Blog

Ubiquitous and radiant, birds are true wildlife anyone can observe without flying to remote jungles. Since their presence is so commonplace, it is easy to be unaware of their magic. Yet they have the potential to mesmerize anyone sitting still long enough.

Stop and marvel

I only started paying attention when I lived on a forested hill in Guatemala in my forties. (Guatemala boasts more than 70...

Thanks to your support last month, we're donating $2,234 to Healthy Mommy & Me! This program, based in rural Guatemala, provides mothers and babies with prenatal and postnatal health care, as well as health education, family planning, vitamins, supplements, and food vouchers.

As you may remember, our donation represents 10% of our net sales in May. Without question, we owe the success of our fund...

During the month of May, you can help us support one of our favorite programs: “Healthy Mommy & Me.” Based in Guatemala, this program provides mothers and babies from rural communities with prenatal and postnatal health care, health education, family planning, vitamins, supplements, and food vouchers.

In honor of Mother’s Day, we’re running a month-long campaign to promote the program, which is...

On a blue sky day, high up on the Atitlan volcano, under the quiet canopy of giant old growth, Guillermo sits and stares. Observes. Admires. The contemplative artist. A dreamer. This is his happy place.

Here he discovers ideas for designing his skillful weavings: outside, in western Guatemala’s verdant nature where he grew up.

Somebody showed him how to weave and embroider when he was onl...

One way of describing a botanical nut is to say it’s a hard, round shell with something valuable or delicious inside. Not unlike a human head. And that is how the phrase “to be nuts about someone” came to mean thoughts about that person are filling one’s head, possibly driving one crazy.

Allow me to dazzle you with the extraordinary coconut while I introduce you to someone in the tropics whose ...

As they say in Hollywood upon completion of a scene, “It’s a wrap.”

Last year’s story was filmed, edited, and released. We have before us a new scene and a clean storyboard. It can feel fresh and exciting to imagine all the possible connections, adventures, and growth that can unfold this year. For some, the uncertainty can have an immobilizing effect. In reality, 2023 is only a sequel or the next ...

The story goes that St. Nicholas knew of a poor family whose three daughters stood no chance of marriage without a dowry. He secretly slipped some gold coins into their stockings hung by the fireplace to dry, thus infusing their hearts with hope. Earlier European traditions hold that kids left straw out in their shoes for Odin’s horses, and discovered treats the next morning, which he left in exch...

I always carry a coin purse in my hiking bag. Inside the small zippered pouch, I store some cash, my lip balm, tissues, band-aids, and bubblegum. I find it easier and more pleasant locating the coin purse, than rummaging for a single band-aid, for example, among the flotsam that inevitably fills up the space inside a pack.

 It turns out humans have found small pouches handy for centuries.

It’s the longest muscle in your body, running obliquely across the front of your thigh. It engages when you fold your legs to sit cross-legged, helping the leg rotate into position.

Before I share the etymology of the name, I want to take you with me on another virtual visit to Guatemala. Walk with me through the backstreets of Panajachel as motorcycles and three-wheel taxis whiz by us. The sidew...

Diego was a baby when his dad was kidnapped during Guatemala’s thirty-year-long civil war.

They never heard from him again.

Little Diego had to do his part to help the family survive without the income and protection of a father. His work was to collect firewood from the forested slopes of the Atitlan volcano bordering their village.

What kind of a future can a young boy imagine for himself in ...