darkness. Human beings also need the night for healthy sleep, hormonal balance, perspective, wonder, and a sense of connection to something larger than ourselves.

Light pollution is not simply the loss of our ability to see the stars. It is the disruption of one of Earth’s oldest and most essential rhythms.

That is why night-sky restoration has become such an important part of my work.

Restoring the Earth includes restoring the night.

My Own Life Also Needed Restoration

My understanding of healing is not only environmental. It is personal.

There was a time when I was physically unwell and searching for a better way to live. That journey led me toward whole, plant-centered food and a deeper understanding of how strongly our health is connected to what grows from the Earth.

Changing the way I ate changed my health and eventually became part of a story shared through Forks Over Knives and the Food Revolution Network.

That experience showed me that our bodies are not separate from nature. The same depleted systems that damage soil, water, wildlife, and communities also affect human health. In the same way, the choices that restore the Earth often begin restoring us.

Fresh food, natural light, darkness at night, movement, clean water, meaningful work, time outdoors, strong community, and a sense of purpose are not luxuries. They are part of the environment in which human beings were created to thrive.

My personal transformation gave me more than information. It gave me lived knowledge of what can happen when we begin returning to what is natural, nourishing, and alive.

Learning to Live the Message

Eventually, I knew it was not enough for me to photograph restoration, write about it, or encourage it from a distance. I needed to explore what it could look like in everyday life.

This lead me to start an off-grid homestead in Georgia where solar energy, rainwater collection, gardening, food growing, wildlife habitat, and greater self-reliance are part of daily life.

It is not a place removed from the world. It is a living experiment in how we might participate in the world differently.

I have learned that restoration does not require a perfect property, enormous resources, or a complete escape from modern life. It can begin with one garden bed, one rain barrel, one native planting, one protected nesting area, one outdoor light changed or removed, one healthier meal, or one family learning how to grow something together.

The most important work often begins exactly where we are.

My practical gardening and sustainability work grew from this understanding. It is grounded not only in ideals, but in the real decisions involved in caring for land, conserving resources, growing food, protecting wildlife, preparing for storms, creating workable systems, and learning from both successes and mistakes.

The Birth of Caprice and the New Earth Vision

The Caprician trilogy became the place where all of these threads came together.

Through Journey to Caprice, 8th Day: A New Beginning, and 1,000 Years in the Garden, I began exploring what might happen if humanity stepped away from the noise long enough to remember what we had lost.

The books ask us to imagine restored forests, living oceans, healthy communities, protected animals, abundant gardens, clearer skies, and people who once again understand themselves as participants in creation rather than rulers standing above it.

But the books were never meant to remain only fiction.

The world of Caprice became a way of seeing possibilities that already exist within our reach. It became the foundation for practical books, workshops, presentations, conservation efforts, community gatherings, dark-sky education, and the larger 8th Day movement.

The New Earth I speak about is not a distant place we wait to enter. It begins through the choices we make now.

It is created every time soil is restored instead of depleted. Every time food is grown with life rather than poison. Every time an animal is protected. Every time unnecessary light is removed from the night. Every time a person chooses cooperation over division, stewardship over consumption, and healing over continued harm.

Why I Share This Work

The knowledge behind my work has not come from one field of study or a single chapter of my life.

It has been built through years of photography, observation, teaching, writing, conservation work, personal health transformation, gardening, off-grid living, creative exploration, and direct relationship with the natural world.

I understand restoration through multiple lenses because I have lived at the place where they meet.

Human health cannot be separated from soil health.

Wildlife protection cannot be separated from habitat.

Dark-sky restoration cannot be separated from the rhythms of life.

Food cannot be separated from water, energy, community, and the people who grow it.

Spiritual renewal cannot be separated from how we treat the living world around us.

My work carries the perspective of someone who has spent years looking closely, asking deeper questions, testing ideas in real life, and recognizing patterns that are too often divided into separate conversations.

The Earth is one living system. We are part of that system, and our future depends upon remembering how to live within it.

An Invitation to Begin

I do not believe humanity is powerless.

I believe we are standing at a turning point.

We can continue building systems that separate us from the Earth and from one another, or we can begin restoring what has been lost. We can learn to grow food, protect the night, conserve water, rebuild soil, create wildlife habitat, strengthen communities, and live with greater intention.

We do not have to accomplish everything at once.

We only have to begin.

My books, photography, workshops, presentations, and practical resources are all part of that invitation. They are different doorways into the same larger vision: a healthier humanity living on a restored and thriving Earth.

This is not about escaping the world.

It is about healing the piece of Earth right outside our door, remembering the life within us, and becoming active participants in the world that is waiting to emerge.