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| Unidentified mushroom growing in sand, Bribie Island, December 2021. |
For the last decade our family have chosen an annual topic to focus on (eg. Year of Geology, Year of the Tree, etc). It has been a way to target our reading and our adventures. But most importantly it has been a way of training our minds to see. In 2022 that focus will be the kingdom of fungi.
So what will our "Year of Fungi" look like? Fungi are ubiquitous, in the landscape and essential to life as we know it. We (our family - not humanity generally) know a little but we want to know more. At the beginning of an exploration it is unwise to plot a map through an unknown terrain but here are the rough plans as we begin the journey. Three foci, the planned hashtags as it were, for #2022YOF.
#FungiPaddockToPlate - This is a planned excursion into the importance of fungi in the food system. The bits we are aware of at this stage of the journey are that fungi;
- prepare the soil and assist plants in growing,
- may be the diseases that limit production,
- are used in preparing food (e.g. the yeasts in bread and alcohol production),
- are a food in and of themselves,
- are essential to the breakdown of the wastes created by the food production system.
#FungiArt - This is a planned excursion into fungi as a cultural object, be that photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, fashion, poetry. It will include fungi on postage stamps (postage stamps have been an object to collect for other years). We have a few fungi postage stamps already collected in Year of the Tree (2017) 😊
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| One of the present buyers had an inside track on the topic of the year at Christmas. |
#FungiOther - This will probably not be the true hashtag. But we are aware there is room to explore the link between fungi and medicine, the taxonomy of the kingdom itself, and there will be (I hope) other things to discover on the journey.
I came across the phrase, "the best way to learn is to teach" - having a focus for the year and choosing to share some of it with my blog and socials audience does that for me. If you are choosing to join us on the journeys, then welcome.
Proposed reading list (to be updated)
JANUARY
Entangled life - Merlin Sheldrake
Links used in socials
Fungi Art
Prototaxites sculpture - https://www.jemilamacewan.com/projects-in-progress/dead-gods-ongoing/1
