Unlike other attractive smells—good food, the aroma of our mates and children—flower aromas seemingly have little direct ...

I completely love that after all these years of talking, our books are coming out in the same month. And the last word in ...

The climate, soil, and landscape of a place often impart unique character to food; if we are wine people, we call this terroir. If we aren’t, we’re still looking for a better word. Writing about food ...

IT ALL STARTS with the weather. Comes a day when summer finally gives in to the faintest freshet of chill and a slim new light and just like that, you’re gone. Wild in love with the autumn proviso.

THE GUITAR LINE UNFURLS with a kinetic, pulsing energy. Soft moans hover over the riff, both spooky and sensual. Then the synth slides in, drums steady the beat, and the song swells with the promise ...

EARLY IN 2004, a buoy was released into the waters off Argentina. Half of the buoy was dark and the other light, like a planet in relief. The buoy sailed east, accompanied by the vastness of the ocean ...

I first encountered Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass, in the ecology section of my local bookstore. For Orion's Winter 2025/26 issue, we're chasing elusive cryptids and grappling with ...

IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL, a bird with an obsidian black body, ebony dark as a night sky; an almost iridescent star-burnt plumage emboldened by a bolt of white lightning running from mouth to tail, and a ...

AFEW YEARS AGO, while living on the Diné Nation, I first heard a striking proclamation that rang through the community with profound urgency: “Tó éí íín´á!”—“water is life.” I saw these words in bold ...

HEAT WAVES SHIMMER above the grasses, the air heavy and white and ringing with the buzz of cicadas. The boys have been shoeless all summer long, but even so the dry September stubble of 1895 pricks ...

LAKE SUPERIOR ON A CALM DAY has a depth clarity of over a hundred feet. In shallow waters, boulders appear to be just below the surface. Near shore, trash creates a timeline of occupation: plates, ...

THE CHICKEN WAS UNWELL. She no longer ran to the summons of the leftovers pail to scratch at the compost heap with the other hens. Morning found her in a corner of the henhouse facing the wall, with ...