Mycelial webs of the human sort

Lots and lots that has been flowing through me lately.

I'm in a grief ritual training led by Francis Weller. We've been traversing a lot of rich, beautiful, sorrow-filled terrain. Talking about the need to remember and reclaim communal spaces that are strong enough to hold the entirety of our human expression. Talking about the need to remember and create spaces of connection and safety that allow us to express and transform while being witnessed and held by those around us. Talking about being receptive to the "dreaming earth" and finding ways to open and attune and listen and receive what is wanting to flow into and through us. Talking about the necessity of this work in a time when we are facing immense uncertainty and change as a collective.

Today we were invited into a meditation of sorts, where we were asked to become receptive listeners to any non-human being that wanted to share wisdom. I listened to the mycelium.

I started listening to the mycelium that live in the soil. The ones whose fruiting bodies are the mushrooms. The threads and wisps that create a living communication system for trees and plants, the telephone network of the forest.

But soon I started imagining the human mycelial network. I saw threads emerging out of me and stretching in all directions, connecting me to other people. Different than a spider web, these threads were more like roots, able to send nourishment and information like little tiny conduits.

And then I saw myself, with all these emerging threads, start to move around. In my movement I was growing, changing, transforming. I started thinking about the ways that sometimes these threads become rigid. And I saw that when the threads are rigid, and I try to move or grow or change, I'll either be stuck, or the thread will snap and break.

So I wondered: how can I create a mycelial web for myself that is elastic? One that is fluid and flowing? One where the threads themselves move and change with me? A web where the threads of connection flowing from me to others don't restrict my growth and movement but instead fluidly respond?

Can I cultivate ways of relating that enhance my capacity for transformation?

Can the mycelial conduits of nourishment and connection between me and others increase my access to evolution? I hope so.

A poem from yesterday:

my body is a storehouse of ancestral memorythat wound that I've shamed myself for caring?that one I've tried to fix by fixing me?that one I've tried to hide from viewlest I be cast out of the circle?turns out it's not mineit's oursand turns out they are all gathering around mewith soft eyesand open heartswhisperinglet's heal this together

I don't know who "they" is to you, but I hope you feel their presence, and know you're not alone.

I've been pouring a lot of my attention lately into spaces of community. All sorts of spaces, with people gathering or working together for many different purposes, using different forms, modalities, and activities to connect, but all sharing a commonality: craving connection.

Craving an experience of melting beyond the edges of the self for a little while, feeling held in something larger.

In the grief training, one of the "gates of grief" speaks to the grief of isolated individualism. The grief of not having ready, easeful access to spaces of loving community, where our gifts are treasured and witnessed in a larger, communal context. Where we can bring the fullness of ourselves, and realize that our fullness in an of itself is needed for the thriving of the whole.

How to let that grief be a source of possibility, creativity and emergence for myself has been the question. And how to share what emerges with my mycelial web.

I've been inspired by many who are working in these realms. Ahlay Blakely's WAILS Songs for Grief project, uniting voices in communal grief work. Laura Geiger's Kitchen Shelf Social Club on instagram where she is trying to create a communal, collaborative, and co-creative platform for people to practice their becoming together. The folks at Visible Hands Collaborative offering free, community healing spaces weekly on zoom. And many quiet, dedicated folks in my circles who show up every day with openness to possibility, dreaming new ways into being, centering trust and hope. May we all keep blessing each other with the fullness of ourselves.

One more poem for you, freshly written in response and summary to all that I've digested so far in this little writing space. Dedicated to my friends, even the lost ones.

in the wake of destruction

may you find steady ground beneath your feet.

especially if that destruction is internal

the facade that held you, crumbling to the ground

shards of self scattered haphazard

like sea glass glinting with light

of the late afternoon sun

may you see at least

the sparkling grains of sand you're joining now.

in the wake of disintegration

may you feel the goo of becoming

pulsing through you

like some warm, life-giving nectar

formless and blue glittery,

stretching and flowing

into every pore, every crack,

every crevice of your being

emergent

you are perched at the precipice of possibility

formless, for now

and on the morning you wake upanew

finally

able to remember yourself into the future

finally able

to realize the potential

of your own heart

may you feel the beating drum

thrumming, humming,

singing the song

that carries you home

over and over and over again.

Oh yeah, and I got a cat! She remains nameless, for now.