Mushroom Revival
I have to admit, I needed a bit of a revival. I read the New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich on climate change and it left me deflated. The story is important (called Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change), but it doesn’t offer any reason for hope. It completely convinced me that politics will never address this issue.
My take-away is that we need to identify and follow the leaders who are pointing in the right direction. It’s up to us. And it’s easy to feel surrounded by folks who just don’t care about reducing their contribution to this time of mass extinction on our planet. At this point, making decisions based on environmental impact in one’s life and business is swimming up stream. Our western culture still has the backwards notion that money and status is more important than addressing the most pressing issues for our environment that we live within and that our future generations will inhabit.
So I was sort of wallowing in a depression around the inability of humans to adapt. But the mushrooms can! I’ve just returned from the Telluride Mushroom Festival. What the mushrooms can do is amazing.

Art Goodtimes opening up the Telluride Mushroom Festival

Presentation by Danielle Stevenson (diyfungi.blog)
That New York Times article gave me a new window into the incompetence of politics. Not just right now, but over the last few decades. For those of us who really care about our planet, enough to change our lives and our habits, the atmosphere of apathy, hypocrisy, and inaction is painfully obvious all around us.

We identified these mushrooms that come up in our compost pile as Coprinopsis atramenteria

Amanita gnomes… why not?

The mushroom community is a living and growing web of connection with a heart grounded in the healing of our planet. The ability of the mushrooms to do this work is astounding. That must be what keeps the mushroom people so uplifted and hopeful. Like the mycelium, we seek ways to help and connect. The fungus has shown us that constant adaptation and innovation keeps our environment thriving. If the mushrooms can do all that, it’s easy to be convinced that with their partnership, we can too.

Look out for Ampersand’s Mushroom Inspiration event at the end of September where we will share more information from the Telluride Mushroom Festival and network between mushroom cultivators in New Mexico. If you are not on Ampersand’s newsletter list, email me at amanda@ampersandproject.org to learn more.
Or check in at our website: www.ampersandproject.org