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Featured Sauna Tribe Documentary: Man and Fire (Part One)

“I don’t personally get caught up in the terminology argument because I think it usually just ends up being divisive. Traditional sauna is a very rich experience and most people are interested in hearing about it. But folks get turned off pretty quickly if all they hear is about how they are doing it all wrong and their sauna isn’t even sauna!”

In truth, I very much agree with her in that promoting health practices of all kinds is good, and sometimes it’s not worth quibbling over names. Whether or not infrared’s existence is worthwhile, or beneficial to health is an entirely separate question which deserves its own exploration.  But the use of the name sauna, as this post will show, becomes a rather complex issue for many reasons, including the claims made by infrared gurus:

“Sweat induced from an infrared heat source is comprised of 20 percent toxins whereas sweat induced from traditional heating systems is comprised of 3 percent toxins. This is why it’s accurate to say infrared is 7x more detoxifying than traditional heat.” -HigherDOSE Infrared Heat Spa, Manhattan

Such claims need to be scrutinized thoroughly. They choose their wording very carefully, but if you translate “traditional heating systems”, what they’re actually saying is “Finnish sauna is inferior to infrared sauna”. Because that is what they actually call it everywhere else. Sauna. So up front, one of my biggest concerns is that this muddies the waters as far as any scientific research goes, or even just helping people get what should be simple facts. It is a real potential problem when the average researcher wants to get to the truth. But for companies which may be trying to get away with dubious quotes like this, it’s somewhat more convenient, not to mention profitable. First of all, take all the research which applies to Finnish sauna, and claim it for yourself. Then say a bunch more on top, which makes your version superior. It would be a whole lot harder if you had to treat it as its own thing and sell it from the ground up.

But is infrared really so different from Finnish sauna? It is, and isn’t. Mostly “is”. First of all, the operating temperatures are different. 110-130F (40-50c) in infrared, vs the 160F/70c to 210F/100c of the “traditional” Finnish sauna. That right there is very different. Recent studies done on the cardiovascular effects of sauna are rather specific about the fact that these benefits were only seen with the higher temperatures. As far as the practice itself, the way the room is set up and more, there are countless differences. The only superficial similarities are that they are both typically rooms made of wood with a few higher benches, and they both heat your body to some degree.

The way they heat you is the most different thing of all, and one more claim is that infrared detoxifies you better because it penetrates more deeply, down to your deepest fat stores (and then somehow pulls heavy metals, pesticides and plastic residues up through the skin):

“It penetrates your body three-inches deep to pull toxins out of your fat cells, which is a big deal,” she said. “Normally when you sweat it’s a more superficial sweat. Not only that, but normally working out is one of the other big times people think they’re releasing toxins. But when your body is in ‘fight or flight,’ it actually doesn’t release toxins. It’s only when your body is in ‘rest and digest’ mode that it actually releases toxins. So that’s one of the key misconceptions about sweating and working out.”

As if that quote weren’t already nonsensical enough, to do this, they’d have to do what amounts to slow-cooking your inner organs, and there would need to be some mechanism that allows this to happen while somehow protecting the brain (brain damage from fever occurs at temps beginning around 42c/107F). Yes, infrared supposedly does penetrate a little bit deeper, but it is not 3 inches and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that infrared is “7 times more detoxifying”, but then, that’s an easy claim to make because there are no studies measuring how detoxifying Finnish sauna is in the first place, let alone comparing the two. At least none that I’ve found (and I’ve looked, because I’d love that sort of data).

What really bothers me most though, is that as of late, when I as a Finn, I try to talk to people about sauna, infrared comes up all. the. damn. time. And therefore, trying to have any real discussion that pertains specifically to what sauna has been for years, becomes almost a hopeless cause with some people.

An article by The Atlantic states the reasons for this rather clearly: “The infrared craze has recently grown from a mostly-just-Los Angeles trend to a New York City-and-everywhere-else trend, and it is a favorite of the Kardashians, various Real Housewives, Dr. Oz, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Chelsea Handler.”

It’s not hard to confirm that it is everywhere; If I do an online search for a sauna cabin in the interest of purchasing, not only do the infrared options outnumber everything else, they’re also unequivocally the most affordable, and designed with convenience in mind. There was even one which folds away in your bathroom! It fits perfectly with the image of America, a country of convenience, where many hang on the words of reality tv stars. But it doesn’t fit the Finnish spirit of sauna, our needs, or the word. The radical differences and superficial similarities, all told, make shopping a confusing experience, especially online. At one point, I found what appeared to be a very affordable sauna room I could install into my home. There was nothing special in the listing to help me identify that it was not a room where I could then install an electric stove. But it wasn’t, so there went my hopes.

I’ve seen many a Finnish person rant about pronunciation of the word as “sawna” and I myself poke fun at it from time to time, but honestly, that is not even remotely a real problem, whereas this is, one that even affects livelihoods. In such an age, all purveyors of traditional saunas and sauna equipment must be wondering what they could possibly do to compete with such a marketing machine, or, perhaps, whether they should attempt to compete with it at all. After all, it could be a fad which fades away in a few years like the other health fads before it which take the name sauna and market it to a bigger audience, and just about none of the Finnishness of the practice left intact. I’m looking at you, sauna suits.

The ritual and institution of Finnish sauna has been around for centuries, and it hasn’t been without its changes. We no longer spend entire days stoking a large fire to heat stones in a room full of smoke, just to enjoy our evening bath (well, most of us don’t, anyway). So, some would argue, the essence of the practice can remain intact even with infrared. I am not one of those people. Neither am I elitist, or afraid of change. And just because I come from a nation with more saunas than cars, it doesn’t mean we own the practice. People all over the world do it.

But. Finnish sauna popularized it, and now, indeed, people everywhere use the name and slap it on, well, whatever. Infrared “sauna” is not new. It was invented at the end of the 19th century. What is new is the marketing and application of the name. Whereas before, it was just called a “light bath” or “radiant-heat bath”. Well, I’m here to reclaim the word sauna. It’s important to my culture. Nobody goes around selling “sweat lodges”, partly because any native American person would be very protective of both the term and their practice. They’d be up in arms! Nobody goes around calling them “banyas”, because Russia is the longtime enemy of the west, and besides, it’s a cold war, not a hot one.

Perhaps the political climate is right to bring back the term Turkish bath? Why not “Infrared Turkish Bath”. It’s just as sensible!

More recently, I joined a community geared around a health regimen using sauna. That was in the title, so I thought “Ok, how neat!” Well, let’s just say I was surprised upon reading how specific some of the claims surrounding this regimen were, and then all the more so when its origins became apparent. It turns out a certain “L Ron” wrote a book long ago which they still use, for whatever reason, as the basis of their practice. Furthermore, most of them use… you guessed it. Infrared “sauna”. Again, I have no qualm with them using infrared, but you can see the confusion that it creates.

So no, it is not elitism. It is about several things: Scientific accuracy. Clarity in conversation and education. Preserving livelihoods, and protecting a cultural heritage. Maybe the ship has sailed. Would people actually listen if this made it into the news? Would they change the name of it? Doubtful. It’s too convenient for them to keep it. But I feel that it’s important for me to at least inform the public of why I feel the way I do, and now, on the eve of Finland’s 100th year of independence, is as good time as any. Sauna is practically holy to us, as Finns.

