IN THE SPOTLIGHT — RESTORING FAITH IN HUMANITY

Lessons in Mycology

By Maarya Shaikh

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on isolation, and how we cultivate a sense of community. Reading about the loneliness epidemics across so-called ‘developed’ societies has for some reason got me interested in mushrooms. This interest was spawned in part because I’ve been microdosing psilocybin for nearly six months now for a chronic illness, and have found myself turning into one of those annoyingly earnest proselytizers for the legalization of this potent medicine. Mostly though, it’s because in this particular stage of late capitalist hell, where we are seemingly more polarized and atomised than at any other point in recent memory, it’s a comfort to meditate on a life form which so beautifully demonstrates the power and wisdom of interconnectedness.

I’ve noticed myself becoming weary of reading the endless bickering of strangers online (once a guilty obsession of mine) and wondering if we aren’t all collectively clinging to something that has been decaying for a while. I wonder if it wouldn’t take some kind of cataclysmic event to finally unite us as a species. Fungi, on the other hand, is a master of slow decay, as well as extracting what is useful from that decay in order for something new and beautiful to flourish.

Mycology is enjoying a moment of renewed interest and vogue with scientists across disciplines, who are taking a closer look at our interspecies relationships. The old paradigm of Man as separate from and supreme over nature is being chipped away; older ways of relating to nature—as a sacred mother, with its inhabitants our cherished relatives—are being considered more seriously than they have in the recent past. The devastating effects of climate change spurred by capitalism has validated what many Indigenous activists and feminists have been saying for decades now: that the way we have been living is both unsustainable and deeply toxic, and we must dramatically overhaul how we relate to both our human and non-human neighbors. Fungi—which can be described as the bridge between plant and animal—could help teach us how.

Fungi were one of the first complex life forms on Earth, and are widely accepted to be the reason life on land for the rest of us was ever possible. It was relatively recently that scientists realized this species is more closely related to the animal kingdom than to plants, and is responsible for creating the conditions leading up to evolution on land. They extracted minerals from rocks and dirt, and their fruiting bodies became a food source for the animals on land. It is not a stretch to describe fungi as our relatives, with whom we share a common ancestor and approximately fifty percent of our DNA. Fungi act as interspecies connectors, helping plants send messages to one another, redistributing nutrients and even information which protects them from disease, through the intricate webs of the underground mycelial network. They help clean up forest floors, eating what few other species would eat, and form mutualistic relationships with plants and some animal species.

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