Givers of Life

/ March 2, 2021

Givers of Lifefungi, beauty~

fantastic fungi

masters of life connections

growing miracles

~

I find fungi enormously fascinating and have written about them many times. Just what constitutes fungi is still evolving. They include tens of thousands of organisms with properties of both animals and plants, thereby having their own kingdom. Mycelium are the hidden networks of fungi that facilitate the transfer of nutrients from the soil to the plant roots, and in return, receive carbon from the plant. Life would not exist without fungi. They communicate with the plants and trees via these vast hidden networks in the soil. Mushrooms are the “flower” of blooming fungi. Here is a great article in Garden Culture Magazine about How Mushrooms Heal.elementals, nature poetry
Fungi are on the frontier of discoveries for medicine, environmental sciences, and understanding nature. Louie Schwartzberg created the Fantastic Fungi Film and trailer.  I encourage you to explore the website for details about the film and wonderful mysteries of mycelium. Paul Stamets is one of the leading researchers on fungi and their amazing properties, benefits, and potential to help people and the planet. For example, fungi have many antiviral properties that can be used in medicines. Mushroom-based psychedelic medicines are being used for leading edge therapies to address addiction and mental illness. Fungi have been found that can feed on oil and other toxic waste to aid in environmental cleanup.
 
May your week be full of fantastic discoveries.

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67 thoughts on “Givers of Life”

  9. Healthy food for all of us. Fantastic for the immune system…Fungi is a lot like Dandelions that we ignore and even destroy yet they have so many healing properties to them. We’ve shied away from Fungi as well but we seem to be coming back around…VK

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  14. Hi Brad, your photos of the Fungi are like artwork at its best. You tell is so clearly how they are of support to trees and plants. And of course also to us humans.
    It is of course very important that you know them as some are very poisonous to us whilst some are delicious and nourishing.
    I will read the article you so kindly provided as fungi does fascinate me.

    Miriam

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  19. Brad, your haiku sums up the amazing properties of fungi beautifully! I must admit they’ve always been on the edge of my radar but wow, incredible facts here and I will never look at them so casually again! I hope they can become more widely used for their healing abilities and love the thought of them communicating between the trees and plants. A mind-boggling thought! A great post, Brad on a more unusual topic!

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  21. You have another fungi fan in me, Brad. They are fascinating and really beautiful as you’ve clearly discovered and shared. For Christmas my daughter gave me a fungi growing kit (lion’s mane mushrooms). I grew them in my kitchen, doting on them like a new grandmother! Lol. Loved the poem and post. 🙂

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  22. Such a fascinating focus and video, Brad! Thank you so much for sharing this. 💜 You might find the following passage from Robin Wall Kemmerer’s (2013) book, “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants” fascinating as well:- .

    “Science can be a language of distance which reduces a being to its working parts; it is a language of objects. The language scientists speak, however precise, is based on a profound error in grammar, an omission, a grave loss in translation from the native languages of these shores.

    “My first taste of the missing language was the word Puhpowee on my tongue. I stumbled upon it in a book by Anishinaabe ethnobiologist Keewaydinoquay, in a treatise on the traditional use of fungi by our people. Puhpowee, she explained, translates as ‘the force which causes mushrooms to push up from the earth overnight.’ As a biologist, I was stunned that such a word existed…

    “In the three syllables of this new word I could see an entire process of close observation in the damp morning woods, the formulation of a theory for which English has no equivalent. The makers of this word understood a world of being, full of unseen energies that animate everything.” (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 19)

    Robing Wall Kimmerer (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.

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  23. Hi! Can you tell me what species of fungus is pictured? I found one exactly like it a few years back in the spring in mid Missouri growing on the ground – but probably on buried dead tree roots. I was never able to ID it, and then BAM! you have a picture of my mystery mushroom.

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