Is This Your Country?
"Is this your country?" a stranger asked me in amazement in broken English as I sat in a small food stall in Tokyo earlier this spring. I was scrolling through photos on my phone while waiting for chicken skewers to cook over a smokey charcoal grill. I was looking at some pictures of Edmonton's river valley, fields on the Alberta highways, and some scenes from the Maligne Canyon in Jasper.
Dark, My Old Friend
As a species, we've evolved to have survival instincts around living in the dark and prefer to live in the light. While counterintuitive, we need to grow our appreciation for what the dark brings to our lives here on Earth.