Prologue — The Book I Didn’t Plan to Write

I thought the science was finished. It wasn’t. This book begins where mechanism ends and a deeper pattern refuses to stay silent.

Why This Book Could Not Be Avoided

I did not plan to write a second book after From Volcanoes to Vitality.

That book was meant to be the work. It traced a single arc, from volcanic rock to living systems, from mineral chemistry to biological coordination, from the agricultural and hydrological, and to all of their impacts on human health. For the first time in my career as a writer, I brought forth what I believed will have major positive impacts in the health of all living things. A grandiose statement, I know. It documented how a volcanic mineral extract, developed by a Japanese scientist named Asao Shimanishi, forced me to rethink what water does, how energy moves through biology, and why modern life feels increasingly disordered across multiple biological systems like soil, agriculture, water, and human health.

I believed that story was complete. It was not. This book exists because the act of writing the first one revealed that something deeper had been touched, but not yet named.

Th…