Biking with Butterflies
Imagine if you could see the world through the eyes of a butterfly. What would you notice? In this beautifully woven piece, Sara Dykman explores the life cycle of the monarch through recounting her 10,201-mile bicycle journey from Mexico to Canada and back, intimately acquainting herself with newly hatched caterpillars and milkweed-nibbling monarchs. "Though people would gasp each time I told them... posted on Aug 17 2019, 4,368 reads

One Breath Around the World
Guillaume Nery can hold his breath underwater for more than seven minutes, dive more than 126 meters without air and has run on ocean floors around the world. He is a professional freediver, meaning he dives without breathing apparatus. The sport of freediving is dangerous, but Guillaume Nery and Julie Gautier's film makes it seem peaceful and serene. The film shows non divers a new way of interac... posted on Aug 16 2019, 2,525 reads

Bearing Witness: The Animal Dialogues
"It was a fortuitous flip to the essay on pronghorns that persuaded me to pick up Craig Childs' The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild. In each intimately wrought tale on antelopes, hawks, and red-spotted toads, I found a writer and translator more versed in the tongues of the non-human world than I will ever be. Childs honors the weight and magnitude of his encounters with creature... posted on Aug 15 2019, 5,614 reads

Wild Mumbai
"Every night for the past eleven years, Rajesh Sanap and Zeeshan Mirza have spent the post-dinner hours combing the woods behind their homes. Like restive sprites, the young men skirt ponds, bash through spiky hedgerows, upturn rocks, shake up leaf litter, and thread through dirt trails hairy with undergrowth. In the course of their nocturnal walkabouts, they've found about a dozen arachnids, incl... posted on Aug 14 2019, 2,425 reads

A Man Without Words: The Story of a Contemporary Miracle
"When I met this man he was twenty-seven years old. Because he didn't know there was sound, because he didn't know he was deaf, he didn't know there was hearing and deafness. He studied lips and mouths. He knew something was happening. He's a very smart man. He'd be staring at lips. He'd stare at your mouth and he'd stare at this person's lips and he thought he was stupid. He thought he was stupid... posted on Aug 13 2019, 3,151 reads

Bronnie Ware: Living Without Regrets
"Bronnie Ware is an author and speaker whose bestselling book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, is based on her time as a palliative care worker. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Bronnie outlines these five major life regrets with Tami Simon and discusses the experiences in end-of-life care that inspired them. Bronnie explains how most regrets arise from a lack of courage and why people ... posted on Aug 12 2019, 13,553 reads

How Cultural Differences Shape Gratitude
"Most of what we know about it [gratitude] comes from studying Americans--and, specifically, the mainly white American college students from the campuses where researchers work. That creates a cultural bias in the science, and that's why more and more researchers are exploring what gratitude looks and feels like in a range of cultures." This article shares more.... posted on Aug 11 2019, 10,203 reads

A Green Approach to Gun Control
"Tajinder Singh, 47, a farmer in the North Indian state of Punjab, applied for a gun license. He told the authorities that he needed a revolver for self-defense. While tending to his 20 acres of land, he often had to walk long hours to reach home after nightfall. He wanted to protect himself from wild animals and bands of armed robbers. Once the background checks were completed in June this year, ... posted on Aug 10 2019, 4,967 reads

A Young Poet Tells the Story of Darfur
Emtithal "Emi" Mahmoud writes poetry of resilience, confronting her experience of escaping the genocide in Darfur in verse. She shares two stirring original poems about refugees, family, joy and sorrow, asking, "Will you witness me?"... posted on Aug 09 2019, 9,640 reads

Mercy Beyond Borders
Sister Marilyn Lacey is committed to go where the need is great, which, in the case of Mercy Beyond Borders, includes South Sudan and Haiti. The mission of Mercy Beyond Borders is to forge ways for women and girls in extreme poverty to learn, connect and lead by providing educational, economic and empowerment opportunities, bringing hope to areas where there was no hope. This hope is witnessed in ... posted on Aug 08 2019, 2,059 reads