The Inner Lives of Fungi: Expeditions, Advocacy and Poetics

Written By alexa firmenich

“Every time I encounter a fungus, I feel plenitude. Even with mould on a lemon, I feel profound love.”

- Giuliana Furci

“Fungi are relational. They live between species. They are interrogative.”


- Sophie Strand

 

SYNOPSIS:

Oh, the fungi! Without them we’d have no plants, no trees, no chocolate, no beer, yogurt, baked bread – all the good things! Yet despite their burgeoning popularity, science has barely scratched the surface of mapping and understanding the hidden world of fungi. The more we learn, the more these ecosystem architects warp our minds of what we think is possible. They digest toxic waste. Their mycelium networks with plant roots are the planet’s ecological stock exchanges. They stitch together ecosystems, sequester carbon, drive global nutrient cycles and underpin the world’s biodiversity. The entire way this kingdom of life sees and lives, its experienced lifeworld, is so entirely different to anything else on this planet.

Today we hear from two very distinct voices who speak on behalf of fungi. Giuliana Furci is the founder of the Fungi Foundation, the world’s first association that works on behalf of fungi, and Chile’s first female mycologist. Giuliana is a Harvard University Associate, Dame of the Order of the Star of Italy, and Co-Chair of the IUCN Fungal Conservation Committee. 

Sophie Strand is one of the most brilliant rising writers on everything ranging from ecology, myth, mycelium and animism. With Sophie we traverse the terrain of fungal fermentation, compost heaps, deviant animal sex (yes you read that correctly), living with disability, Jesus, and fungal gods. It’s a good one.

#thefutureisfungi

 
 

GUESTS BIOS:

Giuliana Furci is foundress and CEO of the Fungi Foundation. She is a Harvard University Associate, Dame of the Order of the Star of Italy, Co-Chair of the IUCN Fungal Conservation Committee, and author of several titles including a series of field guides to Chilean fungi and co-author of titles such as the 1st State of the World’s Fungi. Giuliana has held consulting positions in U.S. philanthropic foundations as well as full-time positions in international and Chilean marine conservation non-profits. She sits on the Board of Fundación Acción Fauna, and on the Advisory Board of Myco-Medica Life Sciences and of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN).

Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. Give her a salamander and a stone and she’ll write you a love story. Sophie was raised by house cats, puff balls, possums, raccoons, and an opinionated, crippled goose.

Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine will be published in fall 2022. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels The Madonna Secret will also be published by Inner Traditions in Spring 2023. She is currently researching her next epic, a mythopoetic exploration of ecology and queerness in the medieval legend of Tristan and Isolde.

QUOTES:

Giuliana

  • What’s common with all fungi is that they live inside their food. Fungi cannot exist without another, and so they are organisms that are never alone.

  • You need to tune into the intuition of a place, and then there will be a compulsion to go in a certain direction — and you find something astonishing!

  • Every time I encounter a fungus, I feel plenitude. Even with mould on a lemon, I feel profound love.

  • What fungi have shown me is that we can't, and we don't have to do, anything alone. They question the limits of individual existence.

  • Fungi teach us how important it is to let things rot - ideas, ideals, relationships. Decomposition is the only way we can recompose.

Sophie

  • The truth is that we can see in old mythologies, in plenty of Celtic fairytales, that it's often the smallest being that ultimately grants the biggest boon.

  • Your body is your ecosystem. You can make kin with your own disability.

  • Every morning, I summon every being that I want to know as part of my decision-making process. Indigenous beings, folkloric beings, land forms, microbes, infections, ancestors, secular saints, plants, invasive species. And I think that's the most important thing about it. By the time I enter into my public persona I know that everything I say, every decision I make, is not bounded by the fiction of individuality.

  • Fungi are relational. They live between species. They are interrogative.

  • Civilization may not be a purely human story. It may be a fungal story and even just a yeast story.

  • Compost for me is this moment where rot — where a slurry of everything, where no one's excluded, but also no one is highlighted, sprouts something new.

LINKS:

FUNGI RESOURCE PAGE

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

alexa firmenich
Previous

[Full Length] Rewilding — with Kristine Tompkins
Next

[Full Length] The Inner Lives of Fungi — with Sophie Strand