Winding through questions of philosophy, science, and meaning making, this week’s episode brings together vital thoughts on what it means to live an embodied life in an entangled world. Guest Merlin Sheldrake shares the motivations that drew him to study fungi and the complex ways this study has shaped his life and thought.
As Merlin shares, “an account of life that doesn't include fungi is an account of a living world that doesn’t exist.” Our relationship with fungi is non-negotiable. Merlin invites listeners to pay attention to what this relationship means and how it shapes not only our lives, but the entanglement of life across the world. With this, Merlin also shares the ways fungal life offers a diversity of expressions and possibilities – offering up the perspective that the diversity and complexity of relationship and expression is what makes life fertile.
Across the episode, Merlin and Ayana contemplate the history and meaning of science, and come to see life as a process and a relationship. The meaning we make does not come out of a vacuum, but rather out of relationship. Life itself, in its many forms, is improvisational. Understanding this, we are left with the provocation: How might we speak to the world, rather than about it?
Merlin is a biologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and winner of the Royal Society Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, and works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and the Fungi Foundation. A keen brewer and fermenter, he is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms. (merlinsheldrake.com)
Music by Matthewdavid. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.
DeeplyRooted: Honoring our Ancestors and the Earth with LEAH PENNIMAN /188
MARIAME KABA on Moving Past Punishment [ENCORE] /187
"The Well" by brontë velez /186
TRICIA HERSEY on Rest as Resistance /185
Homebound: Embodying the Revolution with brontë velez /184
CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ on Habitat Threshold /183
Homebound: The Roots and Shoots of Earth-based Community with STARHAWK /182
MARCIA BJORNERUD on Finding Humility in Our Geologic Past /181
Homebound: Transforming Toxic Movement Culture with THE WILDFIRE PROJECT /180
LAUREN REGAN on Grey Intelligence and Environmental Activism /179
Homebound: Confronting Crisis with Divine Dignity with ANDREW HARVEY /178
TEJU ADISA-FARRAR on Remapping Our World /177
DeeplyRooted: “And God is the Water” with LYLA JUNE /176
Homebound: Eco-Justice in the Age of Disasters with JACQUI PATTERSON /175
ANTONIA JUHASZ on the New Age of Big Oil /174
DeeplyRooted: Remembering Back into Ourselves with KAILEA FREDERICK /173
Homebound: Capitalists and Other Cannibals with ALNOOR LADHA /172
LINDA BLACK ELK on What Endures After Pandemic /171
DeeplyRooted: Declaring Interdependence with MILLA PRINCE /170
Homebound: Decentralizing the Power of Healing with Dr. RUPA MARYA /169
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Just Dumb Enough Podcast
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL