Event 1: MycoMythologies

Did you know mushrooms are a fungi within a kingdom of their own, but are more closely related animals and humans than plants? 

On the 21st of April I attended my first event where we talked about MycoMythologies with a storytelling circle, lecture, presentation and guided sound walk. Specifically in this event we were focused on the topic of mushrooms and how in our world they are so much more than just a vegetable to put on toast.

The event kicked of with people explaining their own individual experiences with mushrooms. Guess speaker Sasa Spacal explained when she was little and growing up in Slovenia she and her family used to always go to a local park where in the Autumn their used to thousands of leaves covering the ground. As they were their one day they found a massive circle of mushrooms so big they were only able to pick 1/4 of them. For them this was gold - so they returned the next day hoping to collect more however they had all gone. This bought back my own memories of growing up in New Zealand and finding mushrooms in our backyard and not knowing if we were able to eat them or not. Fun fact I learned in this event that about only 10% of mushrooms are edible however only 1-2% are actually poisonous. 

After our open discussion of our own experiences with mushrooms we were lucky enough to experience a guided sound where we were fully engaged with what it is like to be a mushroom. It was almost like meditation where we tuned in to sounds and deep breathes and really had to think deep.  We tuned in to surrounding feelings like the other plants, creatures, what is above and below us. This class always surprises me and really helps me to see the world in a completely different dimension to what I am usually used to. At the start, I found this a hard concept to grasp onto but after time I felt like I was able to fully tune in and connect. We had to close our eyes and take deep breathe to help us fully engage.

I was able to learn the fungi-plant symbiosis is incredibly detailed and interesting. I like to think of it as an underground network for plants and fungi to talk to each others get nutrients. What most people don't understand is how intelligent and resourceful mushrooms actually are. They spread out and respawn, forming massive networks. Along with this they are also capable of breaking down structures in nature and holding up to 30 times their mass. 

We Leonard about albino redwoods - a beautiful tree that is unable to produce chlorophyll meaning instead of having green needles they are white.  

Albino Redwood

In this course I have loved learning about how completely different industries actually have a lot of overlap and help others to grow. For example Math + Art, Art + science, Art + robots and Art + Technology and Medicine. All these seem like different idea's but a common theme of this class is relating other industries to each other as they often have more of an overlap than what you might think. 

Life subject area's crossing over

I think the the event will also help me in the future with my midterms and finals to really expand my knowledge on things that I am used to researching. I would have never thought I would have such an interest in mushrooms but to my pleasant surprise they are much more complicated and lively structures. Who would have known the first antibiotic was made from a fungi (penicillium).

Sources: 

https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/wood-wide-web-underground-network-microbes-connects-trees-mapped-first-time

https://www.amazon.com/Contain-Multitudes-Microbes-Within-Grander/dp/0062368591

https://www.amazon.com/Purity-Danger-Routledge-Classics-93/dp/0415289955

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/monotropa_uniflora.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albino_redwood

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/10/19/mushrooms-so-mild-yet-so-misleading/abf64dcb-d03c-44a1-94cc-4c7359501a19/

https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/coprinus-comatus.php

https://blog.backtotheroots.com/2016/10/14/are-mushrooms-intelligent/#:~:text=According%20to%20fungi%20expert%20Paul,and%20respawn%2C%20forming%20massive%20networks.&text=They're%20capable%20of%20breaking,to%2030%20times%20their%20mass. 

https://keningzhu.com/journal/our-paths-crossing