Imagine walking through an ancient forest so untouched by time that even the soil seems to rise and fall beneath your feet—as if the Earth itself were breathing. Welcome to Shirakami-Sanchi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northern Japan, home to one of the last remaining virgin beech forests in East Asia... and possibly the most subtly mystical landscape in the entire country.

In the sleepy town of **Pomuch**, nestled in the Yucatán Peninsula’s Campeche state, there’s a cemetery unlike any other. Here, death isn’t quiet. It isn’t sealed away behind stone or hidden behind flowers. In Pomuch, death sits in the open—neatly arranged in wooden boxes, cleaned and cared for by the living. And the bones? They breathe stories.