Tropic Sprockets / Fantastic Fungi

By Ian Brockway

It is well known that people are generally afraid of fungi. Like a strange entity or an invader that one cannot describe, it often seems that fungi is something sinister or scary beyond our understanding. If you have these feelings or even a curiosity about fungi, a documentary by Louie Schwartzberg “Fantastic Fungi” is the film for you.

Fungi is far from scary. One could even argue that fungi is benevolent. It is one of the fundamental elements of life and it runs through all living things. Fungi, a decomposer and recycler of both the vegetable and the animal, has existed since life began, setting the foundation for earth. The building blocks of fungi known as mycelium are the vegetable parts of a fungal colony that create a vast network that reaches over the entire earth like a force field that holds us together. 

Mycelium brings forth mushrooms, the odd spongy growths that we put on pizza, soup or salad.

The film is an analysis of how vital the fungal world is to human beings and more importantly, to our world.

In bursts of florid color, one is shown many different mushrooms. There are orange, purple and red ones. Some resemble anemones, while others look like meat.

In the film, Paul Stamets is a fungal enthusiast, a scientist and a lover of mycelium. As a young man with his Apple II computer, he appears as a Steve Wozniak of the mushroom realm. His energy is palpable. Hearing him talk of a mushroom’s healing properties would inspire anyone. Emotional it is to hear that turkey tail mushrooms helped cure Stamets’ mother of cancer. 

The film also examines our superstition of mushrooms. Although revered by the Mayans, psilocybin mushrooms were once demonized by the Nixon establishment as weird or dangerous for causing insanity or mania. Science has now proven the reverse is true. Psilocybin helps with anxiety and depression and even cancels out the fear of death or dying in clinical studies. Timothy Leary and Dr. Andrew Weil were at the forefront of this understanding, a new way of handling human obstacles through fungi. Fungi can help a viral bee colony and even store energy for batteries, a natural resource.

Segments of the film are narrated by Brie Larson which make this film about the weave-world of fungal mycelium seem part of the Marvel Universe, as numinous as Doctor Strange.

As the film asks, if humans pass away what will we become? Will we be a hybrid of the human and the fungal world (like a scene in a David Cronenberg film) with various mushroom like appendages sprouting from everywhere? Perhaps it is best not to ponder.

Whatever the case, in the here and now we can all rejoice that mycelium is here to stay, protecting us and holding us in, bonded for life. 

Like Kali, an intelligent fungal realm lords over all, a creator, a destroyer and the ultimate refresher, part and parcel of all carbon based organisms.

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