I made a new year’s resolution to post a photo a day this year and today is my 108th post. I am celebrating this because 108 is a sacred number in Hinduism and Buddhism, there are 108 beads on a mala, and the distance of the earth from the sun is about 108 times the diameter of the Sun. What do these facts mean to me?

Not a damn thing really. But when a yoga teacher, Shiva Rea, first told me this, I began to notice its appearance in my life a lot, and it kind of became a totem number for me. So I am celebrating my 108th post today, just because I like the number 108.

It has become increasingly hard to keep up with my daily posts ever since my son, Dasan, was born 3.5 weeks ago. I think my posts have become a little shorter, a little less involved, maybe a little less magical, a little more thrown together, but I know, as many a friend has reminded me in the weeks since his birth, “this too shall pass.” What is really important to me is that I just keep going. Regardless of any mental hang-ups about the quality of the photos or the content. I must continue to just put it out there. And eventually, the quality will improve.

This is a photo I took of the Etosha Pan. Another great expanse in Namibia. Salt and sky for as far as the eye can see. I remember driving up to this for the first time. There was a small dirt road that went out to the middle of it. We went to the end of that road and jumped out of our truck and smiled ear to ear, feeling that expanse inside ourselves. And a gratitude to match it, for how lucky we were to discover such a place.

Magic 108/365, The Expanse, Etosha National Park, Namibia, December 2017