When we experience the jarring dissonance of conflicting forces, we may be tempted to turn away. But the clash of the inharmonious is not only global and unavoidable — it’s often illuminating.

In the winter 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers take us straight into the “Dissonance” — whether of industry and ecology, war and healing, nostalgia and progression. And from vast deserts to dark caverns to buzzing wetlands, hints of resolution arise.

In 2007, in the largest hot desert on Earth, explorer James Michael Dorsey pursues his childhood dream of visiting Timbuktu. But as he follows one of Mali’s Imazighen people into a sea of sand, James enters an unexpected world of historical wonders and escalating tension. In our Time Travel feature, amid the discord, he is swept into an underground effort mysteriously tied to “Libraries Beneath the Sand.”

Then, for our Human & Nature feature, alongside commissioned illustrations from artist Casi Gail Fordham, journalist Tristan Bove brings us to biodiverse Sri Lanka, rich with rain forests, coral reefs, and waterways that wind through urban centers. But something hopeful buzzes within this “Cacophony in the Indian Ocean” — a possible alliance of seemingly irreconcilable forces. Alongside researchers and entrepreneurs, through wetlands and parks, Tristan searches for the harmony of economic growth and ecological vibrancy.

For photographer and storyteller Olivier Guiberteau, the turbulence of personal grief and the onset of war meet along the 400-mile Jordan Trail. In his Chasing Demons photo feature, Olivier experiences the heartwrenching paradoxes of “The Gone-But-Also-Everlasting Theory” of grief, expecting the impossible and fearing the inescapable.

Meanwhile, in one of Belize’s largest caves, anthropologist and writer Shoshi Parks is on a Quest to save precious Maya relics from the illegal antiquities trade. But as she delves beyond the reach of the sun, she discovers much more has been “Forgotten in the Maddening Darkness.” There, in the captivating caverns of stalactites and stalagmites, delicate questions of history and ownership emerge.

And finally, the “Old Clocks” of Pyramiden keep an odd count of time. In this once-thriving Soviet town turned nearly abandoned outpost in Arctic Norway, the past is both preserved and lost, memories become monuments, and even a ghost town has a mayor. It’s a fitting Portrait to appear once again, five years after writer Kelsey Camacho and photographer Dagmara Wojtanowicz brought it to life for our summer 2020 issue, because its story is — in so many ways — timeless.

For our readers and storytellers who brave the dissonance and crave resolution,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

In the last few years, as we’ve expanded into global expeditions and documentary films, we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of new readers to Hidden Compass. Many of our newest readers are unfamiliar with our earlier stories, so we’re bringing some of them back. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in our issue.