Through These Eyes

A pandemic, a warzone, and a government in denial

An inside look at the notorious Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where one of the U.S.’s only in-prison college programs, Hudson Link, offers long-time inmates an education – and a new lease on life.

Benito Arévalo is an onaya: a traditional healer in a Shipibo-Konibo community in Peruvian Amazonia. He explains something of the onaya tradition, and how he came to drink the plant medicine ayahuasca under his father's tutelage. Arévalo leads an ayahuasca ceremony for Westerners, and shares with us something of his understanding of the plants and the onaya tradition.

Herlinda Augustin is a Shipibo healer who lives with her family in Peruvian Amazonia. Will she and other healers be able to maintain their ancient tradition despite Western encroachment?

Modern kite maker Tom Joe seeks to preserve the craft of kite making as well as the traditional Asian folklore behind it. Alan Takemoto illustrates Tom Joe’s tales of the Polynesian fish kite made from leaves and branches to fool fish; the Chinese general whose trapped army fashioned a fighting kite; and Shirone, the “kite crazy town” in Japan where 20-foot fighting kites duel in magnificent matches. Children will be inspired to try making these kites.

Ghyslain Raza, better known as the “Star Wars Kid,” breaks his silence to reflect on our hunger for content and the right to be forgotten in the digital age.

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

In the '60s, the Mushuau Innu had to abandon their 6,000-year nomadic culture and settle in Davis Inlet. Their relocation resulted in cultural collapse and widespread despair.

Hormones – without them, nothing would work in our body: the messenger substances control our physical and mental state. New studies show how complex the connection between hormones, feelings and behavior really is. Surprisingly, the body's own hormone production is also apparently influenced by a person's behavior.