Editor’s Note
Inever thought I’d be fascinated by fungi, but I can’t seem to put down Michael Pollen’s book How To Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics. Yes, the psychedelics part is interesting, especially the descriptions of the psilocybin trips into states of altered consciousness where colour is more vivid, physical sensations merge, hallucinatory visions abound, the sense of time is lost, love is exuded by — and for — everyone and everything and overwhelming joy (or, in unusual cases, terror) is experienced, but what I find most interesting is the research conducted by mushroom lover Paul Stamets, a mycologist who wrote the authoritative field guide Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World.
The other book Stamets wrote is Mycelium Running, How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. He believes that there’s almost no problem mushrooms can’t help solve. Cancer, bioterrorism, colony collapse disorder (when worker bees in a honey bee colony disappear), insect infestation can all be solved by fungi.
Fungi, he says, are “the neurological network of nature”. They’re Earth’s natural internet — “a complexly branched, selfrepairing and scalable ‘conscious’ communications network over tremendous distances: aware of their environment and able to respond to challenges accordingly”. In fact, Stamets says, forests themselves are complex, sociable and intelligent — and the point is that fungi seem to care. They care about each other (and don’t discriminate according to family), they care about other organisms and species and they care about the planet. They’re also pretty good at filling us with love (should we dare put them in our mouths).
Oh, what we could learn from the lowly mushroom! When I was looking for inspiration for Heritage Day, I didn’t think I’d find it in fungi. But I also found it in the many characters that have come alive in the pages of this issue, whose abiding message, like the one of the mushrooms, is that love connects us all … and can change everything.
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