Fantastic Fungi, a documentary about mycologist Paul Stamets and his lifelong quest to understand and educate us about the mighty mushroom. My great-grandfather was a mushroom farmer. This film is a reminder for the next generations that the mushroom is one of the unique gifts we enjoy on our beautiful planet.
When so many are struggling for connection, inspiration and hope, Fantastic Fungi brings us together as interconnected creators of our world.
Fantastic Fungi, directed by Louie Schwartzberg, is a consciousness-shifting film that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence and solutions the fungi kingdom offers us in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges.
Related reading:
3rd Quarter 2020 Wrap Up: Visions of Freedom (104 pages) 
Catherine, thank you for sharing this.
It is (in my opinion) an extremely important area of research and development (for many applications from food and medicine production, to fabrication of building materials, to environmental regeneration to new computation technology and beyond).
Developing a rudimentary understanding of fungal biology has been extremely practical in my efforts to create decentralized, resilient, regenerative and bio-regionally specific food production systems.
If you are interested in reading about some leading edge concepts and applications in this area of study, I highly recommend a book called “Radical Mycology: A Treatise On Seeing And Working With Fungi” by Peter McCoy.
Below I will share an excerpt from my upcoming book related to this topic.
The “Fungal Queendom” is a truly ancient community of organisms which often form symbiotic relationships with other organisms capable of contributing to a mutually beneficial relationship. It is no wonder that when ingested, many of these fungi have the ability to provide excellent nutrition and augment/boost our general health/resilience (while simultaneously providing our immune system with compounds that assist in neutralizing pathogenic organisms present in the human body).
The genetic lineage of fungi reaches back to a time before terrestrial forests and mammals existed on the Earth.. this makes many of these fungal beings powerful allies for healing and maintaining optimal health. The fungi have seen and been exposed to much more than homosapiens have, and thus their immune response and resilience to environmental pressures far surpasses that of our species.
Medicinal mushrooms differ greatly in their individual healing properties from one mushroom to the next, but despite their individuality, they nearly all have a commonality of boosting our immune systems. Mushrooms that boost the immune system are not strictly immunostimulants or immunosuppressants, but often times both, earning them the name “immunomodulators.” Immunomodulators work similarly to adaptogens, but relate only to immune function.
Mushrooms’ immune boosting abilities are highly attributable to the high level of polysaccharides (specifically Beta-glucans, one type of polysaccharide found in abundance in fungi) contained within their cell walls. This class of therapeutically active compounds are most widespread within the mushroom kingdom, and within our bodies they interact with specific fungal-polysaccharide receptors on our immune cells (macrophages, neutrophils, monocytes, and dendritic cells). There is also promising research into other immune system boosting and otherwise beneficial myco-compounds (organic compounds produced by fungi) which fall into the categories of volatile essential oils and terpenoids (such as: volatile monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, diterpenes , triterpenoids and sterols).
These ancient and learned fungal beings create an abundance of nutrient dense food and medicine and then ‘give it away’.. nurturing countless insect, animal and plant beings (and spreading their spores in the process) so they can continue their important work.
Fungi are vanguard species, pioneering their way into gnarly, ‘lifeless’, rocky landscapes and laying the foundations for a myriad of other organisms to follow in their ‘footsteps’ and thrive. Fungi are the soil builders and the soil protectors. The cycle-closers who bridge death back to life again. Breaking down minerals bound up in stone and laying down a canvas of soil for diverse and beautiful ecosystems to take hold after they have done their important work.
Even now networks of mycorrhizal fungi which interact with the root systems of most plants (especially in old growth forests) serve as a sort of “organic internet” providing a means for many different species of plants to transmit information about an approaching cold front or impending ‘insect invasion’ to each other. This network connects plants many kilometers apart and allows them to communicate with one another and become more resilient due to that symbiotic relationship.
The give and take between plants and fungi offer us a glimpse into a phenomenon that is all around us in nature and can provide us with the wisdom and insight to re-shape our society, thinking, and interactions with one another. We can emulate this fundamental aspect of nature (symbiogenesis) to become more about cooperation/mutualism and less about parasitism (the relationship that most humans unfortunately have with the earth and other beings they share this world with). Each and every day we can look to nature and see that symbiotic relationships abound and serve to offer resilience, longevity and stability to the symbionts who are part of that give and take relationship.
One way we humans can engage in forming symbiotic relationships with fungi is through cultivating our own gourmet mushrooms at home. Many delicious gourmet mushrooms actually offer impressive medicinal benefits and can be grown by inoculating hardwood logs (such as maple, birch and oak) with spawn that can be purchased from local mushroom cultivation supply stores. Using wind-fallen or otherwise ‘un-valuable’ branch/log sections (such as those sections of wood that would be otherwise chipped or discarded by landscapers, arborists, power companies or loggers) we can grow nutritious and delicious mushrooms at home in the same square footage as our existing garden. When the logs are done producing mushrooms (after 4-7 years typically) they can be buried and decomposed adding valuable humus rich soil to one’s garden space.
Through learning to collaborate with fungi to produce our own nutritious food (and eventually use the spent growing substrate to build soil) we are not only increasing the resilience of our health and our own longevity.. we are also giving back to the living planet through nourishing her soils so that those who call this place home after we leave can have what they need to care for their bodies. In doing so we engage in the sacred process of Reciprocity and not only do we nourish our bodies, we nourish the soul.