I couldn't help but be delighted by the beauty of these tribal engagements with reality.

• An Australian aboriginal creation story says the universe was sung into being. 
  
  
• Papua New Guinean tribes believe there is no separation between the physical realm and the world of spirit. That's perhaps why plants and animals also hold divine powers.
  
  
• A pygmy tribe in Africa uses song and dance to thank the forest.
  
  
• Southern African bushmen shamans use a dance ceremony to enter the spirit realm. This spirit realm is a world that exerts great power upon our corporeal reality.

If Only?

 Do you remember when the news sites were rippling with suggestions that neuroscientiests had found a link between "reading serious literature" and increased empathy? While discarding old papers from my files I came across an essay by Prof. Julie Sedivy from a 2017 issue of Nautilus. 

Without discarding the research entirely, Sedivy pretty much shows the holes that can be poked into the various findings. But I have to admit: I want to believe that our reading habits can make us better people.