Long ago I learned that there exists a parable within every moment. And, moments exist in a continuum. Because of that we stand to learn very profound lessons whether they are wrapped up in the mundane or the chaotic.
As a childhood trauma survivor and someone who has had an equally as traumatizing adulthood I have spent the entirety of my days in a state of “trying.” Trying to feel anchored, trying to be centered, trying to be grounded, trying to feel firmly placed in life, trying to identify with my body and feel embodied. I’ve always felt like I exist at the end of a tether. My body and my survival instincts constantly preparing and adjusting with every gust of wind. And for me the winds have only ever oscillated between that of a summer storm or the finger of God. There have been few days of calm where the tether could hang limp, relaxed, or still.
Because of this constant state of “trying” to find things that will help me feel rooted into the fortitude of the earth I’ve found myself consumed in studying and creating my own system of symbology. As wordy as I am it is imagery that helps me get still. It is symbolism that reigns in the racing of my thought life. There is always more than meets the eye and I am always exploring “what the more” is of every symbol that I study.
Without a written or spoken word a symbol can be a fully understood herald that draws and teases out the wise and wonderful tendrils of our intuition.
When trauma has been as unrelenting as it has been for me there is a loss of a sense of human dignity. And the pride of youth and ego no longer exist. There is nothing to hide or cover or compensate for because all parts of you have been exposed. When trauma becomes a frequent experience there is an accumulation that happens that outpaces the ability of our faculties to process and integrate it. This is why it is imperative to invest in your emotional, and mental well-being by taking care of and optimizing your nervous system (This is another post entirely. Learn about and tend to your nervous system.)
Over the last year the symbolism of all things earthy have been a growing interest for me. Which is no surprise since my greatest life’s pursuit has been to feel grounded and nourished from a foundation that feels wide and deep and solid.
One of the most traumatic elements of my life has been the bad behavior of men and the absence of the protective force of a father. With that said I need to add here that due to circumstances that were unmanageable I never got to meet my father until I was 18 years old. My grandfather was my father figure growing up but he was very stoic and emotionally removed from me. We rarely interacted with each other and the majority of interactions we had were me being being cussed and name called for things that are inherently normal to a child’s development. Such as asking too many questions and being annoying, or being on the phone too late at night. I was never terribly mischievous and never got into any major trouble in school. But, he just didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with me and so he was reclusive. Growing from that foundation I went onto being around serious domestic violence against my mother from men who would beat her. One even picked me up by my throat when I was 14 because I told him he couldn’t tell me what to do because he wasn’t my father. Then of course my own experiences with first love, dating, and then marrying at the age of 21. With each relationship I was cheated on in spite of how soft, yielding, and available…and truly good I was. My most recent experience is being cheated on by someone I had agreed to marry. So, I’ve not had the opportunity to have good personal experiences with men in general.
Now, interestingly enough I’m reading a new book by, Sophie Strand titled, “The Flowering Wand, Rewilding the Sacred Masculine.” I have been admiring her and her work from afar for quite some time and when I heard her on a podcast yesterday morning I was so moved I decided to spend the last money I had to buy her book and thankfully found it locally. I bought it because of the earth imagery and because I’ve been so impressed how she through her own suffering and study has found an intersection between myth, mushrooms, and masculinity from which she shares her own unique vision of how we can collectively rewild masculinity by placing its roots into the narratives of soils that are not toxic. Her articulation and use of terms that are not part of normal conversation or entertainment is so powerfully romantic to me that her work is irresistible. Little did I know the magic that would enrapture me from the first few pages.
It is in this space of wonder and awe that I had to share what I learned about how mushrooms make rain. Doesn’t that sound magical?? Truly. And, while this isn’t the author’s intention I think there is a segue here for me into a potentially healing parable and that is the iteration of mushrooms as masculine symbol and rain as a feminine symbol. I feel there is some special tidbit of wisdom that is tucked away in that imagery. I’ll unpack that later though.
For now….check this out.
“Research into cloud formation and rainfall has yielded interesting results. One of the drivers behind rainfall is something very curious indeed: fungal spores. The group of fungi that produce mushrooms, called basidiomycetes, grow through an osmotic inflation process, their hyphae bonding together and filling with water in order to “bloom” above the soil. Once the mushrooms have developed, tiny stalks (basidia) grow underneath the mushroom cap, culminating in tiny spores. A drop of water forms between the gills under a mushroom’s cap. Finally, the water droplet condenses against the spore, jettisoning the spore out of the mushroom. In his book, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World, mycologist Paul Stamets estimates that the force with which mushrooms eject spores is ten thousand times the force undergone by astronauts as they exit the gravitational pull of Earth’s orbit. Some land many inches away from the original mushroom. But most are buoyed upward by the wind, into the sky. Every year, around fifty million tons of spores enters into the atmosphere Some of those spores will immediately land in the dirt and begin, hypha by hypha, to root into the underworld. But millions of tons of spores do something else entirely. Some make it fifty miles up into the air and ride the currents for weeks. They follow the wind. And….they generate rain. Sugars on the spores’ surface cause water to condense around them once they have been ejected. Spores become a nucleus of sorts in a floating water molecule. These water-coated spores bump into each other, again and again, millions of times, until they accumulate into rain clouds.”
(Sophie Strand, The Flowering Wand, pages 11 and 12.)
Amazing right?? Mushrooms make rain. I will likely have a poetic response for this at some point.
I will unpack this in my next post of my series, “The Masculine Man And My Mirage: Foundational Context For Bidirectional Learning And (hopefully) Community.”
The Catalyst 