True Finnish sauna is still practiced around the world, and has real, proven benefits. It’s such a rich and beautiful thing, as even that woman said in the opening quote. It’s something I, and millions of others like myself have done all our lives, and which our parents, grandparents, and great great great grandparents did all their lives as well. Some of us were even born in one. And this is why, in the upcoming book Sauna Tribe, I go into great detail on the practice and its relation to our culture, and the development of the strength of will we know as sisu.

And so, you can learn about sauna from L Ron Hubbard and Kim Kardashian, or you can learn from the people who live it. Why is it so important to us? Come find out.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

More photographs follow below.

To be clear: I am hardly an axe expert or woodsman. What I am, is interested in learning about the best ways of chopping, preparing and storing wood for sauna as it slowly becomes more of a default lifestyle. I grew up with a dad who had been in the logging industry for years, and so much of my childhood was spent chopping and hauling wood from out in the boreal forests of Canada to our home for heating in the winter. Being more of a technology oriented kid, my interest was never really actively there until much later.

And so I’ve picked up the basics by now, like how to position the wood on the block so as not to chop yourself in the leg. Always nice. The trick is of course, to put it toward the rear. That way, if you miss, the axe blade goes into the stump and not you. Again, just basics. Somehow I managed as a kid, even without any real explanations (or maybe I was so ADD I just tuned it all out). Maybe some things are instinctual for a Finn. Still, learning it all on a logical level is a good idea, and better late than never I suppose.

A few years back I made my first real purchase, and by that I mean, up until then I’d just been using whatever we had laying around, some crappy old thing that might have even come with the house when we bought it. My new model was nothing fancy, just a standard 25 inch Do-It scandinavian forest axe, with something like a 1.75 lb head I suppose. And genuine hickory, at least. But it’s no Gransfors. Still, there’s no feeling like the ritual of chopping wood you’ve hauled from the forest yourself, with your own axe, for your own sauna.

It was a true eye-opener at the Gransfors production factory and museum in Bergsjö, getting to see all the many types of axes which have been used for equally as many purposes, from ancient times until today, and how the craft has been refined. What I show here barely scratches the surface, as I didn’t have the opportunity to get too in depth, and in fact it was all a bit overwhelming for an amateur like myself. At least, I got to appreciate both some fine craftsmanship from my own countrymen, and even a bit of odd humor.

With that, I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking from here.

If you haven’t already, check out the above video for the more complete tour, and a look at how they create their axes today! Much of it is still a handmade process, which is nice to know in this age where almost all manufacturing seems automated. Til next time.

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Today, I’ll tell you a little bit about these book projects, why I’ve been working on them and offer a preview as to what they might contain. The shortest explanation of both might be that they are explorations of who we are, the aspects of ourselves which are not always seen (the subconscious or hidden) and indeed, our deep well of potential as human beings.

In Phantom Channel, this is done in novel (and graphic novel) form – primarily being fiction. The protagonists, Renny Takala in Canada and Aurora in the United States, separately find their lives shattered in different ways, but in doing so, tap into deep forces they now strive to understand. Renny not only has an identity crisis, but he attracts calamity wherever he goes, not the best trait for a junior hockey player. He’s also known for his active imagination, culminating in a Near Death Experience he cannot convince anyone was actually real. Meanwhile, Aurora grows up with a very defined vision of her career path and life trajectory. To her horror, it takes only one event out of her control to completely unravel the threads of her imagined future, leading her to the world of storm chasing. With this comes something she never would have asked for. Can she learn to live with it?

Phantom Channel has gestated for nearly fifteen years in some form, because I felt that to create a believable and compelling story you first must live yourself and learn to see outside your own limited perspective. When it existed as “BRUTE”, it was a completely fictional sci-fi story in a completely fictional version of earth which I wanted to rival something Tolkien might do. Unfortunately, when I was honest with myself, I saw that the result was somewhat forced, difficult to follow and without enough of a soul. Worst of all perhaps, the main character was flat and cliched.

As I went back to the drawing board,  it became increasingly clear that I needed a story grounded in reality as much as possible, even if reality itself is sometimes subjective. I wanted the characters to be alive and relatable, even if the plot was rich in detail too. It’s a mystery story on a grand scale, and was always meant to be. So to make that enjoyable to follow (hopefully), my solution was to kill my misguided aspirations of being the next Tolkien, and settle for being me. Immerse the story in the places I grew up in, in the cultures I have known, with their completely real complexities and challenges. Such as the alienation sometimes caused by multiculturalism. Canadian, American, Native / First Nations and European cultures are all represented richly, and I felt the best way to do this was to set the first book primarily by the Great Lakes and border, where all of these cultures intersect (and sometimes, clash).

I would normally hesitate to draw comparisons, but here is a list of popular works which have been at least somewhat inspirational for developing the direction the story eventually moved toward: Stand By Me, Stranger Things, True Detective, Breaking Bad, Twin Peaks, perhaps even a touch of Dances With Wolves… but truth be told, it really is very different than all of those. Many lesser known films, books and even manga series have been just as inspirational. And life itself, even more so. Learning about myself and others and the wacky world we live in has been far stranger than fiction. And sometimes more beautiful.

Oh, I forgot the Kalevala. How could I? After all, it has always played a role in a sense, ever since the early drafts of BRUTE. Exploration of beliefs and religions as a whole, and the truths behind them have always been one of my interests as a storyteller. The Finnish people, long before Christianization, held a unique cosmology told and retold through runolauluja or runesongs, ultimately culminating in the Kalevala in the 1800s, our national epic. There is a vein of this which begins to reveal itself in book one of Phantom Channel, TROPOSPHERE. One could call it a modern reinterpretation of some of the aspects of these legends. Because it is Finland’s 100 year anniversary, it is only too fitting and I am pleased to be on track for publication to coincide with this landmark celebration.

Phantom Channel’s graphic novel adaptation, an in-development preview of which can be found in the header image of this post, will begin chapter releases coinciding with or shortly after release of the TROPOSPHERE paperback novel.

Sauna Tribe is just as interesting and unique, a snapshot if you will of the diversity of Finnish people around the world and this object we all unite around called the sauna. From the proud-to-be-on-the-cutting-edge of technological development mother country, to those on the front lines of some of the most challenging places on earth, to the descendants of immigrants around the Great Lakes who are a living snapshot of Finland’s past, each have their tales and memories of what it means to have grown up Finnish – both the joys and pains. Each also possesses their own inner instinct of why sauna is such a vital part of our spirit and “sisu” or determination. A significant portion of the book is both an instruction manual and a meditation on the sauna itself, conjuring up its magic and delving into the cutting edge of science behind its benefits, for spirit, body and mind. Unlike many sauna books which speak mainly of “rules”, Sauna Tribe explores both the diversity and the core of what makes the ritual so effective and vital for millions.

(Former working title: “SISU SAVED ME”)

So, now you know the reason for the radio silence; more will be broadcasted soon.

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Let’s assume that you know nothing about either the man and his films, or the original series which aired in 1990. What would you think after tuning in to the two-hour premiere of the latest incarnation? You’d most certainly be confused, and chances are only slightly smaller that you’d think it was a heaping pile of crap. Now let’s say that you did watch the original, enjoyed it, and were looking forward to more damn fine coffee and cherry pie with Dale Cooper and the gang. Again, you’d most certainly be confused, and chances are only slightly smaller that… well… you get the picture.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it? And yet, The Return has a 95% fresh metascore on Rotten Tomatoes, plenty of glowing reviews and plenty of fans old and new, grinning like idiots with each oddball scenario. They look forward to seeing where the next episode will take us, theorizing and debating endlessly on Reddit and Youtube. Where I live, a friend and I both watch on Mondays, as soon as it’s released in Europe. On Wednesdays, over coffee we laugh at the last episode’s most absurd moments, and then Fridays get together and watch it again with the rest of our usual circle, minus one, who (surprise, surprise) HATES it and refuses to watch. But overall, the evidence states that it’s a hit.

