Let There Be Light
The Base of The Pyramid
It occurred to me while writing this essay that you may be curious about the process.
Indeed, there ought to be a process. This seems to be how life works.
“Our culture leads us to forget this fact and makes the destructive suggestion that we can perfect life and then get it to stand still….But real life is a process, it has movement and depth.” - Stutz
I often to write to music, and this morning is no exception. I’m listening to L’appuntamento. The singular Ornella Vanoni.
I’ve listened to it so many times that I’m certain I could sing the entire thing phonetically, even though I don’t speak a lick of Italian. Tutto passa. See! Italian.
Try listening to the song on repeat, quietly, while you read this essay. I believe that great writing is a multi-medium affair. Try reading John McPhee, Craig Mod, M.E Rothwell, or J.K Rowling, and tell me that it isn’t downright musical. It’s symphonic.
If Nuvole bianche had words, it would sound like they write.
I’m drinking a double espresso, as I do every morning, at my local. What a joy to have a local. The coffee in question is from the only coffee region that, in my rather irrelevant estimation, is singular - the highlands of Ethiopia. Where it all started for us.
That’s todays process. Simple. Disciplined. A process.
I think we’ve done enough on apprenticeship for now. You know what I believe. You know my basic thesis around our current collective predicament and how we might begin to work our way out of it.
You know that I believe there ought to be a process to learning and that process starts with observation, evolves into deliberate practice, and then eventually - with enough time - becomes mastery. Tacit knowledge is what we’re after and there is only one way to get it. Reps. Reps in the field. The real world and all of its wonders, pain, and joy. It’s the only way to build the experience and confidence to be creative in real time. It’s a consistent cycle of discipline and…
“The truly successful person has the courage to work this cycle over and over again.” - Stutz
It’s a long ol’ road, and you won’t be fit for that road without a strong and healthy body.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I speak from experience here. I too have a framed diploma from the University of Suffering. High honours. Deans list. In the running for valedictorian of my graduating class. The whole deal.
I don’t mean to overstate my past suffering (someone has always suffered more) but I don’t want to discount it either because it changed me for the better. Life has put me on my back, as it has you. A not-so-subtle reminder that for all of our modern delusions, you and I are not in control.
“The Universe is highly intelligent and speaks to you in events. You cannot change or avoid unpleasant and unhappy - and often unforeseen - situations in life, you can only change your thinking to gain control of how to move through them. Your personal problems show you exactly what you need to work on.” - Stutz
We remain steadfast! We will not be deterred from combining our natural gifts with our early inclinations, in service of others.
And so today we’re going back to basics. To the thing that actually works. To the first step.
To the base of the pyramid.
“Let there be light…” - Genesis 1:3
TL;DR: We need principles. We’re inundated with beta that doesn’t work. It’s confusing. It’s unbearable. The base of the Life Force pyramid is our relationship to our physical body - and the principle can be distilled into a single page. Add a heaping dose of time, and victory is assured.
I. The First Principle (of all the principles)
The sing-song of nature is one of constant balance. Dynamic balance. The ebb of things, the flow of other things. Stimulus and response - forever.
“…the cycle is ceaseless….Instinct, action, consequence, instinct, action, consequence - the universe never quits.” - Stutz
And this - this bigness - happens without any obvious guiding hand. This is the Stutzian idea of ‘Higher Forces,’ - as present in the natural traditions as in the church, synagogue, or mosque.
“We are only a tiny part of an infinite universe. On our own we can do nothing. But, in a silent miracle, the universe puts its energies at the service of human evolution…If we don’t recognize the presence of higher forces, they can’t help us.” - Stutz
Although we’re hell bent on denying it, we are an active player in the great game. Looking for tracks on the surface of the modern savannah. In a drama that we don’t write, direct, or produce. We are ebbing, flowing, stimulating, and responding like everything else.
And so it should be of no surprise to us that our physical body is also constantly trying to find balance. Homeostasis. With enough miles on our meat vehicle we realize that well-being in the modern world is about subtraction, not addition. Health is the default state if we allow it to be so. Creating the conditions necessary for health to bring itself about - which it knows exactly how to do given the right circumstances.
Dr. Jack Kruse led me to the principle that blew my hair back, and he seems to have, at the foot of the statue of David, stumbled upon a story of true consequence. Art often induces epiphany, and epiphany often unveils a great story. This was the perfect place for this one to begin.
