A Decentralized Mushroom Book Club, Angel City FC, and The Mycoverse
Exploring the Mycoverse is a free Los Angeles-based meetup where we read myco-focused books, lead ecological discussions, facilitate conversations around fungi conservation, land restoration, and explore how to make mushrooms accessible to as many people as possible.
Hey all, I'm trying a new format for the newsletter. Hope you enjoy it. Is there anything mushroom related that you would like to see?
Mushrooms and fungi are touching every aspect of our society from politics to science to pop culture to the environment. The more I learn about fungi, the deeper and more connected my life becomes.
This is a newsletter about fungi cultivating us as humans, as much as we cultivate fungi. I went from marketing Disney Pixar movies to writing the Influencer Economy book to now a fungal storyteller, collaborating with the mushrooms, fungi, and mycologists around the world. Here's my past work:
Each newsletter features stories about mycologists, mushrooms in the news, and a personal writing and/or graphic novel panels from me!
If you like this newsletter share it with a myco-friend or subscribe!
A Decentralized Mushroom Book Club, the Angel City FC, and The Mycoverse
It is a cool summer night in Los Angeles. I'm downtown at a large soccer stadium, watching Los Angeles Angel City FC soccer match with over 10,000 other Angelinos. During the second half, there is a stoppage in play, and the jumbotron video board shows people dancing in the stands.
I am dancing by myself next to my group of family and friends. Suddenly the camera pans in on me. I am now on the jumbotron video board, dancing by myself in front of the entire stadium.
I do the shopping cart, sprinkler, and churn butter like my Irish ancestors used to.
Exhausted, I run out of dance moves. The camera moved on, and I sit down, and my friends continue to laugh at how much airtime my dance moves receive at the stadium. The kids in our group are cracking up, and someone behind me even videos it. I don’t think much more about it, the game ends, and I return home.
Waking up the next day, I see there’s a direct message for me on social media. Aaron, the facilitator of Exploring the Mycoverse, a fungi inspired book club, was the soccer stadium.
Aaron: "Ryan, Were you dancing on the jumbotron at the Angel City FC game last night?"
Ryan: "Yes, that was me, haha."
Aaron: "How have you been? That was hilarious."
Ryan: "Thanks man, I ran out of dance moves by the end of it."
We laugh and catch up for a few moments. After later talking to Aaron on a video chat, I realize that I have not been to the Mycoverse in a while, and I make an effort to join the next one, carpooling with a fellow myconaut.
During year two of COVID-19, I was eager to join a new community of local like-minded fungi people. After searching online for local mushroom clubs or groups, I stumble upon Exploring the Mycoverse, a mushroom, ecology, and environmental book club that meets outside in the Arlington Gardens in Pasadena, CA.
Exploring the Mycoverse is a free Los Angeles-based meetup facilitated twice a month by Aaron Tupac, a local mycologist, fungi collector, and land steward. We read myco-focused books, lead ecological discussions, facilitate conversations around fungi conservation, land restoration, and explore how to make fungi accessible to as many people as possible.
“We are learning how to build better relationships with fungi, which will teach us how to be in better relationships with ourselves and each other,” said Aaron one night.
Exploring the Mycoverse is a decentralized system, it’s a group of people who meet in a garden in Pasadena. People show up to talk about fungi. We aren’t members, do not pay dues, it is not a traditional hierarchical club with officers like a president or a treasure. It looks and operates more like a mycelial network.
Decentralization is the transfer of power, authority, control, and decision-making away from centralized entities to a larger distributed network. The Mycoverse is so decentralized that at the Los Angeles Angel City FC game on a cool summer night in downtown Los Angeles and the only person in a 10,000 person stadium who recognizes me is a member of Exploring the Mycoverse. The force that is our Mycoverse mycelial network connected us via the jumbotron.
And that is how little structure a decentralized network has. Members of Exploring the Mycoverse are united in healing the Earth in a variety of ways. Some teach compost at local colleges, work in ecology at public gardens, cultivate mushrooms at home, or call themselves SoilNerd, Symbomyconauts, or SoilWise on social media. It’s my favorite mushroom group, where I can escape the pressures of living in capitalism and enjoy discussing the finer points of nature and fungi, without feeling self-conscious about it. Mushrooms are often misunderstood in our society, and the Mycoverse is a fungi community group for those who love and care about mushrooms.
These fungi-focused education events usually starts with practicing gratitude with the goal of building intentional community. During the third anniversary event, fellow myconaut Alice and their partner Matthew donate clay supplies, teaching us how to make fungi inspired mini-sculptures. They offer clay for around forty people and even offer paint supplies and to fire the clay sculptures for us at their home. Inspired by nature, the trees, and meeting in an outdoor garden, we make art work in the form of reishi mushrooms, cordyceps fungi, and mycelium. It's a raging fungi sculpture party.
The mushroom community is incredibly welcoming to all people, with those who self-identify with he, she, and they pronouns. Mushrooms are often called queer, as one fungus, Schizophyllum, has over 23,000 different types of fungal mating types. Queer mushroom books and articles are part of our curriculum. As we discuss, helping to learn about non-binary people in the Mycoverse helps us all understand gender, similar to how learning about fungi helps us to understand Mother Earth.”
When talking to Aaron or any of the fellow myconauts, there is a sense that we are all entangled as fungi, humans, and non-binary alike. Our liberation is collective, The Mycoverse implores us to treat ourselves, the mushrooms, and Mother Earth with dignity, recognition, and rights. When I give empathy to my more-than-human friends, like mushrooms, I share empathy to myself, and other people too. Like a mycelial network, fungi help to connect us all to one another, which is a healthier way to live.
As author and Exploring the Mycoverse member and teacher, Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez writes in her book Let's Become Fungal: Mycellium Teaching and the Arts she shares that the more she “started living with fungi as allies, allies who were changing [her] behavior and influencing [her] collaborations” the more her work “became more mycelial than ever before, became more decentralized, more about mutually beneficial exchange, more focused on non-monetary resources.” The more I attend The Mycoverse, learn about fungi, and meet mushroom loving human friends, the more mycelial I become.
Many places have decentralized fungi groups like Exploring the Mycoverse for mushroom enthusiasts to meet up and expand their mycelial networks. If there isn't a pre-existing fungi group in your community, you can start your own, branching out from the mycelial network.
Mycologists in the Media
I attended the Los Angeles Mycological Society meetup on Monday. Mycologist and Citizen Scientist William Padilla-Brown spoke about truffles.
Will is hosting/producing/directing a documentary on the wonderful world of truffles called Organic Nobility: Truffles. He's traveled throughout North America and Europe to study this highly sought after subterranean delicacy. He's hoping to make truffles more accessible, sharing cool and sustainable farming practices, as well as promoting biodiversity.
You can watch the trailer:
Will is crowdfunding the film if you'd like to support this noble work, click here.
Mushrooms in the News (links)
New collecting craze goes viral in China. It involves mushrooms, with Yunnan the hotspot
Massachusetts Ballot Question 4 - Legalization of Psilocybin and Other Entheogens (The measure would also allow people to grow their own natural psilocybin at home!)
All for now!
