Trees, Knots, and Outriggers: Environmental Knowledge in the Northeast Kula Ring | Berghahn Books Independent Publishing since 1994

www.berghahnbooks.com/title/damont...

Hawaiian canoe lashing | Hawaii | He Make'e Wa'a How the Hawaiian canoe was lashed together

As an anthropologist of the Pacific Islands, I can’t help but mention that knots habe long been a key element of traditional voyaging canoes. Different island groups have distinct knot tying methods and arcana. I’ll just leave two items here for further reference: www.hemakeewaa.org/lashing

NASA astronaut Christina Koch sits in an U.S. Navy MH-60S Seahawk attached to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 on the flight deck of the San Antonio Class amphibious transport dock USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) after returning from space on Apr. 10, 2026.

This picture of Astronaut Christina Koch after the Artemis landing is frankly incredible and beautiful.

A tiny crescent earth behind a huge photo of the moon.

The perfect time for this perspective from #Artemis2.

Apparently some are not familiar with the story: Croesus of Lydia asked the Oracle what would happen once he attacked Iran. Oracle predicted: "a great civilization will die". Of course it turned out that the one that died was Lydia, not Iran. Seems relevant...

[alt text by NASA] The Moon, seen here backlit by the Sun during a solar eclipse on April 6, 2026, is photographed by one of the cameras on the Orion spacecraft’s solar array wings. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left. Earth is reflecting sunlight at the left edge of the Moon, which is slightly brighter than the rest of the disk. The bright spot visible just below the Moon’s bottom right edge is Saturn. Beyond that, the bright spot at the right edge of the image is Mars. Credit: NASA

Whoa 🤯

The Moon, in full eclipse, with the #Artemis II Orion spacecraft. Part of the Moon and spacecraft are lit by Earthshine, and both Saturn and Mars are visible to the lower right. Incredible. Details: images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

Looking through one of the four windows of the Orion spacecraft, a tiny crescent Earth is illuminated against the blackness of space and grows smaller as the crew journeys closer to the Moon. Part of the window edge is visible; the rest is darkness. [Alt-text slightly revised from ESA/NASA version]

We are so, so small. #Artemis

Artemis II launch caught from an airline flight. Incredible video.

That looks like a holloway, in fact.

Cabo San Lucas

Torres del Paine in winter.

Afternoon light and shadow

Charon (upper left) and Pluto (lower right)

Pluto and Charon from the approaching New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015.

Yamdrok Yu-tso [ཡར་འབྲོག་གཡུ་མཚོ], more commonly known as Yamdrok-tso, seen from Kampa-la pass (4,794m)Yamdrok has a surgace area of ober 750kms and is one of the four holiest lakes in Tibet. The high peak of Jangzang Lhamo (6,324m) rises in the far background, to the south.

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

UGC 1810

Hubble

Room with a view. La Paz, BCS.

A sun halo over the north Pacific Ocean.

3

Monument Valley, Arizona

Monument Valley, Arizona 2025

#photography
#landscapephotography

Bottom right, then top left.

I often fly the early morning run from Mexico City to San Francisco. That flight path covers almost exactly this terrain, which I so love to photograph in low angle early morning light conditions. Seeing it unfold all together in a single majestic mosaic is wonderful. Thanks!

The sun rises over Mokoliʻi islet, windward O’ahu. Moko, an older form of the word mo’o (lizard); li’i (small).

According to the Pele epic, the goddess Hiʻiaka killed a giant lizard at Kualoa. Part of its body fell into the bay: the islet is the tip of the tail sticking out of the water.

A sparling scene is six-pointed stars, with a large cluster at upper centre and a particularly bright example at lower right. The background is wispy and in shades of blue and grey–red, with a bright border of reddy–orange clouds along the left and bottom of the scene.

My god. It's full of stars.

This sparkling #JWST stellar scene is Westerlund 2, a young star cluster only a few million years old and containing some of the hottest, most massive stars known.

Westerlund 2 is situated within the Gum 29 stellar nursery, and is around 20,000 lightyears from home.

Behind the veil of early morning haze, a mountain lurks.

Summertime in Bergen, Norway. Some time ago.

Sunrise over Coyoacán, Mexico City. To the left, the church tower and one of the steeples of the parish of San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist), overseen by the Franciscan order since the late 1530s.

El sol se asoma sobre Coyoacán.

My ethnographic endeavours require much travel, often to destinations far away and of difficult access. To say nothing of local conditions on the ground. It is no small exaggeration when I am able to take a snap like this one (from this evening) and be reminded that there is no place like home.