Mosaic of Mycelium

Part 1

Picture our ancestral family tree

Let’s travel down the trunk into the soil, and out to the tips of the roots — this is an origin story

Around 1.6 billion years ago, fungi were the original house mothers,

they gave some genes to bacteria and lichen to create the first plants.

This mycelium family functioned as roots for the plants as plants evolved to grow their own.

We’re all descended from these mycelium

I’m gonna be so bold as to argue that queer and trans people are especially descended

The mycorrhizal network are magical messengers, helping trees and plants send news about pathogens and nutrients to each other,

Queers make language to connect and nurture

I use “they/them” to be a person in charge of my own gender,

to remind us we are each made of our ancestors and loved ones.

And ‘they’ warn about the patriarchal plague of the binary

Mycelium decompose and transform the impossible —

from partnering with termites to chew up French colonial buildings in West Africa

to turning today’s oil spills into healthy water and soil

Queers decompose “men’s and women’s wear”

into fashion as art for all bodies,

We transform the nuclear family where at least one parent’s always tired

to a co-parenting trio or quad, or energized community who raise kids together

Every time we garner that second glance, every time we ask how someone wants to be called,

how they want to move in their body

we’re rotting misogyny and rape culture to grow embodied consent culture,

Transforming bodies from     conforming products,

to processes of pleasure

Along with mycelium we work at the root,

Radically undermining oppressive systems

through starving them of their primary form of sustenance

– our ashamed participation.

Part 2 – content warning, “legal” transmisogyny

Since 2021, 1,444 anti-trans bills were considered in congresses across the United States

146 have become law so far, outlawing access to bathrooms, education, sports,

accurate birth certificates, denying human rights,

reducing personhood to whatever the doctor said was between our baby legs,

(stripping children for genital inspection to play sports

(and then accusing drag queens of grooming))

medically necessary healthcare for trans people has been outlawed in 23 states,

            cis people, we need y’all to step up!

Patriarchy is throwing quite a temper tantrum

They think they’re crying tears made of fungicide

But we are not unmemorable microbes or forgettable tokens,

 “Thank you maam! Uh, Sir.” “Doctor” – we are whole moments,

monuments of movement and birthing,

ever more deeply circling,

illuminating, infiltrating the invasion

and inviting all those hating

to join the rest of the earth in our chorus,

when we work for all of us,

we shape a future far beyond a world of nations,

along with the global Indigenous majority we celebrate all our relations,

all our entangled and enlivened vibrations,

we are dedication to every stage of creation,

every decomposition gives life to new life

and we’re on a mission

to compost patriarchy and the binary,

Punishment and extractive hierarchy,

Victim blaming and the illusion of meritocracy

it’s our ambition to make wholeness mean habitat

and the ancestors of our ancestors’ ancestors are prescient in that,

and the grandchildren of our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s children are emphatic that

we heal, that we be still and listen,

Safety is co-created —

the mycelial network flowing through the oldest pine tree in Utah for the past 4,000 years

can tell us that – we need each of us to believe

we are nurturing seeds,

meaningful messages,

clues about directions to travel and how to transpire toward collective liberation,

at the core of our foundation as a people of this earth

We all want connection and belonging

Throughout all of human history, those we now call two-spirit people, trans people,

high priestesses, shaman, gender-bending queens and warriors

Have been weaving the basket of humanity together

Helping everyone remember

That only when we see all earth’s beings as blessings

will our bodies truly feel safe

When our love enables each of us our fullest selves,

there’s no end to the magic we co-create