Category Archives: Daily-Ink

The energy of the sun

I’m sitting in the morning sun, feeling the rays warm my shoulders and back. I love this feeling. It’s not so hot that I feel I need suntan location, and yet it’s warm enough to bring the heat to my attention.

While energy can’t be created or destroyed, we know it can be transformed from one form to another. The rays of the sun initiate the process of photosynthesis, which creates sugars and gives us the mass of trees. What an amazing thing! But going further, when we say that energy can’t be destroyed, it certainly can be tapped and taken advantage of. There is an incredible abundance of energy in our world. While in a closed system the amount of energy stays constant, we do not live in a closed system.

We live about 150 million kilometres away from our sun, a blazing ball of energy that constantly sends a massive amount of energy our way. It actually sends that energy out in every direction and we get in the way of a infinitesimally small amount of it as the earth sits within gravitational equilibrium of this glowing fireball of power.

It is the earth’s battery, and it is the ultimate provider of light, energy, and life. We’ve only just begun to understand how to tap this power, and one day we will learn to store it in such a way that energy will be almost completely free. How different will our world be then?

On a small yet very significant scale, the poor will have light without kerosene, and formerly forested areas in places that now have scarcely enough wood could be allowed to grow again, without the needy scrounging for firewood. On a large scale, industry could pollute far less with the lack of need of fossil fuels to run machinery.

Imagine a world where energy is literally created out of thin air? Tapped from the power of our sun, and shared wherever needed. It would be a very different world!

My Monkey Brain

I understand that meditation isn’t about emptying my mind, that it’s about bringing my attention back to the present and what I’m doing, such as focus on my breathing. But sometimes my monkey brain just can’t stop. It’s like I’m chasing my own tail, going in circles and wondering why it’s always out of reach?

I go through a few minutes at a time where I can’t focus on my breath for two breaths without my mind bouncing around and being distracted.

Not. Even. Two. Breaths.

It’s like a bad dream where my goal is always just beyond my reach. I know where I want to go, I just can’t get there.

I think I need some tips. I’m open to suggestions.

Time with friends

We are camping with friends.

Weather doesn’t matter. It has been raining for 2 days. So what!

Time with family and friends is wonderful. It shouldn’t take a camping trip to come to this realization. Tell your loved ones you love them. Tell your friends how much you value them.

Don’t take the people you value the most for granted.

Limited shared reality

Have you ever thought of your bandwidth of sensory observation?

We can’t hear a dog whistle, but the sound is still there when someone blows one. We can’t see ultraviolet light. Our fingers can detect the location of a touch that are backs can not. Some people love cilantro while others think it tastes like soap. Dogs and other animals can smell things we can’t. Some of us see colours that others can not.

We are all, in our own way, like radio receivers, who can hear certain stations and not others. As we get older, our bandwidth decreases in what we are able to hear. But in keeping with the metaphor, that doesn’t mean the radio stations aren’t still playing.

We have limiting and limited senses with which to observe our world. We are only capable of witnessing and observing a narrow set of frequencies, because our receivers are limited… and imperfect.

Even within the scope of what we can mutually observe our shared reality isn’t fully shared. We see, hear, feel, taste, and smell things differently. Our cultures and upbringing influence this as well… some cultures can’t see/distinguish certain colours, some can’t pronounce certain sounds, some have vastly different tastes.

Our shared reality isn’t always as shared as we think. This invites conflict and miss understanding. It also invites the joy of seeing things from another perspective, and learning to appreciate our, and other’s, understanding of our world.

Let’s help each other expand our views of our shared reality. Let’s celebrate the difference and find joy in creating mutually appreciated, shared events.

Vitamin D could save your life

Let me start by saying I’m not a medical doctor and I don’t play one on the internet.

Now that’s out of the way, I’ve already touted the value of Vitamin D last September, and I’m here to do it again. Watch this clip of Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the Joe Rogan podcast: (full podcast here)


TLDR (Or actually Too Long Didn’t watch): Vitamin D has very significant correlation with reduced respiratory infections.

Will Vitamin D reduce your chance of getting Covid-19? Maybe. Jury is out, and while it may help prevent it, it is in no way a vaccine or a cure.

Will Vitamin D help reduce the consequences of Covid-19 after contracting it? Very likely!

Very likely!!!

Take your Vitamin D. Share the video clip above widely.

Wind in the canopy

The next time you are out among a cathedral of trees look up at the canopy above you. Watch how the wind moves among the tall trees, pushing on some while others stay still. Height, girth, distribution of branches, and location relevant to other trees, all factor into how the wind plays with them and how they sway.

It’s hypnotic.

Morning Jog

I’ve never been a fan of running. My running joke is that the only reason to run is that the there is someone chasing me… and he’s bigger than me, and angry at me. I’ll run on a treadmill, but only when I’m preoccupied with watching a show or listening to a book or a podcast.

That said, I really enjoyed my run this morning, twice around Alice Lake. I understand the appeal of running, it just hasn’t been something I really enjoy doing. Yesterday I went for a ride, and it was a challenging 10km but I could have easily done another 10km, and I hadn’t even taken water with me.

But this morning I did two laps of the lake and while it wasn’t long or hard, I would have really had to push myself to do a third lap. I’m not a runner, unless you are chasing me, angry, and want to harm me. Could I have kept going? Yes, I just didn’t want to.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy my morning jog. That just means that running is not my favourite thing. Could I run faster? Yes, but I won’t. Could I go longer? Yes, but I won’t?

