Remembering the deceased has been at the core of many human rituals and celebrations. This especially rings true in Mexico, where family and friends gather once a year to pray and tell anecdotes about the departed, build altars to encourage their souls to visit the human realm, and even dress up as the dead to…
The sound of bagpipes, the synchrony of Irish step-dancers, the poise of men in kilts parading the streets, and a sea of green mark the date – March 17 – that commemorates the death of Saint Patrick, Ireland’s most popular patron saint. You don’t need to be Irish (Saint Patrick wasn’t) to appreciate the rich…
Indigenous peoples have inhabited Earth for millennia. Being descendants of the first occupants of a given region, each native population has its own way of life and worldviews that are passed down through countless generations in the form of culture and traditions. Although each aboriginal group is extremely unique, cultural studies have found that they…
Imagine you wake up to the sound of the morning radio, playing the news station your mother listens to faithfully every morning, with colorful music marking the high point of each hour. You get out of bed, and just as you reach the stairs, you hear your grandmother’s radio, where a soothing voice leads the…
Wabi sabi (侘寂) is a world view rooted in Zen Buddhism that believes that life is made of three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. Thus, this philosophy proposes that everything that exists – including humans, nature and objects – is authentic in nature and its beauty cannot be replicated. …
