The Roles of Self
New Year Reflections
The Fungal Archetypes is a work of Mythopoesis created under the warm reassurance of Donna Haraway's Speculative Fabulation.
The Fungal Archetypes are a speculative mythology that uses fungal ecology as a language for thought—through storytelling, guidance, ritual. Mythology is often understood as a human tool older than language itself; Myths and stories have worked as an instrument for assisting human progress, transmitting knowledge, binding communities, and helping on decision making and self-identification.
As part of her introduction into the concept of Speculative Fabulation, Donna Haraway in her book "Staying with the trouble" follows on Marilyn Strathern's quote: "It matters what ideas we use to think other ideas" and adds: "It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories."
For that reason, The Fungal Archetypes exist. Stories make worlds, and I want a mythological language that helps me imagine worlds without a hero, worlds where the principles of symbiosis and interspecies collaboration prevail over competition and individualism. Mushrooms offered me the perfect frame to create a mythology around those ideals.
Archetypes are universal and timeless patterns of behavior that belong to the collective unconscious. They were first brought to our attention by Carl Gustav Jung and have since become an important framework for storytelling and healing. There are infinite possible ways to interact with archetypes, but in this site I will propose a few.