Dear Fellow Myconauts,
Save the date, for my art exhibition opening on October 4th at 10am at Monrovia Canyon Park’s Nature Center! I’ll be sharing a flyer with more details in the coming weeks.
I’m thrilled for my first exhibition featuring my photography, videos I’ve made, mushrooms and lichens I’ve collected over the years. and some other fun surprises. I can’t wait for you to see the hidden details in these photo-stacked macro photographs with these large prints. Many of the photos featured in this exhibition will be of photos that didn’t make it into the book and I haven’t shared yet publicly.
Brooke Sauer, the former official Naturalist of Monrovia whose cyanotype work is featured in the opening pages of Meeting the Mushrooms of Los Angeles, invited me to do an exhibition at her former workplace the Monrovia Canyon Park’s Nature Center. Thank you Brooke!!! Check out their work on her website and insta @biminy.
I’ve got a personal favor to ask of you:
I’m looking for job opportunities in program management in environmental education or conservation, and general project management opportunities as well (I have over ten years of experience in it). You can check out my CV/resume here or find me LinkedIn here. If you know of any leads or potential employers you recommend that I check out please contact me here.
After being laid off at the end of last year, I am trying my hardest to transition from full time work in the corporate (IT) world to work with organizations that align with my values while supporting my overall conservation and education work here in Los Angeles.
I updated our logo to be more vibrant in high quality! 🎉
12 Principles of Rot + Regenerative Thinking
Monday, August 24th, 7:00pm, free by donation
Join us to explore a design principles come up with the by a design consultancy collective known as Sporesight. We invite you to read their 12 principles of regenerative design here from their playbook Fungi as Your Futurist. As the Mycoverse community looks to explore how to embody more fungi-like practices we turn to Sporesight to learn from how they incorporate fungi into their imaging of symbiotic futures.
From Sporesight: Regenerative thinking brings the design principles for what grows next. Everything we do is based on this framework: fungal principles for seeing what’s expired, ending it well, and growing what regenerates from the parts. This program is open to all and beginners to fungi.
Mushroom Movie Night
Monday, September 14th, 7:00pm, free by donation
Every season since the origin of the Mycoverse, we have come together to watch different movies that are inspiring our community. Come along to see fungi in film to welcome in the fall season when our rainy season that brings mushrooms begins! More info TBA! We’ve got quite the list of short films we’re choosing from.
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When the Forest Breathes Book Discussion
Monday, September 28th, 7:00pm, free by donation
Join us to discuss the follow up book to Finding the Mother Tree, the book that changed how think about trees and fungi. Suzanne Simard returns with a book that, drawing on rigorous science and neglected indigenous wisdom, places nature’s own cycles of renewal at the center of a powerful vision for the future of our forests.
We invite you to read the book in its entirety before our gathering – while not required to have had read it beforehand to attend, it helps if you have at least read some of it to inspire deeper more meaningful discussion. Beginners to the world of fungi welcome!
“A masterclass on the inner workings of forests—a lush glimpse at the symphonic mutualisms and intergenerational cascades that sustain life at every scale. Simard, one of the boundary-pushing scientists of our time, is also a resplendent storyteller. Through her, new threads of connection between Indigenous knowledge and Western science are formed. The experiments and ideas in When the Forest Breathes are quietly revolutionary. This is science as an act of love for the world.” – Zoë Schlanger Author of The Light Eaters
🌱🪻🍄🌳🐜🌲🕸️🌸🌿🍄🟫🌱🪻🍄🌳🐜🌲🕸️🌸🌿🍄🟫🌱🪻🍄🌳🐜🌲🕸️🌸🌿🍄🟫
Now coming out in January of 2027!
You can now preorder my book Meeting the Mushrooms of Los Angeles: Curiosity, Queerness, and How to Love a Fungus via my website or wherever you buy books! If you purchase through my website you directly support me and my work. I am offering signed and personalized inscriptions (fun for gifts!) through my website. I am so excited for you to read it. Unfortuantely the publisher ran into some production delays so we had to move the publication back from November 2026 to January 2027.
Links and Spores that Caught Our Attention
Open Fung reached out to ask me to spread the word, they need help finding the elusive Ganoderm sessile who is one of our best potential mycomaterial producing fungi! For more information and photos of Ganoderma sessile check out their full flyer here.
Continuing the discourse of Is a River Alive? local artists are bringing the conversation home exploring the underground watersheds and groundwater that sustain life in Los Angles.
My colleagues at NAMA have asked to share their hard work of assembeling quite the list of cooking with mushroom recipes, if you’ve never checked them out before.
The mammal and carnivore known as fishers (related to American martens, think Lyra’s daemon from His Dark Materials) in the Sierra Nevada mountains are adapting by eating mostly mushrooms when there has historically been less porcupines and other animals to eat.
A new fungal hallucinogen was discovered which causes people to see tiny people.
Patricia Kaishian, the author of Forest Euphoria whose work we’ve discussed at length in the Mycoverse on numerous occasions, their writing is featured on Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters from Love, where Patty answers the Substack’s prompt this week:
Dear Love, what would you have me know about not getting what I desire?
You don’t have to be a subscriber, you can listen to the letter by watching the video. If you’ve never encountered Letters From Love, I highly recommend reading and giving it a practice!
Looking sporeward,
Aaron
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