On its surface, the original Twin Peaks was a bit of a whodunnit, taking place in a small town in the northwest United States. The cozy aspects of the show, such as the quirky staff at the Sheriff’s Department, the giggling waitress at the RR Diner, the opening theme, and of course, the copious amounts of coffee, cherry pie and donuts all instilled within us feelings of nostalgia for the good ole days. At first, the non sequiturs and random moments only endeared it further to its viewers (“There’s a FIIISH… in the PERCOLATOR!”). Then they baffled and made them wholly uncomfortable in season two’s opener, drawing out a scene where a decrepit and senile waiter at the Great Northern hotel couldn’t figure out what to do as agent Cooper lay dying, so he gives him warm milk and several winks and “thumbs up” over the course of about five minutes. And finally, when (Laura Palmer’s) killer was at long last revealed, many found the surrounding revelations distasteful enough to jump ship entirely.

This is Twin Peaks, and the rest of Lynch’s oeuvre in a nutshell, though. He is an expert at showing us the surface of America, the idealized polished perfection which began rearing its head mid-twentieth century, as well as what lays beneath it. He’s a master of the uncomfortable. In the decades since his last notable works, though, many others have followed in his footsteps. Today these themes in and of themselves are nothing new, and it could be seen as a turnoff for yet another show to come along attempting to show us “the dark side”, even if it’s from the so-called master. Could it be that he has just become a parody of himself, just one of the crowd he helped to spawn? The thing is, even today, few (if any) are willing to go to the lengths David Lynch does.

Critics cry foul when, in The Return, women seem to be treated as nothing more than a sex object, prop for abuse, or nagging wife. The key word here is “seem”, as many more women are interesting and strong characters. Crime Scene Investigator Constance Talbot, FBI agent Tammy Preston, Margaret Lanterman, Shelly & Norma, and even Janey-E, just to name a few who have shown up six episodes into this belated third season. Could it be, that whatever cliches and/or over the top evils Lynch & Frost depict, are nonetheless truths as well, even today? Isn’t it possible that there is a worthwhile commentary happening here? We get a clue to that end toward the close of the sixth episode “Don’t Die”, when one of the male cops mocks Sheriff Truman’s wife Doris, who remains, for the second time in as many episodes, hysterical over perceived inattention from her husband. The truck and that leak STILL aren’t fixed!! Another officer in the room makes it clear that she is traumatized over the suicide of their war veteran son. The deeper we go, the more we realize that treatment of the characters by the writers is not quite so black and white as it first might have appeared.

If misogynistic leanings weren’t the most irritating aspect, then perhaps it’s all the weird and/or supernatural stuff which goes on, often at a mega-plodding pace. Our beloved quick thinking, cuppa-joe loving agent Cooper has now stood around for the better part of six episodes as the persona of vacant vegetable Dougie Jones, staring at random things and repeating what those around him say, while nobody seems too concerned for his well being. It’s like a parody of the perceived coldness of our society… or is it? Maybe it’s just me, but playing it as straight as Lynch and MacLachlan do here, invokes something very different than it might if it were played as pure comedy. It makes it hit a bit closer to home. I’ll admit it… it makes me uneasy. And I love it for doing so.

Then there’s the Red Room, a representation of the afterlife, which was amazing when it showed up the first time, still nifty when it showed up the second. By the fifth or eighth or whatever the case may be 27 years later, the novelty has worn off. But is it supposed to be only a novelty? I don’t think so. It has an important role in the story. And actually at its core, Twin Peaks is less about superficial “whodunnit” mysteries and more about the ones still hotly debated in our time: the supernatural and the possibility of its influence on “the real world”.

That’s more than some people will be comfortable with, particularly the way Lynch depicts it. Therein, I think, lies the real root of its love it or hate it nature. Leland Palmer (spoiler alert) did not kill Laura on his own, but as a result of the heavy influence of the demon Bob which had entered him at some point in his childhood. This is an absurd thought to individuals who value justice and personal responsibility as unshakable pillars of their worldview. Likewise, the idea that different realms exist just beyond this one and interact with it in abstract ways does not compute to people with very straightforward views of the laws governing reality.

Lynch’s vision eschews these ways of thinking and embraces exploration of other aspects of our reality to their furthest extents: Dreams, visions, eccentric behaviors, gruesome behaviors. He dwells on mood and feeling, and the hundreds of possibilities in a mundane moment, which is why so many of his filmed moments last so long. He asks you to consider the various things they might mean to you. Because it defies convention to such an extreme as it does, two camps will love this show: those who are able to appreciate such considerations, and even feast on them – and those who are able to laugh at how crazy life (and this show) really is. The “normal” among us can look elsewhere.

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Having dealt with loss in my family not all that long ago, the subject of the afterlife made its way back into my consciousness, forcing me to ask myself questions like: how much do I really believe in it? Am I just looking for ways to cope? And if there is an afterlife, would it really be anything like the traditional beliefs I grew up with? You know the ones… going to a wonderful city where the streets are paved with gold. Everyone joined together in song, forever worshiping. In my youth, the golden streets included golden railings and half pipe ramps my friends and I would ride our golden skateboards upon. Perhaps your own image of it is more like grassy rolling hills, sparkling springs of the purest water flowing like diamond, aromatic spring flowers and sycamore trees. Or maybe it’s nothing like that. Who’s to say we would even be in a form resembling humanity at all?

Well, a lot of people, that’s who. People who claim to have died and then returned in NDEs or “Near Death Experiences” often speak of details much like this. Meeting beings of light and love, in a form very much like our own. Not universally, but enough to raise an eyebrow. I haven’t ever explicitly had an NDE, though I can say that I’ve had enough unusual experiences in my life that when I was speaking to my mom on the phone a few years back and she mentioned the book Flight To Heaven, my interest was piqued. It had been a while since I read anything promising, and when she mentioned that it was a pilot who’d written his own account, I thought of the miniature obsession I’d had with Aircrash Investigation when I lived up in the Arctic Circle.

“I’ll have to order that on the internet”, I said. No, no, she insisted. She’d mail it to me since she’d read it from front to back two or three times. That good, eh? How could I pass that up? Once it arrived, as I remember, I tore through it in one afternoon.

At 187 pages, Flight To Heaven isn’t a long book, but then, it doesn’t need to be. The author, retired commercial airline pilot Captain Dale Black, gets straight to business in the first chapter. No fluffy background on his life or anything else prefaces the (physical) main event, and that’s good, because there’s a lot more to come in the aftermath of the crash itself and for the most part, the narrative remains focused. Minor spoilers follow, but I’ll try to keep them minimal. If you don’t want anything ruined, go buy Flight To Heaven now and read it for yourself before continuing.

Since Dale wrote his story, it’s obvious that he survived in the end (or came back to life, as the case may be) to share his supernatural tale of what happened directly following the crash, as well as during his recovery, which proves to be miraculous enough to confound the doctors. Dale’s account of the physical aspects of the crash are fairly visceral, but they soon begin to challenge the skeptic’s view of what is possible. Like many other NDE survivors, he claims to have found himself outside his body, viewing the action in the ER from above. His body slips into a coma, but “he” goes on a very different adventure.

