How to Become Fungal? How to Organize like a Mycelium?

Come along to discuss the ever-so-inspiring, newly released, Let's Become Fungal!

Aaron Tupac

and

Brenna Cheyney

Dec 03, 2023

Dear Fellow Myconauts,

We had quite the festive Fungal Friendsgiving, big shoutout to Robyn for hosting us again! What a kind and loving community that knows how to show up. So much gratitude.

Also, a phenomenal Mycoverse discussion on conservation, see Brenna’s recap below. (thanks Brenna!)

Photo credit: Robyn Beck

The mushroom season is upon us! I made some quality observations I’m proud of for the CA Fungal Diversity Survey Project last week here in SoCal. Also encountered the mycoheterotrophic snow plants coming up, quite out of season.

How to Become Fungal?

Monday, December 11th, 7pm @ Arlington Garden, Pasadena, CA – Free

Previously in the Mycoverse… Recap By Brenna Cheyney

Fungi & Rethinking Conservation
Monday, November 27, 2023

Under the luminous, palpable, and lore-inspiring full moon—we offered more questions. Conservation mycology was the theme, but as is the nature of the field and the nature of nature, our discussion expanded beyond boundaries and “queendoms,” intertwining multidisciplinary realms of ecology, anthropology, sociology, political science, and storytelling. The traditional conservation of scarcity and mechanistic methodologies are too static for the dynamic assemblages of intimacy between funga, flora, and fauna. So what does “conservation of abundance” look like for these “functional collectives”?

In anthropocentric detachment conditioning, the human urge to act as superior caretakers and protectors of other biota has led to the dismissal of the agency and intelligence of the more-than-human world. Lab settings are still rife with dominator frameworks and often view species of study through a Capitalist lens of productivity. When we ask what “work” can fungi do that will benefit others, we continue to exploit their existence and perpetuate the imbalance of arbitrary hierarchy. Let us instead shift to a language of care, that asks, how do mushrooms play? How do lichen love? What is the “mycelial way”?

Meaningful existence can also be just that—being not doing. Just as the plural ways of knowing span beyond names, be they scientific, common, or even pet, “pluralism” or “plurality” as Robin Wall Kimmerer embraces, acknowledges that there are endless ways to witness and welcomes one to use all of their senses to learn with more-than-humans. When approaching a plant to say hello, we first use our sight and sense of smell to find the name we may or may not know. We may not ever know their names of human consensus, but we notice how their leaves feel, how their blooms unfurl, how the wind makes them dance—and are these traits not equally important to their position in the web of life?

How can Traditional Ecological Knowledge and diverse oral-aural mediums find respectful integration into a full-spectrum conservation model? The Fungi Foundation has established an Elder’s Program, with their goals listed as “unveiling of ancestral human relationships with fungi” and “rememorize our ancestors’ memories, learn from them, and promote their conservation and care.” Many of the questions posed in the “research agenda for conservation mycology” table rely on data collection. But what are the ethics of TEK integration when “data means management” and the qualitative and quantitative practices of conservation do not consistently apply to fungi?

With so many ever-fluctuating factors to consider in order to “prove” whether or not a fungal species is endangered, when we already know we are suffering rapid “biocultural diversity” loss due to anthropocentric obstinacy, why not devise a new system of protections, that encourages bureaucratic and economic support for a multiplicity of conservation strategies? “In a culture that values rarity, you will continue to create rarity,” and thus if we release the focus on rarity, we can remember that all biota are equally worthy of our attention, and uplift the abundance that exists, taking an ecosystemic approach. The term “endangered” also sticks to the rhumb of a linear timeline, where, as we’ve come to understand, time is non-linear, polytemporal, intersecting, diverging, weaving, and cyclical. How do we convert conservation to a polytemporal time scale?

It can be difficult to know where to begin in the expanse of abstraction. Some mycological societies embrace traditional conservation practices with place-based preservation to make change within reach, while others, like Exploring the Mycoverse, continue to learn and question and play with language to help shift ideologies of the global paradigm with future generations in mind. Each approach can be beneficial and are equal forms of turning ideas into actions. Most folx join mycological societies because they want to be in community and experience joy with others, not really because they want to be a walking Rolodex of scientific fungal ID cards. This is a form of self-care, which is also a form of ecosystem-care, which is another way of saying we are taking an ecopsychology approach. We are acting, we are considering, we are absorbing, we are playing, and we are being, together. We are the “critical yeast” of a global uprising and the hyphal strands of reconnection to the unseen, with every step on teeming soil.

Acknowledgments, References, & Resources

Thank you to all of the holobionts who participated in the discussion on 11/27/23, whose words are entangled herein.

Conservation of Abundance: How Fungi Can Contribute to Rethinking Conservation (2023)

Recognition of the discipline of conservation mycology (2018)

NatGeo: Fungi are key to our Survival. Are we doing enough to protect them? (2021)

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimerer

Fungi Foundation

Taking a Long View of Time, and Becoming “Critical Yeast” - On Being with Krista Tippett

Let’s Become Fungal! - Teaching Eleven: How Can Language Help Guide Us Into The Fungal Paradigm? - by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez et al.