The Queerness of Nature, with Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert chats with Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, author of “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” and Curator of Mycology at the New York State Museum. Pre-order "Forest Euphoria" at https://www.spiegelandgrau.com/forest-euphoria

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb. In today's episode, I'll be speaking with
Patricia Kashian about her upcoming book, Forest Euphoria, The Abounding
Queerness of Nature, publishing next month and available for pre
order right now in all formats. You'll find a pre
order link in the episode description for this podcast episode,

(00:35):
or you can look it up at speakleanngrou dot com
slash forest hyphen Euphoria. So it's a fun shat. We
discuss queer ecology, some amazing examples from nature, and even
brief discussion of the TV show The Last Office. So
without further ado, let's jump right in. Hi, Patti, welcome

(00:58):
to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
So, the new book is forrest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness
of Nature, a captivating text that meld scientific consideration of
ecology and biodiversity with personal experience and insight. Tell us
how did this project come together?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, so I.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Started writing this book a few years ago. I have
a degree in mycology. I have a PhD in mycology
the study of fungi, and I had recently finished my doctorate,
and I throughout the later stage of my PhD, though,
I started getting really interested in the philosophy of science

(01:35):
and queer theory, and so I sort of started to
explore those things adjacent to my more formal academic training
in science, and I got really interested in sort of
how science functions, how we produce knowledge, how we make
sense of knowledge within the scientific system, and how where

(01:59):
the power of science lies, but also what its shortcomings
might be. And so I'm someone who would say I'm
very like science positive. I think science is an amazing
tool and a really powerful way of knowing, but it also,
you know, is a human endeavor and as such pen
be flawed. And so I was sort of interested in

(02:19):
understanding what were the sort of limits of science and
how does science and culture interact. And as a mycologist,
you know, I'm studying a group of organisms that has
historically been extremely maligned and neglected by science and by
popular culture and perception. And I was really interested in
the fact that, even though scientists obviously strive for objectivity,

(02:43):
I could find all throughout the science record around mycology
sort of a unwillingness or reluctance to see their biology
as fully as one should, meaning we were sort of
the history of science is to sort of pigeonhole fungi
as being organisms that are just like dangerous or deadly

(03:05):
or disgusting. And there was actually a lack of objectivity
in approaching this whole group of organisms, and as it
kind of created a vacuum of knowledge. So I started
to sort of be interested in, well, how did that
come to be? How is it that a group of
organisms could be treated so subjectively by scientists and what

(03:27):
does that mean for sort of our understanding of them now?
And so as I dug into that, I got really
interested in sort of the history of mycology, you know,
this feeling of fear and revulsion that a lot of
people in particularly in North America or Western Europe have
towards fungi. And that brought me into sort of the
realm of queer theory as well, which is, you know,

(03:50):
the understanding of categories usually relating to sex and gender,
but sort of how we make sense.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Of what is quote unquote normal, what is quote unquote.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Dev and queer theory could sort of was used as
a lens for understanding this construction, these binaries that we
construct in society about what is good.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Or bad, or what is normal what's not normal.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
I had started digging into that and was giving some
talks on the subject, and then an editor reached out
to me and asked, Hey, do you want to write
a book about queer theory and biodiversity? And I was like, yes, absolutely,
so I started doing that in I believe that was
the spring of twenty twenty two.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Awesome. So, speaking of queerness in the broader sense, how
do we currently define queer and queerness at a human level,
Because I feel like it's easy, it's easy to sort
of culturally absorb the term without really understanding its history,
and I guess you might say evolved, meaning sure.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
So I use queerness sort of as an umbrella term
for life and behavior and ways of being that are
outside of the heteronormativity, but also as a way of
invoking kind of a notion of a shared collective struggle
towards liberation. So queer was, you know, used to be

(05:09):
an insult or a pejorative term, and then people in
that community took that back and and sort of proudly
self identified as queer, particularly around the height of the
AIDS crisis epidemic in the United States and used that
sort of queerness as a rallying cry to bring people
from otherwise sort of disparate LGBTQ groups and like bind

(05:34):
them together and come together for the shared purpose of of,
you know, addressing the AIDS crisis and other injustices related
to homosexuality and so forth. So I actually think that
queerness is a term that is not just about I
think you can be gay and not really embody queerness.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
And and by that I mean I think that for me, the.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Use of queer is is always sort of tied to
collective liberation and so understanding your role in the collective
and sort of how you relate to systems of power.
And I'm you know, I'm sure other people have different definitions,
and that's one of the beauty of things that's beautiful
about being queer, is that, you know, sometimes you don't