This is about all the author tells us before the first teaser is over, and we learn a little about him. Before the crash, he’d been career oriented and an adventurous soul, looking to find his way in the world. Very practically and academically focused, he didn’t place much weight on spiritual things. All of that began to change during his recovery. His memory of the crash and everything after it is wiped. At first, he just had a sense that God had saved his life, and thus he began taking interest in the bible and church, and acting with faith in the healing of his body. Though the doctors insist, for example, that he will not regain any useful function in one eye, he chooses to run an odd experiment on himself forcing him to use only that eye, intent that he will see it healed fully.

In the meantime, he prays for his memory of what happened on the “other side” to be returned – It does. Over the course of the next few weeks, fragments return, first out of order, and then they all begin to fall into place. He recalls loading the plane, then his companion yelling as they try to pitch-correct the doomed craft. A bumpy ambulance ride. And then, things so wonderful and strange that they become more than just memories but permanently etched in his consciousness once they are recovered.

After being whisked off through the tunnel of light, Dale arrives: At the city of gold. It’s almost repellant at first, provoking a sort of world-worn knee-jerk reaction to something I perceive as too cheesy to be real. But in the telling, the author weaves details and flavors into his experience which strike me as too authentic to be made up. His recollections of the sights, colors, sounds and feelings have a quality to them which could be described as practically synesthesic. And although there is certainly a major religious theme to the events which unfold, they are told in a way that engage the mind, rather than coming off as tired fairytales.

Music is also a major theme of importance, as it seems that in this place, creation is always happening and it is musical on some level. Everyone is participating in one giant energy based orchestra, in harmony of purpose and simultaneously, complete creative flexibility. This struck me as a musician, and also since I’ve noticed that critics of Christian eschatology often complain that the idea of the sort of worshipful act alluded to here implies a certain loss of individualism. In truth, Dale’s account of heaven in the afterlife does not sound all that far removed from some humanist visions of what a paradise here on earth might be like.

Some of the author’s other comments also resonate with thoughts I’ve had on occasion.

“While in heaven, I somehow realized that knowledge is flawed and did not seem to be of great significance. Truth is what prevails and has supremacy in heaven. When I had questions or needed understanding it seemed to be imparted automatically and directly into my heart.”

I remember summer vacation in August of 2010, in the Norwegian mountains. I had taken a sauna several nights in a row, and one night, I grew very exhausted and my throat became raw. I went to bed, breaking out in a cold sweat and developing a high fever. I dreamed intensely. My brain was overheating… overclocking. Information and images suddenly flowed in with great speed. I was everywhere in the universe at once. I understood the mathematical formulas representing everything. I understood the meaning of everything. And then, just like that, it was gone. I woke up with only weak afterimages remaining. Was it just some slick trick of the brain? Or was it real? In any case, I could understand where Captain Dale Black was coming from when I read those lines. I only wished I could regain my wondrous memories as he did.

Thanks for the book, mom.

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You’ve probably heard all about how hormone levels fluctuate throughout the day, including both acute spikes and a general rollercoaster-like waxing and waning from morning to evening. For example, cortisol:

Hormone levels change depending on age, stress, disease and various different factors, including diet of course. So much so, that it is, quite rightfully, an area much studied. But some are beginning to vastly oversimplify our moods as being little more than cause-and-effect of having too much of this, or too little of that, and believe that through performing chemistry experiments on ourselves we can normalize mood and maximize everything from health to brain power.

This thinking extends to food quite often: To see what I mean, try this google search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+foods+increase+serotonin

Did you know our brainwaves do the same thing? Like hormones, they fluctuate throughout a day, but they tell us slightly different things. They tell us whether we’re anxious or relaxed, but also whether we are focused, whether our motor cortex is engaged, and all kinds of other handy tidbits. And unlike hormones, simple consumer devices already exist for showing this data to you and I, whenever we want. They’re at a rudimentary stage, but will continue to improve.

Brainwaves have potential to teach us so much, and yet are quite a nascent field of study. Word of their relevance and power is only just beginning to trickle down into the mainstream, as studies are done on monks etc, but in general, the problem with brainwaves has traditionally been that much like ghosts or radiation, we don’t usually have any reliable way of measuring that they are there and in what amounts. And so we treat them like they don’t exist at all, or are not relevant. We don’t think about them much. Not that the average person has a reliable way of measuring their serotonin, melatonin or testosterone levels either, but it comes up much more with doctors, and there is much more medical data available in this area. You can see how hormones and chemicals have entered the common consciousness, and the same will likely be true of brainwaves in the near future, and other expressions of invisible waves in various areas of science.

TRANSFORMING THE WAY WE THINK OF INVISIBLE FREQUENCIES

Frequencies are today the domain of ghost hunters who want to prove that a “presence” is near for the purpose of a theater production or their own delusion. They’re the domain of new age guru types, who push binaural beats and 528hz meditation cds. But – they’re also the domain of many well established disciplines and sciences, such as audio engineering and electroencephalography. The average person not in these fields does not have much grounds to relate to how they affect our lives, or how to understand them.

After 20 years in audio production, I am very interested in exploring their potential in other areas than music. I’ve already used frequencies in the past to explain an emerging Tinnitus therapy, even going so far as to develop my own method people could test at home, with surprising success. People from all over have let me know it has helped them to achieve relief from their symptoms, including session musicians for well known artists. I’m not going to be able to unravel the entire yarn ball of brainwaves in one post, especially since I have much to learn still myself.

By creating a more concise introduction here, we can have a useful groundwork laid from which to expand in future posts, to for example, look at the potential of various home EEG devices such as the MUSE (left), or think about advanced ways to modify the quality of our thoughts, moods and smallest reactions throughout a day.

Below is a useful visualization of brainwaves. Although there are more classifications than this, these are the most commonly associated with different moods and functionality. We experience DELTA when we sleep, THETA when we are meditative and very relaxed, to the point of having the outer world tuned out, ALPHA when we are normally relaxed and our mind is creatively engaged, BETA when we are working on difficult problems or dealing with stress, and GAMMA when we’re very deeply engaged or highly emotional.

You can actually see how the more smooth and relaxed states correlate with the slower, more relaxed waves, and conversely, how jittery & anxious states correlate with the higher Beta and Gamma waves. Is that coincidental, or a natural connection? Anxiety is often expressed physically via high energy, and it seems rather logical that the connection is also seen in the brain.

Gamma is sometimes associated with “expanded consciousness” or higher planes, but this idea is debatable in my view. The fact that it has been measured in meditating monks producing thoughts of love indicates high emotion yes, but “higher planes” and meditative experiences are associated with both Theta and Gamma, and probably Delta as well, so it is not as simple as saying that Gamma is the “enlightenment” zone of the brainwave world. To be frank, it’s my opinion that the nascence of the science enables a lot of people to be “experts” in the field; they get away with a lot of talk that seems to make sense on the surface, in order to sell their products – without having to back it up. People desperate for relief or self-improvement will try anything once.

One of my goals is to sort out what is probable nonsense and what has potential to be scientifically sound. Which isn’t to say that I discount the spiritual, but even the spiritual world must function by some sort of laws, even if they are not yet understood. One reason that people are critical of aspects of meditation is that there is so much stuff out there based on very loose ideas. Like for example, that hearing a frequency will suddenly make your brain change to that frequency. It’s a sort of nice thought, but imagine what that would mean when we listen to pop or rock music? Our thoughts would be in chaos. So, I am going to be as thorough and straightforward as I can, not make huge leaps in logic. If you catch me doing so, feel free to call me out on it.

