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| Squash stored in the off-the-grid compound. Wish I would be here in the winter. |
My current travels have made me think about segmented sleep—the idea that we sleep in two separate chunks during the night. Over a twelve-hour time frame, people historically slept for 3-4 hours, were awake for three or four hours, and then slept again for three or four hours. This is not a new idea, and a lot of research supports it.
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| Sea captain carved by a Maine ship’s carpenter some time in the last century. A few pieces by him in the off-the-grid compound. |
Like all kids do, my new grandson Jake came out of the womb as a nocturnal creature. Listening to him fuss during the night, I was reminded that the first, most pressing job of new parents is to train their children to sleep at night. I remember this as the hardest job of parenting, and my own children effectively wrecked my ability to sleep through the night. I’m still a cyclical insomniac.
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| I’m in Maine looking for locations for my 2015 workshops. Here’s surf at Popham Beach. |
We’ve spent the last two nights off the grid, where the only light from 6:14 PM to 6:38 AM comes from the moon and stars or candles and flashlights. Since a lot of hay has been made about how electric light, TV, radio, and the internet confuses modern man’s sleep cycle, being off line should help, right? Honestly, I don’t think it has, but perhaps a few nights here and there can’t erase a half-century of bad habits.
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| Granite blocks at Ft. Popham State Historic Site, a Civil-War era fort. |
Message me if you want information about next year’s classes and workshops.