Read the full story at the link in bio. Is it instinct or spectacle? Drought, desperation, and tourism combine to create a surprising tableau. Photo by Alfredo Caliz

Photo by @johnstanmeyer | Volcano spirituality is connected to all aspects of Indonesia’s culture and faiths. While researching the subject for a National Geographic article, I spoke with anthropologists, shamans, and local Balinese journalists, including my friend and assistant Tilik Wayan, whose father was a bit of a mystic himself. I learned about the temple on Mount Agung, in Bali’s Besakih village. The Balinese believe that spirits reside in this volcano. During a Melasti (purification) ceremony on Petitenget Beach, participants turn their backs to Agung—the most sacred active volcano on Bali—and enter into a trance. Some press with all their might a sharp dagger into their chests (sometimes their heads). Having lived in Bali for more than five years, I've witnessed many trances involving daggers and never saw anyone puncture skin. It’s considered a blessing to go so deep into a trance, a level of spirituality not to be feared. To see more of my work, please follow @johnstanmeyer. #bali #indonesia #Petitenget #melasti #trance #dagger #IslandOfTheSpirits #stanmeyerinbali #VolcanoGods

Photo by @noralorek | Mary Yangi, here with her first daughter, Josephine Hanan, can often be found behind a sewing machine in the Milaya Project center in Uganda's Bidibidi refugee camp. She made her first milaya, a hand-embroidered textile, at age 14, and now, at age 21, has only recently been able to afford school. She’s in the seventh grade and dreams of going to medical school. The Milaya Project sells milayas handmade by Mary and other refugee artisans. The civil war in South Sudan has displaced two million people, and when refugees arrived in Uganda, they carried their only possessions wrapped in these embroidered bedsheets. @milayaproject

Photo by @mattiasklumofficial | Stars, satellites, and the aurora borealis congregate over Svalbard, Norway. Shooting stars, in fact, are not stars at all. They are meteors, pieces of interplanetary rock or debris that can break through Earth's atmosphere and be seen briefly in the night sky. I'm not superstitious, but still I make a wish every time I see a star fall. Can’t hurt. Visit @mattiasklumofficial for more images from our projects around the world. #arctic #aurora #svalbard #stars #exploration #mattiasklum #expedition @thephotosociety

For World Environment Day, @NatGeo and @NASA are teaming up to show you our home planet from space and the ground. There are billions of galaxies, but only one place we know that supports life. World Environment Day is a reminder of how rare Earth is and the importance of protecting it. On April 22, 2021, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image from above of wildfires in southwest Siberia. Credit: NASA/Lauren Dauphin // From the ground, heavy clouds of smoke turn the sun red over a village in Siberia. Photo by @emileducke

For World Environment Day, @NatGeo and @NASA are teaming up to show you our home planet from space and the ground. There are billions of galaxies, but only one place we know that supports life. World Environment Day is a reminder of how rare Earth is and the importance of protecting it. On the ground in the southern African savanna, searing temperatures and crippling droughts threaten a delicate balance of life. It’s not yet clear how climate change will affect meerkats here, but hotter, drier summers may reduce their numbers. Photo by @thomaspeschak // From above, sand dunes, ancient rocks, a solar power plant, and the Orange River stand out in an image of the southern Kalahari Desert. Credit: NASA/Sally Ride EarthKAM

For World Environment Day, @NatGeo and @NASA are teaming up to show you our home planet from space and the ground. There are billions of galaxies, but only one place we know that supports life. World Environment Day is a reminder of how rare Earth is and the importance of protecting it. The Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus on the Landsat 7 satellite revealed the Yukon Delta in natural colors in this September 2002 image. From above, the delta evokes branching, intertwined blood vessels, its lifeblood in the form of rivers and streams on a circuitous march toward the sea, feeding a multitude of ponds and lakes. Credit: NASA/USGS // On the ground in Newtok, Alaska, thawing permafrost and erosion have increased flood risk, causing the land around residential homes to crumble and sink in 2019. During breaks in the high winds and heavy rains that lashed the Yukon Delta, families were forced to relocate. Photo by @katieorlinsky

For World Environment Day, @NatGeo and @NASA are teaming up to show you our home planet from space and the ground. There are billions of galaxies, but only one place we know that supports life. World Environment Day is a reminder of how rare Earth is and the importance of protecting it. From the ground, Peru's breathtaking Pastoruri Glacier, located within the Andes’ Cordillera Blanca range. Composite photo by @itsreuben // Seen from above, peaks, numerous glaciers, and teal-colored tarn lakes nestle within the Andes Range. Credit: NASA

For World Environment Day, @NatGeo and @NASA are teaming up to show you our home planet from space and the ground. There are billions of galaxies, but only one place we know that supports life. World Environment Day is a reminder of how rare Earth is and the importance of protecting it. From above, grinding glaciers and granite peaks mingle in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. The Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite captured this summertime image of the park in January 2013. Credit: NASA/Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon // On the ground, pincushion shrubs and shards of rock don’t trouble a puma, at center, or her 11-month-old cubs huddled up at the end of a winter’s day above Lake Sarmiento. Scientists suspect that there are higher concentrations of pumas around Torres del Paine than anywhere else. That’s mostly because pumas have plenty of prey (guanacos, hares), are protected in the park, and lack competition from other mammalian predators, such as wolves. Photo by Ingo Arndt

For World Environment Day, @natgeo and @NASA are teaming up to show you our home planet from space and the ground. There are billions of galaxies, but only one place we know that supports life. World Environment Day is a reminder of how rare Earth is, and the importance of protecting it. From the ground, a lone hardwood tree stands in a deforested area of Maranhão, Brazil, on the northeastern edge of the Amazon rainforest. Photo by @chamiltonjames // From above, the flat plateaus of the southern Maranhão state show the signs of mechanized agriculture. Credit: @NASA.

Photo by @estherhorvath | Sayali Mulay, a Ph.D. student from the University of Tennessee, labels permafrost samples in a lab in Ny-Ålesund, part of Norway's Svalbard archipelago. The area is a center for scientific research. In March 2021, Sayali and a team traveled here to sample the frozen Arctic ground in order to look for microbes that stay active in the permafrost despite the extreme temperatures. These microbes may answer some of the questions we have about global warming as well as the search for life on other planets such as Mars. Please follow @estherhorvath for more polar science stories.

Photo by Keith Ladzinski @ladzinski | Staccato lightning strikes from a supercell cloud outside of Burwell, Nebraska. Identifiable as a bright, short-duration bolt with wide branching that connects with the ground, staccato lightning is incredibly photogenic and always exciting to watch. To see more photos of storm chasing, please visit @ladzinski.