WHAT CAUSES FREQUENCY SHIFTS IN MY BRAIN?

Let’s talk briefly about why we enter these brainwave states to begin with. A whole lot of it is natural, and is going to happen whether we try or not. In fact, we are almost always fluctuating back and forth across the gamut, from Delta to Gamma, just in very small amounts. If you were to liken the brain to a computer, you might say that the processor throttles up and down depending on whatever particular task or tasks it’s doing at any given time. Like computers, we tend to multitask. Other reasons include unnatural stressors, which we are exposed to more and more of in the information age. We’re expected to multitask more than our biology is really designed to handle. As a result, our computer “crashes” more, one might say, or throws errors in places where it was once able to smoothly process the input. Epigenetics says that our genes are actually altered with stress when taken to extremes, and not necessarily for the better. We often hear that humanity will evolve along with technology, but thusfar at least, this has not usually been shown to be the case.

CAN I INFLUENCE THESE “SHIFTS”?

So that’s all well and good, but what most of us want to know is whether we can bias our brainwaves – can we influence them toward a desired state? Perhaps we wish to have more effective concentration, or, sustain relaxation over a longer period of time and wider range of circumstances. We don’t want that flutter to go off in our chest every time the phone rings because we’ve come to associate it with annoyances and demands. We don’t want to feel panic when we simply catch a glimpse of someone across a room and worry that we’ll need to give them some excuse about this or that. I do believe that biasing our brainwaves is a way that this could be accomplished. And it’s been demonstrated.

Researchers, and by now even home users have used EEGs in combination with a method known as neurofeedback to give stimulus, and in real time receive reward signals when brainwaves successfully enter the desired range. But are there other methods?

DRINK YOUR TEA FOR ALPHA WAVE ACTIVITY

Going back to chemicals for a moment, I mentioned that we are very familiar with the practice of using chemicals and foods to alter our neurotransmitter and hormone levels. Are there foods and chemicals which can influence our brain wave patterns? The answer is yes.

L-theanine is one chemical, found mainly in teas, which has been studied in precisely this way. From the Journal Nippon Nōgei Kagakukaishi, 1998:

_{Eight female university students were selected as volunteers. Four of them were ranked to be Grade I (the highest anxiety) and the remaining four, Grade V (the lowest anxiety) in an investigation done by the manifest anxiety scale method. A dose of oral administration of 200 mg of L-theanine dissolved in 100 ml of water resulted in the generation of α-electric waves in the occipital and parietal regions of the brains of the subjects. The emission intensity of α-brain waves (integrated as a function of investigation times and area) was significantly greater in the group of Grade I than that of Grade V. These results indicate the possibility for L-theanine to be applied to foods and beverages as a new type of functional food ingredient for its relaxation effect.}

SMELLS LIKE A GOOD STRATEGY

Not only has the effect been shown during oral ingestion, but also simply smelling food! Specifically, the Maillard browning effect between the amino acid glycine and glucose/sugar which happens during baking, also induces alpha brainwaves. Heck, this is the science of why humans love their baking so much! What’s interesting to note is that baking often leads to the formation of carcinogenic acrylamide – but much less so when glycine is added. That leads to interesting questions of its own, but that’s for another time perhaps.

What other ways has it been proven that we can manipulate our own brainwaves? I am going to cover the potential flaws in methods like binaural beat meditation sounds in a future post, as it really needs a lot of preceding explanation. There is a very simple way that most people miss, and even I usually don’t give it the focus that it deserves although I’ve thought about it on many occasions throughout my life, and its one of my favorite tools for creativity:

THE HYPNAGOGIC STATE

Hypnagogia is something just about everyone experiences, but few give any thought to as a tool for training themselves to be more creative and relaxed. Remember when you always used to wake up to a clock radio, and then hit the snooze button to get a few more minutes of shuteye? Or perhaps you let yourself doze off one afternoon while reading or watching tv. In one of those moments you had an epiphany which set you on a positive, inspired, confident and driven course when you awoke. You had the answer to a question which had been nagging at you forever. Well, unwittingly, you were training your brainwaves. That is the power of hypnagogia.

Behind the scenes, what is actually happening is that our brainwaves are ramping up and down, keeping us in a semi-awakened state (theta) for an extended period of time, typically between 5 and 15 minutes. And the more we do it, the better we get at it. The better we get at it, the more effective we become as people. Imagine starting every. day. with a feeling of inspiration and purpose! That sounds like some far fetched self-help scheme, but it’s not…

Some of history’s greatest achievements can be credited to this phenomenon, the best-known example being August Kekulé’s realization that the structure of benzene was a closed ring while half-asleep in front of a fire and seeing molecules forming into snakes, one of which grabbed its tail in its mouth.^[38] Many other artists, writers, scientists and inventors — including Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Walter Scott, Salvador Dalí, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Isaac Newton — have credited hypnagogia and related states with enhancing their creativity.^[39] A 2001 study by Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett found that, while problems can also be solved in full-blown dreams from later stages of sleep, hypnagogia was especially likely to solve problems which benefit from hallucinatory images being critically examined while still before the eyes.^{[40] -Wikipedia}

The knowledge that there is a physical frequency (not to be confused with wavelength – more on that later) which coincides with feelings of anxiety, fear, focus, and even positive things like love or relaxation, is very powerful indeed. It’s even more powerful to be able to observe it. That’s preferred, but not entirely necessary. I will however be covering those possibilities as well in upcoming posts. They’re pretty fascinating.

For now, perhaps you have some food for thought, and can see new options and tools for personal growth. Or maybe you know all of this already, and are hoping for some juicier stuff in this vein. Well, I’ll definitely give it my best shot. Til next time!

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Pretty much everyone is aware by now that UV radiation over extended periods of time damage skin. This is seen most easily when we receive major burns, complete with redness and peeling. While I love the sun as much as the next person, I’m usually fairly careful with how much exposure I get. And I certainly don’t lay on a beach for hours trying to get a tan; usually I’ll be under the shade of a tree with a hat and a good book.

The dermatologist diagnosed me with a pre-melanoma lesion. It took two rather painful surgeries to remove completely, and has regrettably left my nose a touch crooked. The more vain or insecure among us might view such as a major setback in life. As I approach 40, that’s really the least of my worries. But I asked the surgeon: “How many of these type of operations do you perform per week?”

“Between four and six…” he answered after a pause as he worked, tugging flesh from cartilage with aid of his scalpel. “…and the patients are getting younger and younger.”

I thought about this statement for some time. To really begin to make sense of it according to what the science and medical community tells us today, we would first have to believe that a. Sun exposure among the youth of Sweden (or any northern nation) is significant, and b. That something is very wrong with the ozone layer above this particular region. Not that it isn’t – but the picture doesn’t quite add up to me. For one thing: For 7 months of the year, the UV Index in Sweden and really, any country at this latitude, sits at or below 5 (usually WAY below). Today for example, May 17, not so far from the summer solstice, we can see levels across the country as follows:

And for a reference of how dangerous that is:

Between June and August, there are usually somewhere between 5 to 10 very high danger days. When the UV Index is very high, it means that skin damage can occur in <15 minutes, or even less than that. And of course, even at lower UV levels, given enough exposure, similar damage can occur. That particular fact will be worth remembering for later. We also know that getting 5 bad sunburns, on average, doubles a person’s chances of skin cancer. Then of course, there’s also no disputing that the young have the habit of using other devices such as tanning beds etc in order to look “hot”. So, I’m not disputing the importance of tanning safety! But what does “double” really mean, and what are we comparing it to, exactly?

