We Are the Mycelium

Branching white fibrous filaments crisscross and intersect, connecting all of the forest.  Through these filaments, giant trees and tiny plants send nutrients and messages, exchanging vital information and support, sending warnings of predatory insects or diseases, and delivering nourishment to young trees still so small that the shade of taller trees prevents them from receiving sunlight directly. This is the mycelium network, the threadlike extensions of fungi hidden underground.  Above ground, mushrooms are the visible fruits, yet these individual mushrooms are not individuals at all.

Our lives are like this—not only our actions, but our feelings, thoughts, courage, love, the ocean of being that we live from—all intimately and inexorably part of the network that nourishes and connects us all.  And it is way more than just a connection.  This network is the very atmosphere we live in, part of our outbreath and inbreath, nourishment, the underground aspect of our shared humanity.  Above ground, we appear as individuals.  Underground, we are one.  If you stretch your hands through holes in a curtain, you have no doubt that only one being includes both hands and all the fingers. And if you see someone else’s hands from the other side of the curtain, it would be absurd to think each hand is a separate being.  Behind the curtain is one being, and one being only.

No matter how we feel, how real the feeling gets, individual aloneness and separation are an illusion.  When the feeling feels real, we need to reach out to someone else, call them, speak with them, see other people.  Being in the presence of other people—whether by phone, video or in person—activates the inner knowing that was there all along, that we are one organism.  The mind may not know it, but as the saying goes, the heart has reasons that reason does not know.  And your inner knowing is way deeper than the mind’s ideas.

And amazingly, mystical seeing shows a network of white threads heart-to-heart linking everyone, everywhere.  Looking oh-so-similar to the white threads of the mycelium.  Running through and between all of us.  It is kind of like seeing the picture hidden in a painting or photo that at first looks like something else, or an abstract collection of lines, and when the eyes somehow focus beyond or through, the actual picture seems to rise up as if from beneath the surface, and there it is.  Sitting with a group of people this can come upon you, quietly, with no personal agenda, where from person to person, one heart to the next, the subtle threads show themselves.  And part of the picture is that you, just as you are, are part of the essential nourishment and structure of the whole.

As we think about these understandings, as we feel into the unseen strata of our shared being, we automatically bring the feeling aspect closer to conscious awareness.  We feel our inner knowing more deeply.  We can recall the connected feeling we have with someone we love, and spread it outward to send that same feeling to all humanity. We can reach out with our heart center through our human mycelium and, I guarantee you, that nourishment goes out to and enriches the whole forest.

P.S.  If you’d like to know more about the mycelium, check out the film Fantastic Fungi https://fantasticfungi.com/ . If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to read Meditation in Wyatt’s.