(06:17):
have to commit to one singular definition. But for me,
that's how I sort of understand it. And I apply
that not just to the human world in terms of liberation,
but also liberation of non human species and life systems
on earth, all.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Right, And that brings us to queer ecology, how do
we bring this definition of queer and queerness into the
ecological world and what's the history of queer ecology.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
So queer ecology is sort of a you know, an
emerging field. I would say it's been there's been some
writings around it for the past decade or so, but
it's starting to take more shape. I think it's becoming
something that people are sinking their teeth into a bit
more in the last few years. There are many dimensions
to it. Up front, the most clear and concise like

(07:06):
element of quer ecology is the fact that many organisms
are simply not binary or sort of heteronormative, and they're
reproductive strategies. So throughout the animal kingdom, there's all sorts
of same sex mating behaviors, partnerships. There are organisms that
have multiple sexes that sometimes in the same individual or

(07:29):
over a singular life span. In the fungal world, we
have all sorts of reproductive strategies that are non binary.
So there's sometimes sometimes there are you know, quote unquote
male or female species, but oftentimes there's multiple sexes or
mating types depending on the group. Your entire lineages of

(07:51):
fungi that are just asexual for all we know. Quer
ecology is interested in exploring the biological reproductive strategies of
different organisms and also the behaviors between organisms and sort
of like bringing to the fourth research that had been
either neglected to be you know, conducted or suppressed or

(08:13):
sort of just overlooked regarding these sort of.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Non non normal, you know, non heteronormative reproductive strategies.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
So that you know, a lot, a lot of the
argument to shame queerness or same sex behaviors or it
has been rooted in the fact that the claim that
it's not natural right to be gay, it's not natural
to be transgender, or something like this. But we actually
know that throughout all throughout the tree of life, there

(08:44):
are so many examples of these types of ways of being.
So if the claim is that it's not natural, that's
just not accurate. So part of it is just sort
of a corrective against that claim. Now, you know, often
the goalpost is shifted by those who are you know,
homophobic or whatnot, but that has been a long standing claim,

(09:05):
so quer ecology helps sort of make that clear. But
then going further than that, getting into the little bit
more of the theories and philosophies. It's also about understanding
these constructions of categories, So like, how do we, like,
how do science make sense of the world? Are there
limitations to that worldview? Are there ways in which we've

(09:28):
sort of blunted our understanding of nature because we've been
steeped in a particular cultural lens, so particularly Western European philosophies.
So one thing I talk about a lot in my
research and in my book is the kind of notion
of an individual. Right, So I'm a taxonomist, I'm someone

(09:48):
who names and describes new species of fungi. So I
definitely understand the utility of like a species concept or
you know, drawing the you know, approximate limits of an individual,
so we can kind of make sense of it and
communicate about it. But there's also sort of like under
I also understand that that's like a tool and a
way of making sense in certain contexts. But sometimes to

(10:11):
deep more deeply understand a really complex system, we might
need to let go of certain rigid boxes that we've constructed,
and so that can be a really challenging thing for
people deep steeped in Western philosophical thought. And we really
love the idea of an individual as a unit, as
a structure. But for example, in fungi, we see oftentimes

(10:34):
that these organisms are not really adhering to really clear
lines of like what is this body versus the other?
Like what is this species versus the other? And often
fungi or forming really complex webs of interaction living you know,
basically living in symbiosis, you know, sometimes cells with in

(10:55):
larger bodies, and then it starts to challenge your ability
to really draw those lines when the more you sort
of engage with a biological understanding of these really complex beings.
So in quer ecology we sort of are like bringing
that to light, like how does how do we make
sense of the world if we kind of decompose some
of the notions that we've long kind of clung onto.

(11:17):
And my goal with this is always to do better science, right,
So ultimately I'm not trying to discard the scientific method. Again,
I'm very positive towards science, but it's about like pushing
us beyond the limits of current knowledge. Can we better
understand the ecosystems around us, like how fungi form complex
partnerships or how you know, desoil function. Can we can

(11:39):
we push past some of the limitations that we've imposed
on our own scientific processes by not examining our own biases.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, I found it really interesting to think about because
I know for some listeners out there, there may be
this sort of maybe instinctual backlash against the idea of careercology,
thinking that, well, okay, maybe this is like a human
cultural matter and it's being used to influence the shape
of scientific undertaking. But it's really quite the opposite, isn't
it more of an attempt to undo binary, anthropomorphic interpretations

(12:11):
of nature?

