The Cosmic Serpent: A poem on carnival and karma, first published by Sapiens
Most Carnival celebrations in Brazil were canceled for a second year in a row in 2022 due to the resurgence of COVID-19. This poem, which I wrote during…
Most Carnival celebrations in Brazil were canceled for a second year in a row in 2022 due to the resurgence of COVID-19. This poem, which I wrote during…
When I first created this blog ten years ago, I had trouble deciding on a name for it. So I called Jay Dautcher, my multi-talented polyglot musician-climber-anthropologist friend…
This poem, written fifteen years ago as my youngest son began (thankfully successful) chemotherapy for a rare immune system disease, was recently published for the first time by S…
The tragic death from coronavirus of indigenous actor Antonio Bolivar, star of the Oscar-nominated film Embrace of the Serpent, has made me reflect back on all the facts…
This essay, which I translated and edited from an original draft written in French by anthropologist Bruce Albert, was first published by the New York Times on April…
Justino Sarmento Rezende, a Salesian priest of the Tuyuka indigenous people from the upper Rio Negro in Brazil, reflects on the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of his…
As governments around the world decide on public health measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, indigenous peoples across the Amazon, from the Madre de Dios region in…
Yellow jessamine infects a premature Spring: Fragrant and lethal. Gelsemium sempervirens, known as yellow jessamine or Carolinajasmine, is a toxic plant with alkaloids related to…
The Path of DayHenchi, a young man from a remote Matsigenka native community in Peru’s Manu National Park, left home one morning to go hunting in the vast…
I traveled last November to Manu Park in the Peruvian Amazon with writer Emma Marris to guide her among the Matsigenka people for a story she published this…
I traveled last November to Manu Park in the Peruvian Amazon with writer Emma Marris to guide her among the Matsigenka people for a story she published this…
I traveled last November to Manu Park in the Peruvian Amazon with writer Emma Marris to guide her among the Matsigenka people for a story she published this…
I traveled last November to Manu Park in the Peruvian Amazon with writer Emma Marris to guide her among the Matsigenka people for a story she published this…
The Vilcabamba mountain range, last holdout of the Inca empire in the 16th century, looms in the distance as a man in a cotton tunic and baseball cap…
The Vilcabamba mountain range, last holdout of the Inca empire in the 16th century, looms in the distance as a man in a cotton tunic and baseball cap…
The Vilcabamba mountain range, last holdout of the Inca empire in the 16th century, looms in the distance as a man in a cotton tunic and baseball cap…
The Vilcabamba mountain range, last holdout of the Inca empire in the 16th century, looms in the distance as a man in a cotton tunic and baseball cap…
When you cry for someone you’ve lost, you cry for everything you’ve ever lost.Although it is perhaps the most universal human emotion, grief weighs uniquely upon each of…
When you cry for someone you’ve lost, you cry for everything you’ve ever lost.Although it is perhaps the most universal human emotion, grief weighs uniquely upon each of…
When you cry for someone you’ve lost, you cry for everything you’ve ever lost.Although it is perhaps the most universal human emotion, grief weighs uniquely upon each of…
When you cry for someone you’ve lost, you cry for everything you’ve ever lost.Although it is perhaps the most universal human emotion, grief weighs uniquely upon each of…
David Foster Wallace lives! How else could one explain the long-distance friendship that grew up between myself and a person I have not yet met in person, and would…
David Foster Wallace lives! How else could one explain the long-distance friendship that grew up between myself and a person I have not yet met in person, and would…
David Foster Wallace lives! How else could one explain the long-distance friendship that grew up between myself and a person I have not yet met in person, and would…