If you’ve ever walked through a damp Michigan woodland and noticed something that looks more like a pale mushroom than a plant, you may have stumbled across one of the forest’s strangest inhabitants: Ghost Pipe. At first glance, Ghost Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) hardly looks like a plant at all. It appears as a white, semi-translucent bellflower—almost waxy, almost fungal. But despite its ghostly, mushroom-like appearance, it is not a fungus. It is a plant, though a highly unus

It’s 96 degrees outside, and I’m sitting in the sauna. I’ll admit—I didn’t push the temperature as high as I normally would. In the summer, I tend to keep it around 160 degrees. Still, for most people, the idea of stepping into that kind of heat when it’s already scorching outside feels excessive, if not absurd. But sauna has never just been about comfort. The Practice of Voluntary Discomfort Part of sauna is learning how to sit with intensity. Heat becomes a kind of teacher.