The principle is this: Our bodies are always sensing our environment, trying to figure out when and where we are.
When are we in time?
Where are we in space?
That’s how our body knows how to be in the world. Stimulus and response.
The tropics - southern-hemispherical dreams of sun, sand, and salt - are a far cry from late October in middle-New-England.
The fundamental driver of the when and where equation, and thus all metabolic health, is light.
II. Let There be Light
To many of you, the video above may sound extreme. Perhaps you scoffed. Audibly scoffed. You may be thinking this is unscientific voodoo. Where is the double-blind placebo test?! - You ask with rage. Perhaps we’re victims of our cultural baggage. Of short-termism. Nothing could be so practical. Let our ego rest for even a moment and we begin to see the sophistication.
If our body doesn’t know when and where we are, we’re out of balance. The opposite of order is disorder. What is disorder in the body? Inflammation. Metabolic unwellness. We are chronically inflamed. We’re the fire people at this point.
Say what you will about our scientific sophistication - our dearth of experts in every siloed category imaginable, and the countless billions we spend on chronic disease - we’re the sickest people on earth. The paradox should not be lost on any of us.
Ironically, in 2014, in Alberto’s home region of the world, my body suddenly went into chaos. Into disorder. Into inflammation. If you’re the rambling sort and you’ve been around the block once, twice, or thrice, you likely know the feeling.
I still don’t know exactly what happened but I found myself on a bus, alone, in the Piura Region of Peru, North-bound to where I was stationed in Guayaquil, Ecuador, with serious pain in my chest and a feeling of deep unwellness.
I had a friend in the city who knew the local hospital scene, and I rung him that I was coming to get checked out. He took me in - I saw the nurses and some doctors who gave me great care. I don’t know what they did because I don’t speak Spanish but I trusted them and, I can assume, they did right by me.
The ironic thing about this particular hospital, in this particular South American nation, was there was no one in it. Acute illness in these regions can be very serious - infections, parasites, all that. But at the time, chronic disease appeared to be nowhere in sight, or only just recently on the rise. Contrast that with out modern North American healthcare predicament and you start to wonder what all this specialization and expertise has bought us.
When I suddenly spiraled into metabolic madness, again, in the winter of 2020, I went looking for principles that would allow me to restore the balance. The body is a healing machine. Clearly, a modern fool, I had missed something essential about the earth, my body, my relationship to it, and what it wants.
There was a process - a long process. Time passed. I’m only now starting to feel wonderful and that’s because I had missed something fundamental that Jack Kruse, Alexis Cowan, Case Bradford, Sara Pugh, Andra Sitoianu, and Cameron Borg are unveiling to us now.
The first intervention my doctors tried was medication, naturally. Lots of medication. Medication administered under harsh blue light, with the windows closed, and a cloth mask over my face. [PAUSE FOR EFFECT]. The classic hospital cocktail in the West - so completely removed from any chance at real metabolic health. Devoid of anything that would actually restore my health.
PSA: I did need medicine in the acute uh-oh phase - I’d be a fool not to see it - but chronic medication was the exact opposite of what I would need to be chronically well. We’re the masters of acute illness and we lead the world in chronic disease. That’s quite a pickle.
Next, I tried adding supplements, to basically no avail. This is not surprising at all to me now, and if you’d like to learn more about why, DM me. “If you’re designed to make it, you’re not designed to take it,” is a good rule of thumb and the list of supplements worth taking is short.
Finally, inching closer and closer to my light filled fate, I tried food. I had always been fairly tuned in to my nutrition. That’s a journey that took a long time - and it didn’t start in earnest until 24 years old. Maybe even later. I had come along way from my youth - growing up as a 90s kid in North-America is akin to being raised as a Subway sandwich.
Okay I was getting closer - but it’s still not working. Why? It used to, but it doesn’t anymore.
The answer, it seems clear to me now, is light. Specifically the light of the sun. The big burning ball in the sky that is responsible for photosynthesis, and thus all life on this earth, including you.
For us, at Earth’s distance, the sun is a life giver, not a life taker, and yet most of us in the modern technocratic world have devolved into screen demons who can’t stand in mid-day sun for a moment without becoming scarlet red. I used to be very much in this category - I was deeply atrophic and I’m only now starting to understand why. Our inability to absorb light is, apparently, causing havoc in our mitochondria.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this all works, and it’s implications. It’s an amazing journey.
