Becoming Naturalized to Place – Braiding Sweetgrass
Plus – Announcing My NAMA Debut!
Dear Fellow Myconauts,
Welcome fall! The urban lawn mushrooms are abound and the forest mushrooms are awaiting their first rains.
I’m honored to have been invited to give a talk at the North American Mycological Association’s (NAMA) 2024 Annual Foray in Randle, Washington on November 1st. Where I will be sharing about the NAMA committee I founded and have chaired this past year on Conservation & Stewardship. The talk will summarize what we’ve learned so far in the vast yet young world of conservation mycology. I’ve given the talk the title: “Funding For Fungi Campaign: Including Fungi in Existing Conservation Frameworks.” Plus, I will be leading a NAMA foray on Thursday! I am grateful a few other Mycoverse myconauts will be there too.
Braiding Sweetgrass
The (local to SoCal) lichen Umbilicaria: The Belly Button of the World, makes a guest appearance in this section of the book with an entire chapter dedicated to their beautiful ways of living, lichens as “fungi who discovered agriculture,” teaching us valuable lessons on scarcity, interconnection, and mutual aid.
In this section we will also be revisiting our discussion of Björk and Robin Wall Kimmerer where they talk about becoming naturalized to place and what that means to them – living in right relationship with the land.
Upcoming Events 🍄🟫🌳🍄🍁
October 7th – Braiding Sweetgrass: Becoming Naturalized to Place
October 21st – Braiding Sweetgrass The Sacred and The Superfund
If you are interested in reading ahead, we will be reading and discussing The Book of (More) Delights and The Light Eaters next.
Previously in the Mycoverse…
Lynn Fang’s SoilWise Conjuring Fungi in Soil talk was a wonderful time. It was our most action packed and most attended Exploring the Mycoverse to date! Special thanks to Lynn for generously sharing her soil knowledge, to the directors of the documentary From Soil to Soul for sharing a sneak peak of their exciting upcoming series, and to Sherry Guo for opening the evening with her poetry.
To weather the extreme heat, Vanessa Machuca called upon the fungi and made us ice cold Reishi lemonade! It was a *big* hit amongst the myconauts. 😋 (Thank you Vanessa!)
Thank you Robyn Beck for documenting this special evening.
Then we painted our fungal pottery!
Special thanks to myconaut Alice for firing our pottery and then leading us in painting the clay creations we made for our third anniversary celebration.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Becoming Naturalized to Place
Monday, October 7th, 7pm @ Arlington Garden, Pasadena, CA – Free by donation
We’ll be discussing Braiding Sweetgrass two more sessions so please join us for both of them or just one! We’ll be discussing the book 100 pages at a time with a focus on a specific section within that 100 pages if you’re not able to do the whole readings. More details on each event via the links.
October 7th – Becoming Naturalized to Place
October 21st – The Sacred and The Superfund
Spores Round Up
Another local fungus that goes beyond the binary of two sexes. They have 17,000+ sexes. Meet the Violet-Toothed Polypore and their cousins.
Paul Stamets is in town November 1st at UCLA and the event is… free!? (in person & virtual)
Social media phenom Fascinated by Fungi has a new book coming out. I had the pleasure of talking to him about while writing and it sounds like an accessible joy.
Spread the spores,
Aaron