Will I complain about having to run because my options while camping are limited? No. I absolutely enjoyed my morning jog, and I’ll make the most of it next time too.

Lessons from nature

Took a bike ride today on a trail near Squamish and passed this massive rock that sheered of an adjacent rock face. Three trees have grown around it, adapting to the shape of the rock. It almost looks like they are there supporting the rock from falling over, like massive pillars burdened by the weight of the rock.

That’s not the case. The rock was probably there long before the trees, and they have grown around the stationary rock. They adapted to the presence of the rock.

In the coming weeks, schools will need to make some major adaptations to the structures put in place due to Covid-19. Some of these changes will be challenging. Unlike the giant, unmovable rock, the parameters of the response will be fluid and changing. Similar to the rock, what we are going to be facing will be long-lasting. This school year will be one where outbreaks determine responses and communities will be impacted.

Covid-19 will be the immovable rock, and we will need to respond organically.

Bajan Sun

I grew up in Barbados and loved spending time in the sun. Summers would be spent at the beach, arriving on the sand after breakfast, and often staying until late afternoon. The beach was only a 5 minute walk from our apartment on the second level of a two-story quadplex, and sometimes we’d walk home for lunch, but usually we’d bring a lunch or buy something on the beach.

I’d get so dark that my bathing suit tan line looked like it divided two completely different people. The amazing thing is, I never used sun tan lotion. That was stuff the tourists used. And we saw a lot of burned tourists.

My grandparents lived in a big house on our street and they owned a motel at the end of the street, about 25 meters from our apartment. I can remember my granny’s institutions to newcomers, in her Bajan accent.

“Listen ta me. I got two important things ta tell you. First, don’ go in the sun between 10 and 2 for your first few days… and watch out for the Bajan rum!”

Like clockwork there would be a couple that ignored her warning about every 2-3 weeks. It usually went like this: The first night I’d be woken up late by a taxi dropping a couple off. The husband would be slurring and generally being an ass, drunk on our strong rum. And his apologetic wife would be unsuccessfully trying to corral him into their room while trying to keep him quiet and not wake anyone up. Or they’d both be drunk and making a ruckus.

Next, I’d see them visiting my grandparents the following evening, either just the husband or both of them, red as lobsters, arms outstretched, and asking what to do about the sunburn pain? Basically, being hung over, they would decide to just go to the beach, ignore my granny’s advice and sleep in the sun during that blazing hot time between 10am and 2pm. My granny’s advice was always the same: vinegar. Keep it in the fridge, put it on a soft cloth and dab the burn. She used to give the vinegar out for free, or at least with the cost of an ‘I told you so’ lecture.

I can no longer sit in the sun for endless hours without sun tan lotion. I don’t know if it’s a difference in the sun or my soft Canadian skin, but I can’t handle the sun like I did as a kid. I hate suntan location though, to me it feels like a film of dirt being added to my skin. So I still don’t use it much. Instead of using it, when I go to the beach, I sit in the morning sun, enjoy the feel of soaking in some natural vitamin D, then seek shade after that. I listen to my body and it tells me when I’ve had enough. Sometimes the sun is unavoidable beyond that and yes, on those days I still use sun tan lotion, but mostly I am just cautious about how much sun I get. I still tan well, but it has been decades since I’ve had that stark tan line just above my bathing suit.

Growing up on an island I saw many raw, burned tourists. I saw t-shirt lines so dark, I thought their white bodies were shirts with chest hair. I saw skin peeling off their arms and backs. I saw Santa coloured cheeks, and Rudolph coloured noses during every month of the year. And I heard my granny’s warning over and over again to newcomers, to watch out for the Bajan sun and rum!

It’s seeping in

Last night I had a dream and while I don’t remember all of it, I do remember that social distancing played a part in what was happening. Having to keep my distance from others was hindering the task I was trying to do. This is the first time that I can recall the pandemic seeping into my dreams.

I wonder how this is affecting our psyche? What impact is it having on people who already felt isolated? How is it adding stress to our family dynamics and our jobs?

I don’t know why, but a short (pretty insignificant) scene that I witnessed weeks ago keeps replaying in my mind as sort of a ‘statement of impact’ of the pandemic. I was in my car at the closest traffic light intersection to my home, and I was the first car stopped at the light. On the far left curb a dad and his young daughter on bicycles rode up on the sidewalk to the intersection. The 3 or 4 year old girl got off her bike to press the crosswalk button. She put her bike down, went to the button and raised her elbow to press it.

That’s the whole scene which keeps replaying in my mind. That simple motion of a little kid pressing a button with her elbow rather than her finger. It somehow defines the pandemic response for me. Things have changed. We will do things differently in response to Covid-19 for years to come. Young kids won’t know how this has impacted them because they will just grow up doing things that are culturally ‘normal’, even if the behaviours were not normal just 6 months ago.

I lived in China for a couple years just after H1N1. It wasn’t pervasive, but some people would wear masks in public. It became something that was just part of the public landscape. We will see that here, for a long time coming.

Automatic doors are going to be everywhere. Voice operated elevators will ask us what floor we are going to. Hand sanitizer will greet us in shop and restaurant entrances. Lineups will be spaced out, and social distancing social etiquette will be ingrained into our behaviour.

For many of us this is an adjustment. But for young kids, dreams involving social distancing will always have been there, and pressing buttons with elbows is just what has always been done. For us we see these things seeping into our dreams and habits. For young kids it is already the norm.