are we mushrooming???

Chris Corrigan chris at chriscorrigan.com
Tue Feb 19 08:49:01 PST 2008


Great find...I posted the following this morning on my blog, reposted here
for continued conversation...

Michael Herman sends along a great find to the OSLIST.  It's an
interview<http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/386/going_underground?page=>with
Paul
Stamets <http://www.powells.com/biblio/1580085792?&PID=32206> on the lives
of mushrooms.

 *Jensen:* In your book you say that animals are more closely related to
fungi than they are to plants or protozoa or bacteria.

*Stamets:* Yes. For example, we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; so
do fungi. One of the big differences between animals and fungi is that
animals have their stomachs on the inside. About 600 million years ago, the
branch of fungi leading to animals evolved to capture nutrients by
surrounding their food with cellular sacs — essentially primitive stomachs.
As these organisms evolved, they developed outer layers of cells — skins,
basically — to prevent moisture loss and as a barrier against infection.
Their stomachs were confined within the skin. These were the earliest
animals.

Mycelia took a different evolutionary path, going underground and forming a
network of interwoven chains of cells, a vast food web upon which life
flourished. These fungi paved the way for plants and animals. They munched
rocks, producing enzymes and acids that could pull out calcium, magnesium,
iron, and other minerals. In the process they converted rocks into usable
foods for other species. And they still do this, of course.

Fungi are fundamental to life on earth. They are ancient, they are
widespread, and they have formed partnerships with many other species.

In his post to the list, Michael asks: "are we mushrooming?"  It does indeed
seem like a fundamental organizing pattern for the communities of people
involved in the work of openeing space.  Taking rock hard surfaces, creating
food by chipping away at them, opening spaces, surging towards activity and
doing so in partnership with many others.

The interview continues:

*Jensen: *Of course this raises the question of boundaries: Is that
tomato-fungus-virus one entity or three? Where does one organism stop and
the other begin?

*Stamets: *Well, humans aren't just one organism. We are composites.
Scientists label species as separate so we can communicate easily about the
variety we see in nature. We need to be able to look at a tree and say it's
a Douglas fir and look at a mammal and say it's a harbor seal. But, indeed,
I speak to you as a unified composite of microbes. I guess you could say I
am the "elected voice" of a microbial community. This is the way of life on
our planet. It is all based on complex symbiotic relationships.



It is interesting to think about the way we put boundaries around things.
We choose completely arbitrary criteria for understanding "us" and "them."
And this isn't a spiritual, inner kind of oneness; Stamets is talking about
a measurable, concrete reality in the external world.  Our structures and
organizations are not what we think they are.  Do you customers have a place
on your organizational chart?  Do your clients figure in your
decision-making processes?  What are the boundaries we have chosen for our
enterprises?

And on a bigger scale, the way mushrooms organize themselves is part of our
evolutionary inhereitence as well:

I have long proposed that mycelia are the earth's "natural Internet." I've
gotten some flak for this, but recently scientists in Great Britain have
published papers about the "architecture" of a mycelium — how it's
organized. They focused on the nodes of crossing, which are the branchings
that allow the mycelium, when there is a breakage or an infection, to choose
an alternate route and regrow. There's no one specific point on the network
that can shut the whole operation down. These nodes of crossing, those
scientists found, conform to the same mathematical optimization curves that
computer scientists have developed to optimize the Internet. Or, rather, I
should say that the Internet conforms to the same optimization curves as the
mycelium, since the mycelium came first.

We live in a world in which this kind of organizational structure is
optimal. We are not the only ones who have discovered how to do this, in
fact we are late to the party.  Time to reflect on the teachings our elders
have for us - the networks of mushrooms and micro-organisms upon which we
depend for our own lives.
Chris

On Feb 19, 2008 2:46 AM, Michael M Pannwitz <mmpanne at boscop.org> wrote:

