There are no shortage of stories of man’s best friend demonstrating their loyalty and heart. I have reported a few on this very website. However, every now and then a dog will stand out for their actions.

This is the case with Lilica, a Brazilian stray who has made the news recently. Every night, Lilica takes an 8 mile round trip, braving the busy streets of San Carlos to visit a woman who leaves out a food parcel for her.

Lilica then brings it back to the junkyard where she lives. Without touching a morsel of what’s inside until she has returned, Lilica shares the food with the other animals in her junkyard ‘family’ – a dog, a cat, a few chickens and a mule.

Busy people often try to eat quickly. But one monk in Tokyo thinks busy people should take their time to take slow meals, as eating slowly can give them a good opportunity to reflect on themselves. We talked with “cooking monk” Kakuho Aoe about his ideas on slow meals, which have roots in Japanese Buddhist cuisine, and how he reached his unique perspective.

"Cooking monk"

Aoe is a Buddhist monk of the Pure Land sect and the 14th-generation priest at Ryokusenji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo. He cooks and serves his take on vegetarian food called “shojin ryori,” which monks at Buddhist temples developed over time. He has published numerous recipe books and held regular events such as “Kurayami gohan” (meaning “Diner in the dark” in Japanese), where participants experience eating their meals in the darkness. Aoe hopes that these special eating experiences provide participants with opportunities to realize what they have been ignoring during their hectic daily lives.

In Canada, about half an hour by boat off the coast of Tofino, British Columbia, live Wayne Adams and Catherine King, proud owners and operators of Freedom Cove.

Freedom Cove is an incredible off-grid float-home and garden constructed in a very colorful and artistic way.

This amazing magenta and turquoise float home consists of about 12 platforms, supporting several wooden structures, greenhouses, and living spaces that are all interconnected through a wooden pathway system. During the winter months there is enough rainwater collected for drinking, and in the summer there is a fresh water source in the form of a waterfall just across the bay. A hen house once existed here as well, but there were too many predators with easy access to the hens, so Wayne and Catherine decided to give up on livestock altogether.

"I am his hands. He is my eyes."

Jia Haixa talks of his symbiotic relationship with his friend Jia Wenqi — a double amputee. The pair work together to plant trees in Yeli village, just outside of Shijiazhuang city, northern China.

Losing his sight in one eye to congenital cataracts, and later his right eye in a work-related accident, Jia Haixa is completely blind. The friends approached the local government and leased a 7.5 acre stretch of land along the riverbank. They hope to transform it by planting 1,000 trees every year, and have been doing that for a decade.