When the world appears to be collapsing; when the well runs dry; when only one grain of rice remains in your cupboard; when soil transforms into dust; when your scaffolds creak and crack beneath the weight of ending—
You are at the beginning.
Grieve. Then step forward.
There are greater days ahead.
Mycelium fan out across loamy coco coir and vermiculite. A delicate organism, fungi. Unlike a yellow squash or modern hybridized corn, bacteria or atmospheric misalignment so easily interrupt the process.
A budding, amateur mycologist, contamination infiltrated my first three attempts. Not the kind of contamination that Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing explores in her anthropological study on the matsutake industry, The Mushroom at the End of the World.
Collaboration means working across difference, which leads to contamination. Without collaborations, we all die…We change through our collaborations both within and across species. The important stuff for life on earth happens in those transformations, not in the decision trees of self-contained individuals. Rather than seeing only the expansion-and-conquest strategies of relentless individuals, we must look for histories that develop through contamination.
Two conflicting definitions; both reflect reality. For fungi, contamination suggests a conquest over resources. Expansion until death, with mycelium in sterilized (note: unnatural) environments often setup to fail. Within the cage of a growbag or monotub, young mycelium faces increased threats.
But when buried in the soil—even after mold suffocates the gossamer strands—the mycelium may still persist. Return to a natural state may result in a smaller, substandard yield. But the mushroom will fruit, little umbrella caps unfurling after a week of dense summer rain.
When I sift through my things, remaining trinkets of old selves lost, I see the contamination of others. The stories, the strangers, the lovers, the haters. Every encounter leaves a mark that stimulates growth. We are the reflections of every person, every place we have ever known.
We, too, carry a kind of mycelium within us. Socially-motivated, we extend ourselves outwards. Towards collaboration. Towards contamination. Unknowing that we are so often trapped in an artificial, sterile environment. Geared not towards upliftment nor solidarity but towards productivity.
Today, our environment lies on a substrate of falsity. Of profits over people. Every tendril we send out is contaminated by cash. Micro-communities build on payment plans because, having forsaken the collective, we are dying as individuals.
Change cannot happen alone. Contamination is the cost of a free life.
Consumption derives from fear. Even knowledge, knowledge without direction, bloats your being.
It is the consequence of isolated living; you alone are never enough, therefore you must become everything. Life remains simple so long as survival hinges on loneliness. Community becomes inconvenient. Family, a burden.
But a human is not a machine or a tool. Fear counts their spiritual calories. The hungry deify forgetfulness.
How often does the American church mold itself to this consumption. It mimics community with concerted closeness. You believe: Because you are together in a room, you are one.
But proximity is geographical, not spiritual.
Each sermon, emptied of the occupation, emptied of the poor, emptied of The Call. Rather, the pastor wraps each verse in convenience. The body registers sloth; the mind, apathy.
In an era of abundance, our spirits languish in famine. Here, in the imperial center, we have lost heroic longing. We make ourselves smaller for coin, selling bits of ourselves until even our memories carry barcodes.
But the famine is manufactured.
I planted tomatoes and it grew into my veins. The fruit turned sweet over sharp, and on my tongue I tasted memories liberation. In the hillside, discovering true solidarity, contentment, without consumption, took hold. Face fear and you will see it shrink. Recognize the harvest together, and you will eat.
But to be fed in a time of famine forces distance.
The hungry cannot comprehend the food so close to their table.
You cannot show it. You cannot profit from it. You cannot force it.
Starvation can only be cured when the hungry decide to eat.