It’s far more likely to me that the real reason for accelerated formation of skin cancers and thus patients getting “younger and younger” involves a multi-step process where high level damage weakens our defenses, and other exposures and processes contribute to cellular mutation. I will focus on one particular long-term exposure which happens to relate very much to UV and yet, for whatever reason, has flown under the radar.

Let’s talk about how the collective consciousness of society is convinced that this word “UV” is all that matters. What is UV light? It is a classification of a specific range of light wavelengths. As these wavelengths decrease (or become more compact), they penetrate further into the body.

In order to not freak us out, since so many of us willingly use technologies of all kinds for hours and days on end, safety commissions tell us that in order to be cancer promoting, radiation must be ionizing, which is defined by overlord Google as:

…radiation consisting of particles, X-rays, or gamma rays with sufficient energy to cause ionization in the medium through which it passes.

The above image demonstrates the penetration capabilities of various wavelengths, with Ultraviolet sitting squarely at the molecular level. The idea is that a wave between typical microwave and radio ranges should simply flow over, or be blocked by a human body, while waves at molecular scale can “invade” through the skin’s natural barriers as they weaken and grow damaged.

Google’s definition of ionizing radiation makes no mention of UV, but the following visualization would suggest it is, as should be obvious. We should note that all forms of ionizing radiation damage DNA, and once that damage is done, it’s difficult to repair:

Ultraviolet light consists of a frequency range between approximately 200-400 nm (nanometers). This is precisely how it sounds; the waves oscillate at intervals of between 200 to 400 nanometres. Let’s compare this to collagen, one of the important barriers in human skin; Each triple-stranded collagen molecule is 300 nm long*.
_{*Molecular Cell Biology, 4th Edition.}

Of these ranges, UVB is sometimes considered the most dangerous, as the “key” fits this “keyhole” of the skin’s collagen and other defenses, though UVC obviously does as well.

Now, there are many factors we could get into which might affect a person’s susceptibility to various forms of radiation: genes, age, lightness of skin, dermal thickness, and who knows – perhaps even things nobody has bothered to investigate, such as pore size or factors which have nothing to do with our biology – like diet. The bottom line is that we all know all about UV, and thus can and usually do take precautions specific to that. Few take precautions against what is as of yet unproven or not even postulated.

You might be able to tell where I am going with this; all the above graphics show us that even within the visible light spectrum, there is a range of light radiation right next door to UV, which nearly all of us are exposed to for hours upon hours, noses mere inches away, whilst reading websites or writing documents against bright white backgrounds. And though its intensity is not remotely that of the sun, keep in mind the time factor. You might also be surprised to know how bright LED setups can really be.

Though the color we process on screen is “white”, what we are actually looking at is light, and depending on the calibration of a given screen, it is somewhere between a “blue” or “red” temperature – “cool” or “warm”. Most of the time, monitors are calibrated to be cool temperature, or to put it in a slightly more primal way, to resemble the appearance of daylight we have evolved to be psychologically comfortable with. “Warm” or red light, when emitted from a computer screen, can put an odd color cast on images, which makes accurate reproduction of color impossible for designers, as well as making it appear, ironically, sun-worn. So we tend to prefer a slightly blue cast, which looks neutral to our eye.

Bluelightexposed.com – which focuses mainly on the effects of blue light on vision, and not skin – defines the range thusly:

Blue light has a wavelength of between approximately 380nm and 500nm; making it one of the shortest, highest-energy wavelengths.

If 380nm sounds conspicuously familiar, it should. That overlaps just into the top end of the UV range. So can we say definitively, that the light emitted from our technology, despite not being classified or advertised as UV or ionizing, or anything more than a nuisance to our circadian rhythms, is not contributing to skin cancer risk? The answer is no. We cannot discount it. And the more one digs, the more one can see how its contributions should not be overlooked.

A few days ago, I ran across an AMA or “Ask Me Anything” thread by Newcastle University Professor Mark Birch-Machin on Reddit. It read: “My research focuses on the response of human skin to ultraviolet radiation, particularly within the context of skin ageing and cancer. AMA!”

One user posed the question: “I am a glassblower and consistently get sunburn on my face from sodium flare coming off of the glass I’m working in the flame. I wear sunscreen sometimes is there anything else I can do to reduce the risks associated with uv radiation? I do this everyday so its not like the sun where you can just go inside.”

Mark’s answer was intriguing, and helped a realization to gel within the recesses of my fog-riddled gray matter:

“The sodium flare suggests it is another type of radiation that is causing the effect on your face. Different types of radiation, as you probably know, have different wavelengths and therefore different protection is required. It will be important for you to ascertain the wavelength of radiation that is coming from the sodium flare to match the protection.”

I did a little digging and found an article about High Energy Visible (HEV) light, which Blue and Violet light fall into, and glassblowers. I wanted to know, for reference, what kind of lumens levels we’re talking about. Lumens is a standard used to measure the total amount of visible light to the human eye from any given source. What I found is pretty interesting:

For the purposes of this article, HEV is defined as luminescence in excess of 10,000 lumens. 1 lumen is the luminescence of 1 candle. A 100 watt light bulb emits approximately 120 lumens. Sunlight on a white sand beach can range from 8,000 to 10,000 lumens. Fresh snow on a sunny day can have a luminescence as high as 30,000 lumens.

The author was, in essence, making a statement about typical exposures of people in that profession, regardless of the specific “color” of light. As the AMA clued us into, even non-blue visible light can burn the skin, it just takes more time! So one can extrapolate that in terms of PC screen and LED TV exposure, we need to be even more careful.

Translating their statement into something we can accurately measure against computer screens, tablets, smartphone displays or perhaps most important of all, Smart LED TVs, proves difficult for many reasons. Among others, and for reasons currently beyond me, the above tend to be measured in candelas per metre squared, rather than the standard used for everything else. To do a conversion involves some complex mathematical equation, which I am not about to do at this time. An LED display manufacturer sort of describes the difficulty in a comparison between LED screens and projector displays:

Light from a projector is measured in ANSI Lumens which is a measurement of light reflected and is much less powerful than the brightness of LED screens. A quick test to prove the point – look directly at a light bulb and then look at it reflecting off a white surface – it is much weaker. In fact, a 5000 NIT LED screen would be approximately 3.5 times brighter than a 5000 lumens projector, which is a very powerful and expensive projector.

It seems to me that they are saying that the image projected from a bulb projector rated at 5000 lumens, is just going to be a small fraction of that brightness, and that LED is significantly brighter than anything that could ever be projected. Which is pretty bright, but how bright? And if candelas per metre squared is somehow relevant, then does that imply that area greatly amplifies total lumens? I may need to find some expert to field these questions. Anyway, the alternative insinuation would be that the brightest LED screens out there emit up to 17,500 lumens. Which, if I’m right, would burn holes through your retinas within a few seconds. So, pretty sure that’s not it.

Either way, as we tend to work (especially those of us in the artistic fields) hunched over large drawing display tablets, or squinting at code and instructions on separate screens, it is my guess that skin absorbance is rather increased. Power user designers and programmers are almost all universally guilty of the urge to use as many big screens side by side as possible in order to effectively multitask. Or perhaps worse, as I have done from time to time, park a 40 or 50 inch LED tv on the desk. Either way, we essentially create an extended-use sunlamp of sorts. And remember, blue light being of higher frequency means it takes less, far less than a sodium flare. So that 10,000 lumen theoretical number may not even remotely matter. Maybe the magic number is 1000. Or 500. or 50. Or maybe it all depends. Consider that we are admonished to take care even on cloudy days, as UV penetrates cloud and only becomes more diffused.

