Place, Being, Resonance
A Critical Ecohermeneutic Approach to Education
Series:
Michael W. Derby
chapter two—mycelia & the hermeneutics beneath us
Extract
chapter two
mycelia & the hermeneutics beneath us
Beings eat one another. This is the fundamental business of the world. It is the whole, not any of its parts, that must prevail, and this whole is always changing. There is no indispensable species, and no indispensable culture. Especially not a culture that dreams of eating without being eaten, and that offers the gods not even the guts or the crumbs. (Bringhurst, 2006, p. 44)
Consider what mycelia mean. An interwoven matrix of branching, thread-like hyphae that course and ramify throughout most ecosystems, symbiotically facilitating nutrient uptake, decomposing organic matter, remediating toxic accumulations in the soil, and generating ever-thickening layers of fecund humus (Stamets, 2005). Despite their keystone role in maintaining the health and function of ecosystems, these beings perform primarily beneath our everyday awareness, and most folk remain oblivious to the existence and life-sustaining significance of mycelia. Occasionally, we may happen upon the fruiting bodies of this living, subterranean entanglement (if we live, or make time to go, or are taken to the places where fungi still bloom, and if we pay attention) and only then do we become aware of the vibrant webwork beneath us and, perhaps, if our earthly connection has not been severed or schooled out of us, we are reminded of the interdependent ethos of a “humus-filled” existence.1 ← 18 | 19 →
Mushrooms, depending on the species, have traditionally been accorded magical, mystical and exalted significance in folk traditions and...
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