> Dear Stanley Park,
> I am sure that we will continue to facilitate os events in which time
> and space for selforganisation is expanded. And the forces of
> selforganisation (whatever them critters are)might, among other things,
> disorganize and disassemble hard and rigid organisations...its not us
> that do that...and those forces might easily come up with something that
> we conider harder, less organic and entirely unlovable in their struggle
> to adjust to a challenging environment.
> Being attached to something less hard, less rigid, softer, more organic
> and more lovable might reduce the space and time we need in our work as
> facilitators in the mode of "fully present and entirely invisible".
> Greetings from Berlin
> mmp
>
>
> Stanley Park wrote:
> > Michael,
> >
> > Even with my rather short experience of OS participations and practices,
> > it's enough to say big "YES!"
> >
> > I surely believe that we will contribute to disorganize and disassemble
> hard
> > and rigid organizations of our time and transform them into something
> > softer, organic, and even lovable!
> >
> > Please send me the full article. :-)
> >
> > Mushrooming...
> >
> > Love,
> >
> > park
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:23:18 -0600, Michael Herman
> > <michael at michaelherman.com> wrote:
> >
> >> i read this introduction to an article about mushrooms and other fungi
> >> today, and of you all, us all, and what we do.  any of this sound
> anything
> >> like your experience in open space?
> >>
> >> more of this is posted at
> >> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/386/going_underground.  the whole
> >> article is seven pages long, was sent to me scanned rather than as
> text, but
> >> i could forward to anyone who mails to me directly.
> >>
> >> enjoy...
> >>
> >> michaelh
> >>
> >> ----
> >> Going Underground Paul Stamets On The Vast, Intelligent Network Beneath
> Our
> >> Feet*by* Derrick Jensen
> >>
> >> *For several years people from different places and backgrounds kept
> >> recommending the same oddly titled book to me: Paul Stamets's *Mycelium
> >> Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the
> >> World<http://www.powells.com/partner/32206/biblio/1580085792>
> >> *(Ten Speed Press). Everyone told me it was one of the most
> mind-bending
> >> texts they'd ever read. With so many recommendations, I perversely
> hesitated
> >> to pick the book up, and when I finally did, I prepared myself to be
> >> disappointed. *
> >>
> >> *I wasn't. Stamets fundamentally changed my view of nature � in
> particular,
> >> fungi: yeasts, mushrooms, molds, the whole lot of them.*
> >>
> >> *When we think of fungi, most of us picture mushrooms, those slightly
> >> mysterious, potentially poisonous denizens of dark, damp places. But a
> >> mushroom is just the fruit of the mycelium, which is an underground
> network
> >> of rootlike fibers that can stretch for miles. Stamets calls mycelia
> the
> >> "grand disassemblers of nature" because they break down complex
> substances
> >> into simpler components. For example, some fungi can take apart the
> >> hydrogen-carbon bonds that hold petroleum products together. Others
> have
> >> shown the potential to clean up nerve-gas agents, dioxins, and
> plastics.
> >> They may even be skilled enough to undo the ecological damage pollution
> has
> >> wrought. *
> >>
> >> *Since reading *Mycelium Running*, I've begun to consider the
> possibility
> >> that mycelia know something we don't. Stamets believes they have not
> just
> >> the ability to protect the environment but the intelligence to do so on
> >> purpose. His theory stems in part from the fact that mycelia transmit
> >> information across their huge networks using the same neurotransmitters
> that
> >> our brains do: the chemicals that allow us to think. In fact, recent
> >> discoveries suggest that humans are more closely related to fungi than
> we
> >> are to plants. *
> >>
> >> *Almost since life began on earth, mycelia have performed important
> >> ecological roles: nourishing ecosystems, repairing them, and sometimes
> even
> >> helping create them. The fungi's exquisitely fine filaments absorb
> nutrients
> >>from the soil and then trade them with the roots of plants for some of
> the
> >> energy that the plants produce through photosynthesis. No plant
> community
> >> could exist without mycelia. I've long been a resident and defender of
> >> forests, but Stamets helped me understand that I've been misperceiving
> my
> >> home. I thought a forest was made up entirely of trees, but now I know
> that
> >> the foundation lies below ground, in the fungi. *
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Michael Herman
> >> Michael Herman Associates
> >>
> >> http://www.michaelherman.com
> >> http://www.openspaceworld.org
> >> http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org
> >>
> >> 312-280-7838 (mobile)
> >>
> >> *
> >> *
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-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Facilitation - Training - Process Design
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com

Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com
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