Since my diagnosis, surgeries, and hopeful return to health, I’ve studied, ruminated and theorized all I can in order to not only help myself but others. I’ve also cringed a little every time someone tries to warn me in a motherly way “I hope you’ll be more careful in the sun so this doesn’t happen again!”

I’m not saying that they are wrong. But I have noticed, in the time since I began to heal from the surgery, that in general I am prone to redness in my skin, even in winter, and more so at particular times. I have attempted to ascertain why, and this is where all roads lead, to my regret.

Helping my body’s natural healing mechanisms with supplementation, including getting the glutathione system functioning as well as it can, has appeared to help a bit. And yet, some redness, a sign of immune irritation, has persisted to some degree. It was with no small degree of hesitance that I began to consider that perhaps my greatest enemy was not the sun, which I can and do, like many young people today, easily avoid, but another far more frequent companion.

As I have presented a large amount of information to absorb already, the second part of this piece, including my advice for how to make your office space safer for your skin, will follow in the very near future. If you found this post valuable, please consider liking my Facebook page, where you will automatically receive updates of future posts to your feed. Also please consider becoming a patron. For a measly $1 a month, you can help me to continue to help others. Thanks!

These are not the sort of tidings I savor bearing, particularly on a Monday, but that’s the sort of week it’s been. Last Wednesday, through a bit of word of mouth, I got to visit my local town’s first annual emergency preparedness meeting. It all seemed a bit impromptu and off the cuff, and I’ll just suggest that the majority of the all of 30 or so attendees weren’t exactly what you would call the type capable of organizing and carrying out large scale plans to secure the safety of an entire community. Outside of a handful of us, there was nary an able bodied young person to be seen. That concerned me slightly. But you know, these days, senior citizens are the only ones who have actually lived wartime, and know what it really means to daily life.

While I am not exactly a survivalist myself, I was raised by the tail end of that generation so intimately familiar with war on a global scale. That upbringing included sometimes harsh demonstrations of what must be done when our environment becomes less than favorable, and whether we want to face it or not. Before I continue along that train of thought, let me first hopefully drive home the point a little further how significant it is that Sweden, of all countries, is preparing for large scale conflict to erupt. You see, Sweden has maintained a position of neutrality in wartime for 200 years. It has hardly been a large military presence. Earlier this past decade, that presence was reduced even further, with mandatory conscription being abolished – but all that is set to change.

Sweden brings back military conscription in face of growing Russia threat

SverigesRadio: Local authorities told to get their crisis plans in order

DefenseNews: Sweden, upping military funding, seeks US cooperation

The situation in Finland is a bit more complex. Not only are Sweden and Finland facing drastically heightened immigration numbers reminiscent of pre-WWII as described in the following MigrationPolicy analysis piece, but there’s probably no better example of how history repeats itself than with the Ingrian situation described further down the article. One is reminded of recent happenings in Ukraine, but fewer know the similarity to the climate in the St Petersburg region in Western Russia circa the 1930s:

The Difficult Return of Ethnic Finns (MigrationPolicy)

To summarize the situation for you, in the 1990s, Finland began implemention of its new policy in regard to the return of ethnic Finnish people. Because of the historically poor treatment they received by the Soviet Union (and perhaps Finland as well), they were granted automatic right to migrate to Finland if they so chose – and tens of thousands did just that. In 2010, the right of return was put to an end. The article gives some clue as to a few factors behind this decision:

Although many repatriated Ingrian Finns have integrated well into Finnish culture, aided by a strong Finnish identity and good language skills, others are unable to fully integrate due to language and cultural barriers. This is in part due to the fact that many Ingrian Finns lack a sufficient Finnish identity since four-grandparent ancestry was not required for return migration from Russia. Additionally, the partly completed Soviet assimilation of the past has ensured that most of the young people of Ingrian-Finnish descent speak only Russian or Estonian.

Most Ingrians actually fled Russia in the 30s and 40s, fearing their lives, or were evacuated to Estonia by Axis forces, and eventually to other countries. But many thousands did remain, some in Gulags, and others were simply stubborn about staying in what they considered their home. They desired an independent nation. This did not happen, and decades later, their families are heavily integrated. So reading between the lines, we might extrapolate that Finland has some trust issues with people so heavily Russified residing within their borders, Finnish or not. A December 2016 YLE article would seem to confirm this:

According to a recent report on the possible implications of Nato membership, Russia might try to politically activate Russians living in Finland to pressure the government.

A perhaps far-fetched (but perhaps not) scenario might see Russia seeking to “liberate” their citizens. But Finland is not Ukraine, and the strategy for such an attempt is unclear. What is clear, is that potential aggressions have not only Finland, but its neighbor next door increasing preparedness, going as far to station permanent defense forces on the island of Gotland between the two countries.

My 2016 book Inger: Father & Son goes into greater detail in regard to how Ingrian Finns were considered politically unreliable in those days as well due to their position along the Karelian border and proximity to the important strategic location of St Petersburg, where many Soviet elite resided.

The other thing it discusses at length which I cannot help but reflect on again today, is a more “American tale” (or Canadian, as the case may be) of how despite his best efforts to get me, a young child at the time, to understand the value of preparedness, and despite my exposure to all manner of media related to war, I couldn’t process it. I had no basis to truly understand the weight of his lessons, except, he hoped, via his harshness. I was at the same time being sold the promise of a better future just the opposite of this backwards seeming world he came from. So I was a bit of an impossible student, and it only served to distance us further.

School, entertainment and children’s literature all taught a very different set of ideals and goals, ones I nearly universally preferred: fun, wonder, discovery. In first grade, exposure to computer technology already set me on a course toward game development; Science propaganda told me that we’d soon be colonizing other planets.

That was 30 years ago, but not much has changed; Kids are still aiming for careers in game development, and even pro careers in competitive gaming. We’re still told that we’ll be colonizing Mars within a few decades. And we’re still obsessed with war in our entertainment. You might say that war is in the DNA of our culture.

I only wonder: If my father, who lived through those horrors first hand, could not get me to understand until I finally re-explored his life well into adulthood, and after he had left this mortal coil and I only had a handful of his writings to scrape clues from – what hope do the the youth of today have to be able to cope with what soon may be a world very alien to them? Many of them are generations removed from that sort of reality, as are their parents, due to the 20th century trend of childbearing at younger and younger ages (which is reversing now, by the way.)

Is the planet about to go nuclear? We may be 2.5 minutes from midnight, but most experts would say probably not. Nevertheless, the elite have been building bunkers shown off on CNN while regular folks above ground wonder aloud to each other what all those strange loud rumbling noises are across America and select European nations. Either they’re super paranoid spending that kind of cash, or they know something.

How about technology’s role in a possible world war? Well, warfare is, to some degree at least, bound to be done differently in the 21st century, but ‘puters and teh interwebz are sure to be involved in a multitude of ways, either through their incorporation into political destabilization strategy and manufactured revolution, or by way of their sudden absence – a possibility many, myself included admittedly, find difficult to fully comprehend. No matter how many episodes we’ve seen of The Walking Dead. Whatever the scenario, none of it is good, and with that in mind, I would implore my friends and neighbors out there once more:

Live without fear, continue your life’s pursuits… but please. Study history, and prepare for anything.