Let me have a go at distilling it down to a few important principles.
I don’t know how disclaimers work - but it’s 2024 and I feel like I need one. If I was sick (I was) this is what I would do (I did). It’s not advice - it’s a note to self. Do with this what you will. Wellness is at your fingertips. I support you either way.
Sunrise
Let’s start at sunrise - in the beautiful dawn, when the world wakes up. The best time of day. Full of possibility.
When we watch the sunrise with our eyeballs, without any barriers to the light spectrum, our internal clock gets kicked into gear.
Why bare eyeballs? Because, in a fascinating turn of creation, our light factory is right behind the eyeball. That’s why the pupil is black and changes size in various light conditions. Big to find the light in low light - small to focus the light in full light. Melanin, Vitamin D, Leptin, POMC. DYOR.
Sunrise into the bare, beautiful pupil starts our internal processes of metabolic energy, and tells the rest of our solar panel (the skin) that it’s time to absorb light.
Full Spectrum Light
Middle of the day - full spectrum light - with some real power behind it.
The rule of thumb seems to be getting as much of this as we can without burning. You can build your solar callous in the spring, build up melanin over the summer, and carry it into winter when it seems to replace Vitamin D in it’s internal wellness efforts.
The UV spectrum, within reason, seems to be critical for health. No sunglasses. No sunscreen.
Why no sunglasses? We’ve already learned the eyeball is the light factory. If you wear sunglasses in full spectrum light you’re more likely to burn because your melanin factory hasn’t been kicked into gear. It seems like we literally make our skin atrophic if we wear sunglasses. You and I were designed as big, beautiful solar panels. How fascinating. How completely lovely.
Why no sunscreen? I can literally hear you flustering in real time. Be wary of false idols modern human. Science is updating itself all the time. That is, of course, the entire point. The epiphany for me was realizing that the entire dermal layer is a giant mouth. If you wouldn’t eat it, why would you put it on your skin? Ask a question, Prior. I opt for a light fishing shirt and a Tilley. It’s quite pleasant, and cool, actually.
Making your skin atrophic - if you’re unable to absorb light - seems to increase risk for all cause mortality - including melanoma. The mysterium tremendum.
Sunset
Sunset - the winding down (or gearing up) of all beings in the ocean, on the earth, under the earth, and in the air. We are a diurnal species, so in our case, we’re winding down. We want melatonin production to rise so we can sleep like rocks and heal over night. In our modern environment, this healing period is sacred. Without it, we’re hopelessly screwed. I’m as sorry about this as you are.
Infrared (and other notes on the red spectrum) in the light of sunset acts as a down-regulation cue. Wear blue light blocking glasses, change the bulbs in your home, and watch the sunset - you’ll sleep like a rock. Seriously, ask my wife, my nightly page count has really suffered.
A common refrain from folks is that this is all very hard, complicated, and overwhelming. My instinct is to empathize, but I’m tempted not to. The source of that temptation is the gravity of what’s at stake. We’re in a bad way. A real bad way. If we can muster the courage to make even small changes, our life begins to transform in front of our eyes.
As Dr. Sara Pugh might say in summary…
“See the sunrise, see the UVA, just go outside, block blue light, eat proper food, move, ground, distil, and remineralize your water, find a purpose, set goals, have sex, connect with the universe in your way… it all works if you do it.” - Dr. Sara Pugh
The other - not lesser - half of the when and where equation is latitude.
Join me at the 45th parallel!
III. The Northern Hemisphere Cheat Sheet
I told you we need principles. That the beta is unbearable and so we must break through! Anything that is confusing or expensive is likely deliberately so. You can distill true wellness into a single page.
This is my basic cheat sheet for the 45th parallel - I continue to experiment everyday. I’m in the struggle, just like you. Save this image, share it with your friends, slowly implement the changes that you believe (nay -that you know) you have to make. Give that gift to yourself, add a heaping dose of time, and victory is assured.
See you on the path. A path lit by a remarkable life giver - our sun.
Next time, cafe cultura. The essay I’ve always wanted to write. The gathering place.
“I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days.” - Henry David Thoreau
See you on the path.
-MG
I liked Ciro's images!