How the Sun Became the Scapegoat

Or: How We Were Tricked Into Fearing the Sky to Buy Sheep Grease in Capsules

Let’s get one thing clear:

The sun is not a glorified vitamin D dispenser.

It didn’t rise this morning just so we could isolate one of its effects, synthesize it in a lab, and bottle it in plastic.

Yes, modern science tells us that UVB rays trigger the conversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin into cholecalciferol (a.k.a. “pre-vitamin D3”), which then embarks on a bureaucratic journey through the liver and kidneys before getting its official “active” status.

But let’s pause and ask: how do they really know this?

Are scientists witnessing this miracle unfold in sun-drenched living humans, basking on a rock like contented lizards?

Or are they swirling chemicals in test tubes, irradiating lanolin, and hoping it acts like biology?

Spoiler alert: It’s mostly the second one.

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Models ≠ Miracles

What we call “facts” about vitamin D synthesis are really models—best guesses. Theoretical frameworks built on centrifuges, solvents, synthetic tissues, and software. They’re patchwork narratives stitched together in labs, not in life.

These guesses rely on:

• Chemically modified skin samples

• Artificial light

• Industrial solvents

• And assumptions… so many assumptions

To reduce the sun’s gifts to a single lab-derived metric is like saying a symphony is just soundwaves.

Not wrong—but hilariously incomplete.

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Sunlight ≠ Lanolin Extract

Here’s the kicker: most “vitamin D” supplements?

They don’t come from the sun. They come from sheep sweat.

Technically, it’s called lanolin—the waxy secretion scraped from the wool of industrially farmed sheep. To make vitamin D3, lanolin is:

1. Chemically extracted

2. Irradiated with UV light

3. Processed, crystallized, and pressed into pills

Voilà! You’ve now got something that kinda, sorta resembles what your skin might do in sunlight—if your skin were a wool factory and your sunlight came from a microwave.

Even the vegan version—vitamin D2—comes from irradiated fungi in a lab. Still artificial. Still divorced from the sun, rhythm, and living biology.

So no, a supplement is not “just like sunlight.” It’s more like trying to understand love by watching a romantic comedy on mute and through a magnifying glass.

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How the Sun Became the Fall Guy

Now here’s where it gets murky—and frankly, brilliant in a twisted kind of way.

By the mid-20th century, skin cancer rates were climbing. But instead of pointing the finger at industrial pollution, synthetic fats, chemical agriculture, radioactive fallout, or the twelve-step skincare routine full of toxic disruptors, the narrative shifted.

We didn’t ask:

• What’s damaging our skin’s ability to regenerate?

• What modern toxins are increasing a stress?

• What internal imbalances are being revealed by sun exposure?

Instead, we are told to ask:

“Is the sun trying to kill us?”

It was the perfect scapegoat. Eternal, powerful, and—most importantly—non-corporate.

Blaming the sun let entire industries off the hook. It allowed:

• Sunscreen manufacturers to rake in billions selling petroleum-based lotions with known carcinogens like oxybenzone

• Pharmaceutical companies to patent and sell high-dose D3 pills made from wool grease

• Indoor lifestyles and screen addiction to be reframed as “safe” and “modern”

• Environmental regulators to ignore the chemical soup in our food and water

It was a neat trick:

Blame nature. Sell the fix. Repeat.

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What the Sun Actually Does

Let’s zoom back out.

Sunlight doesn’t just help your body synthesize something called “vitamin D.”

It is a symphony of:

• Infrared and UV light (and other light we can’t measure)

• Circadian signaling

• Natural rhythm regulation

• Skin microbiome modulation

• Detox and regulation patterning

• Cellular activation

• And—believe it or not—joy

That’s right: joy.

Ever seen a cat in a sunbeam? Or a kid running shirtless on a summer lawn?

That’s not vitamin D. That’s what aliveness looks like.

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The Sunscreen Paradox

Meanwhile, we slather our skin with SPF 100 as if the sun were some kind of radioactive death beam. But many commercial sunscreens:

• Contain carcinogens

• Block parts of the sunlight (which helps synthesize vitamin D)

• Disrupt processes within the body

• Bleach coral reefs

• And mess with the skin’s own natural oils, cholesterol balance, and ability to self-regulate

We’re told we need these chemical shields to “protect us”—but from what?

The original light source of life on Earth?

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Dressed Against the Sun

If the sun is the most ancient healer, then modern fashion has become a full-body Do Not Disturb sign.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that sunlight needed to be managed like a toxic spill. Enter sunglasses, UV shirts, sun sleeves, parasol hats, and fabrics rated like SPF hazmat equipment. We’re now dressing for a war with the very light that sustains us—convinced that if a photon touches our retina or our forearm, we might spontaneously combust or at least wrinkle irreversibly.

But what are we actually blocking?

When you wear sunglasses, especially during morning or late-day light, you’re not just shielding your eyes from glare. You’re preventing full-spectrum light—especially the blue and near-infrared wavelengths—from reaching the retina, where it plays a key role in health. Your eyes aren’t just for seeing—they’re for sensing. They’re biological light meters, helping the body know what time it is, what substances to make, when to repair, detoxify, and sleep.

