Mushy Love

Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

An extract (including the subtitle of this post) from ‘Mushrooms’ by Sylvia Plath¹

Today, I’m sharing a bit about my curiosity about fungi and the mycelium network.

I was a stranger to the intimate goings-on of the fungal, underground, world until 2018 when I was writing the novel that later became Earthly Bodies.

I knew in principle where mushrooms came from. I knew they were a type of fungi and that they thrive in moist, dark places, feeding on dead things; leaves, fallen trees, and bodies. With hindsight, they are a fitting subject for a horror author, but back then I didn’t know that that’s what I was writing.

Of course, the types of mushrooms you’ll find in supermarkets are grown on a larger scale and in a controlled environment. These are grown in specialist mushroom farms, on substrates like straw and sawdust, arguably also once living things.

The world of fungi is vast and fascinating. I now know this to be true, but back then mushrooms were one of the foods I despised. To me, they tasted of soil and had the mouth texture of how I imagined slimy slugs would feel.

Perhaps something happened at a mealtime when I was a child, but I’ve had an aversion to them for as long as I can recall. The strong sensory reactions, I’d later learn, are part of my neurodivergence.

In 2018, they popped up as an idea to include in my book. Little did I know that the research I began on this topic of fungi, mushrooms, and mycelium would become a near obsession, almost a raison d'etre. In many ways, they became the reason for the book and once I began looking for them, they were everywhere.

Fungi are capable of so many things. Certain types can decompose plastics, as featured in this post by

BowTiedMushroom

.

Others that can be used to clear oil spillages. These are types of fungi that could assist us in clearing up some of the messes we’ve made as we’ve collectively plundered this planet we call home. And yet, they aren’t being used enough. I guess that these methods have no money in them, there’s no product to be sold.

I also love the ambiguity and uncanniness of fungi. They are neither plant nor animal, but their own kingdom. They are the epitome of in-betweenness, found in liminal spaces, often darkness, often near something that has died or in its own state of change.

The mushrooms are the only part we see, the fruit of what is going on underground on the mycelium network. With so much communication, the mycelium network has been called the Wood Wide Web because it connects so much of nature and is a key part of a tree’s life.

I’m going to come back to this topic soon, as you can probably tell I could talk about this for days. Let me know if you find fungi as fascinating as I do, or if you have a weird love/hate relationship with them.

PS- to find out more about my book, Earthly Bodies, click below.

1. To read and listen to this poem in full go to this British Library page.