A mangy gray coyote sniffs the air, switching his black-tipped tail as he observes the unfolding of the evening. His nose seeks the scent of rabbit, but he’s not picky. He’ll eat almost anything, melons even, but he desires a more savory meal. Coyote has rested well, and tonight he’s king of the desert.

Fortuitously upwind, another creature boasting a black-tipped tail prepares to leave the safety of his grassy form. Since almost everything is his natural enemy, the black-tipped jack rabbit ventures out cautiously, looking up, down and sideways, playing it safe.

At the third and top point of this triangle (coyote and rabbit being the two bottom points) wanders yet another nocturnal being, the delicate western-banded gecko. Gecko spent the day sleeping under a stray log and has now emerged to search for food. She favors rodent burrows and the plethora of insects found within.

For a moment nothing seems to be moving. Nothing is heard, nothing is happening. And then suddenly, a spirited Sonoran symphony begins.

Coyote has caught a whiff of something interesting. He sees rabbit slinking along and the chase is on. Coyote’s spindly legs are fast, but rabbit too is speedy, particularly when terrified as he is now. Rabbit leaps high and long to the right; coyote creates a dust devil as he changes direction and continues in hot pursuit.

Rabbit runs flat out now, ears down and determined; coyote’s close behind and gaining. Gecko hears thunder in the desert floor. She scurries along on her slender toes in what she hopes is a direction away from disaster, but alas, she is too late. Just as she stands to survey the scene, rabbit’s reaching, pounding feet run roughshod over her tail detaching it from her brown-banded body, the impact hurling it somewhere off to the east behind a cactus, never to be seen again.

For the moment, we will leave coyote chasing rabbit and focus on gecko, now minus a tail. Gecko isn’t pleased at losing this body part. It’s a problem as her balance will be off and her fat storage area is gone. Fortunately, Coleonyx variegatus will grow a new tail. Gecko is one of the blessed of the creature kingdom. She’s a classic example of the divine process of Neogenesis: the regeneration of biological tissue.

While Homo sapiens can’t re-grow limbs as the gecko can re-grow a tail, Homo sapiens can do something even better. Our stunning elegance of design, our astonishing physical rhetoric permits us to better re-grow our entire body as we're so inclined. Within our embodiment of Neogenesis we can put a positive spin on our bodies and our lives that will allow us to enjoy a perfectly attainable state simply by making smart choices and working with what we’ve got.

On any given day, we have the opportunity to enhance the art with which we have been favored – our harmonics, our motif – features so amazing that were we to put a word to them that word would have to be “miraculous”.

I write from my perspective as a primary care doctor with thirty-five years of experience in the health care field. I write also from my vantage point as a consumer and as a patient in the health care system – which agenda, originally, made paramount the idea that healing is to take place. Not static maintenance, not avoidance, not decline. Healing.

I write for those whose maturity has given them power, whose experience has given them wisdom. I write for those who wish to take in hand what so often is taken out of their hands. I speak to frustrated persons who have recurring experiences of seeking help and then find themselves feeling empty, exhausted and sicker after coming out of the wash, rinse, and spin cycle comprising much of modern medicine.

I write based on a philosophy that living in the simplest physical sense is about our body changing along a time continuum axis. The direction of that change is along an aging curve. The general direction and configuration of that curve is defined by our genetics. The actual trajectory of the curve will determine length and quality of life. This resultant curve is undoubtedly influenced by the choices we make and the choices others make. It is most often difficult to impact the choices that others make. Hence, the biggest impact in our lives will depend upon the choices we make. Good choices will render better health outcomes that carry us farther along on the time axis. Bad choices shorten the curve along the time axis. Longevity follows good health like a shadow.

My book Neogenesis encourages the reader to obtain superior health, contentment, and longevity by making better choices. It is not about self sacrifice. It is about taking advantage of the wonderful health opportunity we have been given by virtue of our magnificent design dynamics. I have termed these growing and healing dynamics Neogenesis.

This work will unveil in simple terms the very complex health challenges that have come upon us all too quickly. It will focus on an obvious health profile change that has occurred and define its roots. Its representation is an epidemic not of an infectious nature or resultant from some external forces, but one of our own making. These threats are more subtle, insidious, and much more powerful in nature. With their exertion they endanger our species, all life forms on this planet, and even the planet itself.

Neogenesis is an empowering book. It’s a solution-oriented primer offering the tools with which to make better choices, to more quickly find and apply that which is sought. It’s a non-malicious, egalitarian, truthful roadmap of the path best followed as viewed from my perspective. It offers insights into the current conditions, into the usual impediments and the absolving vehicles that are part of our ongoing journey. It will explore interventions past, present and future in an effort to allow you to effectively find the solutions best suited to the quest for a functional and sane state of health throughout your life.

Neogenesis is not an itemized reference guide to provide you with specific advice. It is intended to encourage you to understand the significance of choices as they apply to good health. It is intentionally formatted to help you think within the framework of seven categories of relevant strategies. Given that understanding, only you can make the specific choices that fit your life’s needs within those dynamic concepts which are: mental mastery, excellent nutrition, optimal fitness, non-toxic living, bioenergetics, hygiene, and trap avoidance.

Neogenesis will emphasize that of all of your blessings, your brain is your most precious gift. I will encourage you to recognize that gift, understand its vulnerability, protect it well, and use it for the benefit of all those you love to meet the challenges of your ever changing, now increasingly toxic world.

The work is inspired by a series of dreams I had about four years ago. The sequence of dreams were vivid and comforting. The scene was the same, all three times. It was a glowing diner along the darkened highway of my subconscious. Each time the dreams would begin as the diner’s door would magically open, inviting me into this peacefully comfortable place. Each time the colorful interior was identical. There was only one seat at the counter. It was my seat and I knew it. The only person in the diner stood tall behind the counter holding a menu open to me. I perceived the erect individual to be friendly, but that person was motionless, speechless, and the face was blurred.

The folded-out menu was in brilliant color on the left side as it described the #1 Pie. The #2 Pie was on the right side described in black and white.

Immediately after awaking from the first dream, I rushed into the kitchen to record my dream, so inspiring it was. Impressed with the beauty and peace of this dream, I yearned to know its significance and who the mystery person was. It would take me two more visits to figure it out. In the epiphany, I realized that in my quest to seek the answers to some troubling personal questions, I was directed to this cartoon-friendly place of peace buried deeply in one’s mind. I named this place the Soul's Food Diner.