Block that signal, and you’re basically unplugging the body’s master clock.

And then there’s UV-protective clothing—synthetic fibers chemically treated to repel sunlight like Teflon repels eggs.

*gagging.

These “shielding” garments often prevent not just the UV rays, but also infrared and visible light from reaching the skin, where it’s needed for blood flow regulation, metabolic rhythm, and what could only be described as a deep cellular remembering of the Earth’s cycles.

The irony?

Many of the people wearing this head-to-toe UV armor are also the same ones taking 5,000 IU of synthetic vitamin D made from sheep grease—desperately trying to mimic what they’re actively blocking.

🙄

There’s no shame in wanting to protect your skin from burning—but true protection comes from internal health, not total isolation. A well-nourished body, rich in fat-soluble nutrients from whole foods, is far more capable of managing sun exposure than a chemically-treated fabric ever will be. And there’s a reason traditional people wore breathable, natural fabrics—cotton, wool, linen—not polyester sun suits that trap heat and block rhythm.

So by all means, shield wisely—especially during intense midday sun if you’re fair-skinned or sun-starved. But also expose wisely. Let your skin and eyes experience unfiltered light in the morning. Dispose of the glasses, roll up the sleeves, and let nature speak to your biology.

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Bloodwork Is a Funhouse Mirror

And yet, after all this shielding and artificial substitution, we’re told to rely on a blood test to determine our ‘sunlight status’—as if that makes up for the absence of actual light.

Here’s the part most people miss:

When your doctor says your vitamin D is low, they’re usually measuring 25-hydroxyvitamin D—the same form found in synthetic supplements.

So when you take a pill and your levels go up, it looks like you’re getting healthier. But that’s like taking out a loan and saying you’re richer.

There is no current blood test that measures what the sun really gives us:

• Cellular coherence

• Biophoton signaling

• Sleep cycle entrainment

• Neurological repair

• Seasonal and metabolic balance

You can’t bottle that. You can’t test it. But you can feel it.

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Ancient Wisdom, Modern Amnesia

Long before anyone measured vitamin D in nanograms per milliliter or debated optimal serum levels on health blogs, human beings lived in intimate relationship with the sun. The ancient Egyptians revered Ra, the sun god, as both creator and sustainer of life—his daily journey across the sky symbolized renewal, order, and divine light. The Greeks called him Helios and later Apollo, associating the sun not only with light but with healing, prophecy, and the arts. Indigenous cultures around the world, from the Americas to the Pacific Islands, developed daily rituals aligned with the sun’s rhythms—greeting it at dawn with dances, prayers, and songs. These weren’t arbitrary ceremonies; they were born from direct observation of how sunlight affected plants, animals, moods, and the cycles of fertility, sleep, and health.

These cultures noticed how animals instinctively bask in the sun when sick or tired. They watched wounded wildlife seek light for recovery, not shade. They felt how sunlight shifted energy, clarified the mind, and brought warmth to the spirit. They honored the sun not as a god to fear, but as a cosmic healer to harmonize with.

Even in early Western medicine, this reverence was retained. Hippocrates, the so-called father of medicine, prescribed sunbathing as a remedy for various ailments, and by the 19th century, European sanatoriums were designed with solariums—sunrooms that bathed patients in natural light, particularly those suffering from tuberculosis, depression, and skin diseases. The therapeutic use of sunlight became so advanced that in 1903, physician Niels Finsen was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work using concentrated sunlight to successfully treat lupus vulgaris, a disfiguring form of tuberculosis of the skin.

These were not primitive sun cults or symbolic gestures—they were practices rooted in embodied wisdom and generations of environmental literacy. These civilizations lived in relationship with rhythm, radiance, and reality. They didn’t need bloodwork to tell them what the body already knew: that sunlight is not just warmth and brightness—it is life, order, balance, and medicine.

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Let’s Reframe the Narrative

The sun doesn’t “give us” vitamin D.

It activates a vast cascade of processes we barely understand.

The sun doesn’t cause cancer.

It exposes dysfunction, often created by poor food, toxic chemicals, and disconnection from the Earth.

The sun doesn’t need peer review.

It’s been showing up in our sky for a really, really long time.

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So What Do We Do?

Simple:

• Wake with the sun. Let your eyes see the morning light—without sunglasses.

• Expose your skin gradually and joyfully.

• Stop fearing nature. Start questioning products that require your fear to survive.

• Eat nourishing fats (like butter, cod liver oil, lard and liver) that support your skin from within.

• Skip the sketchy lotions and cultivate internal health instead.

• Say “no” to the prescribed vitamin D yuck pills

Still feeling conflicted?

Forget the studies. Watch what your dog does on a sunny patch of floor.

That’s peer-reviewed.

The sun isn’t the problem.

Our disconnection from it is.

And no supplement—not even one made from irradiated sheep sweat—can replace that.