There is currently much hoopla over human-influenced climate change, leading to sweeping reforms in policy and outright bans of wood burning equipment. It began in areas of Canada and the United States, and as of this update, is currently hitting the UK. In this article I will show how despite no doubt being well-intentioned, such policies could have dangerous consequences if implemented in the wrong way. It is therefore important that any new laws are carefully thought through.

Let me start by saying I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of taking care of the planet we live on, especially as it’s the only one we have and will have for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, based on what I’ve read, I don’t really fault the approach that they’re going for in London, which supposedly targets only densely populated areas with high pollution levels, and only affect sales of new stove equipment. Fair enough. To be honest though, I’m still a bit confused, and worried as to what the next step might be.

I imagine that for those in the position to make such decisions, it might not always be so easy to remember, while they sit in their offices running their latest fancy iphones and sending messages off via the internets, all sustained by a national electrical grid, that the next cabin vacation they have planned may just rely on a little something called a wood burning stove. Perhaps it’s that exotic “sawna”. Or maybe to keep warm during an ice fishing trip on the lake. The winter festival, with all that hot cooked food and places to cozy up by a fire. In short: An important aspect of the human experience is created by many small moments of simplicity away from society and technology, long prescribed for our well being. Let’s not forget it.

And let’s not forget that major catastrophes involving electrical grid failure do happen, as the Northeast Blackout of 2003 demonstrated. That was only one night. What about the January 1998 ice storm, where many were without power for an entire month? Without wood stoves, I can assure you that there would have been far more than only 35 casualties. And if there is another Carrington level solar event, referring to the solar storm of 1859, sorry to say but without a proper infrastructure of wood burning stoves in place, and people who are well stocked with chopped, dried wood, well… do the math.

Of course, that’s all worst-case scenario stuff. Let’s change the subject. How about culture? It might not seem it sometimes, but even today, there are many (sometimes just barely) surviving traditions from around the world dating way back. Way way back. Back so far, and in some cases gone for such a short time, that we don’t really know the ramifications of messing with them. For all the positive steps made toward recognizing minority rights, protecting religious practices and so forth, a lot of that can be undone with the simple banning of one practice, or placing too many regulations on it.

Indigenous cultures such as the Navajo, Sioux and Cherokee of the United States all rely on wood burning for ceremonies of various types. All over the world, similar things are done. The Finns, the Sami, Estonians, and many more all rely heavily on the wood burning sauna, not just the convenient modern electric stove variant. Finland alone has roughly 2 million saunas, of which I would estimate 50% are the wood burning variety. For the other 1–2 million Finnish people globally, many of whom are in North America, the practice of going to their saunas and camps is equally as important. To the lawmakers I say, are our traditions, many of which you have taken as your own and enjoyed the fruits of, to be sacrificed? At what cost?

Here is why, in our case at least, wood burning is not really such a problem.

It has been pointed out by some studies that black carbon smoke is the real culprit of the worst emissions when it comes to wood fires. But, not all wood is created equal for the purpose of sauna, which any Finn knows. Birch is by far the preferred type, and produces a very minimal amount of black smoke, usually upon the initial burn. Because it lasts a while and produces good heat, this reduces the overall amount of wood which will need to be used for a typical session.

Poplar, Fir, and Spruce are examples of woods which all smoke heavily and are thus rarely used for such purposes. So let’s be honest here: Black carbon and carbon emissions in general are far more likely to come from industrial applications, burning waste including plastics, and natural disasters such as forest fires. If we could compare firewood use in saunas, camps and homes with these, it is like a drop in the bucket emission-wise. A fart in the wind, if I may. That anyone thinks therefore that banning or replacing wood stoves is in any way an effective use of resources, is laughable.

In early 2016, I rewrote the first chapter of my book Inger: Father & Son, which described both growing up Finnish, and in Sudbury, Canada, this time dedicating a page or so to a landmark I had grown up with — the infamous INCO superstack.

In the late 1800’s, the location where Sudbury now stands had turned out to be an opportune spot through which to run the Canadian Pacific Railway, and during its construction, the potential in the area for its unique mineral resources became apparent. As word spread and the town began to grow, people arrived from all around the globe including the French, Irish, Scotts, Germans, Italians and yes, Finns too, who were experts in forestry and eager to escape their poverty in Europe.

Over the following decades, the town turned into the biggest producer of acid rain-causing chemicals in North America, completely destroying the native ecosystem and earning itself a reputation as a wasteland for much of the 20th century, with rock and slag dominating as far as the eye could see. That is where the nickname [The Rock] comes from.

By the 1970’s, in an effort to mitigate the damage, Inco constructed the so-called “Superstack”. At 380 meters (1250 feet) in height, what it ironically succeeded best in was creating the tallest symbol of industrialization in the entire world at that time; even today, only one smokestack anywhere surpasses its size. I remember how that big fat stogie dominated our skyline, spewing a thick cloud of sulfur dioxide and other chemicals which reeked up even far away neighborhoods with the smell of rotten eggs. Some people say it still does. As far as mitigating damage, all they really managed to do was disperse it over the rest of the continent, making it more difficult to detect.

The story of its arrival has a very interesting twist. In August 1970 – on the final day of construction in fact -the worst tornado to hit the region in modern history bore down with six workers trapped at the top of the tower. It swayed violently in the storm, and the men, on a platform and fully exposed to the winds, were nearly blown off the edge. All survived, but the next day they all quit. One is forced to wonder in events such as this, if a supernatural force might have been expressing its own dissatisfaction with this monstrosity man had thought to build and blemish the earth with.

In January of 2017, as fate would have it, Vale, the new owners of the Inco mine, announced plans to have the superstack decommissioned and eventually dismantled. With my book having gained exposure in the Sudbury papers last year, I can only dream that I played some miniscule role in this decision, though that’s unlikely as the pressure was no doubt on them already from the Trudeau administration, and Ontario’s climate change “action plan” under which “$400 million will (also) be used to get rid of old wood stoves, targeting northern, rural and First Nations communities, and encouraging them to switch to new high-efficiency wood stoves.” (quote: Forbes).

If there is one impression I hope I’ve put into your head, it’s the sheer scale of damage produced possibly globally by one single industrial operation. It’s great that they are taking steps to minimize further damage, but more is needed in this area because this is, again, where the real problems are. While we’re at it, why not point out that an insane amount of the world’s paper is used by bureaucrats sending out needless reminder letters and other junk mail? What about that carbon footprint? And why is it only being talked about in Pakistan??

Regular people, especially in rural areas or those practicing ancient traditions should, in my opinion not be forced to change ways which often times already operate in harmony with nature, not to mention provide health, security and healing for us as a species. Is it realistic to expect everyone to switch over to new high-efficiency wood stoves? No, as many stove solutions are purpose built and nearly impossible to replace, and the financial burden is unlikely to be eased much with this 400 million or whatever amount future subsidies offer.

I’m sure there is a lot more I can say but I’ll end this here for now. I hope I have made the message clear, and that some people will begin to see the forest through the trees. It is industrialization which got us into this mess, and therefore it is primarily the industry which should continue to correct its practices until our environment recovers. Leave the rest of us alone.

Henrik Ryösä is a Finnish-Canadian author and researcher with a focus on nordic culture, currently living in Sweden. His upcoming book Sauna Tribe discusses the many benefits of sauna practice — including the wood burning variety.

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