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
I think that's a really good way of a succinct
way of putting it. You know, so often I hear
or like kind of detect a resistance to this, yeah,
like to politicizing science or making like adding this sort
of like identity politics to science or something like this.
But really, like, actually, when you examine the scientific record,

(12:34):
you can see that it's already fraught.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
With those things, there's all.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
And that's why I think the mycological example is really
powerful because so like even we have examples of like
Carl Lnaeus, one of the founders of modern taxonomy, describing
fungi as rastichi Popeimi the poorest peasants of the vegetable class. Like,
that's an incredibly subjective way of looking at an organism, right,

(12:59):
calling it poor and a peasant and obviously filled with disdain.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
So that's not objectivity, that's his He.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Thought they were weird, he called them, you know, he
categorized them as lower plants. So that obviously this was
prior to our Darwinian evolution knowledge. So like, I'm not
holding that against him, but at the same time, that
is still the fact of the matter is that a
lot of scientists were Christian Western European men of high class,

(13:27):
and those world views are present in their writings and
in the canon of science. So I'm sort of look
kind of treating this as like a way a corrective
to that history.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
How do we go through that.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
History and make sense of the what we know now
understanding that these people were like all of us, you know,
limited while we're all limited in our capacity, and that's
that's not a terrible thing, but it is true. And
so sometimes people think that if you're kind of constantly
thinking about sociology or your your own identity, that you
might be clouding your own objectivity. But I think it

(14:01):
kind of actually can function the opposite way, that it
actually can make you more conscious of your flaws and
what biases you might be replicating because we all have them. Right,
It's not about saying someone's good or bad. It's just
that we all are people and can and can be limited.
And so it's also not really I think that much
about your own identity. I think that it's really about

(14:22):
understanding how information moves, how do we assign value, how
do we assign how does power function to create meaning?
And anyone is capable of sort of like exploring that. Right,
That's you don't have to have a particular identity to
be interested in challenging that or like thinking through that critically.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, because I feel like it's one of those worldviews
where like we're just in it and we don't necessarily
like see it. We're not necessarily aware of these limitations
unless we sort of step outside of it momentarily at least, Right, it's.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
A good practice as a scientist, I think to kind
of reflect on even if you think you're discipline is
really you know, not touched by human culture, I think
it can be, and I would say some disciplines are
much more in touch with that than others, but there's
still like, I think it's a good reflection as a scientist.
I think you can make you a more ethical, more grounded,

(15:15):
and more effective scientist to at least be like considering
these how this might function in your own work.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Now, coming back to the book. Very early on in
the book, you mentioned the nineteen ninety six French documentary Microcosms,
which I think a lot of our listeners have probably
seen in spite of perhaps of that sort of infamous
American poster that featured the praying mantis with the sunglasses

(15:41):
rather out of keeping with the actual vibe of the film,
the vibe of which you discussed.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
So I really love that film because it's so immersive
in this world of insects and other arthropods, and I
think that those animals are so often treated with contempt. Right,
So we similar to fungi, there's these perceptions around insects

(16:09):
and and these you know, invertebrate animals that they're creepy, disgusting,
they're like unworthy of of our care and love. You know,
we we don't have any like coordinated system for ethics
around insects, right, It's all like, actually the ethic is
really that you can kill them without mercy, and so

(16:33):
I I just find but I find them to be
so incredibly well. They are not just I don't not
just me who finds them this way. They are incredibly diverse.
There there are you know, millions of species of insects,
and they are these It's a whole, it's a universe
unto itself, right, And so what I like about microcosmos

(16:54):
is that it really submerses you into that world and
you start to see that these things are animals. Like
I think a lot of people know technically, and I'm
sure most listeners to this podcast know that, like insects
are animals, but you can still like something about making
the micro sort of macro. You really see like, oh,
this thing has like all these ornaments, and it has

(17:15):
a behavior, and it has a family, and it has
these you know, and it has sex and like all
it is like an animal world. I think we just
reduce them to these very flat, kind of negative categories otherwise,
So I love that it kind of creates this drama
that you're like with the music and you're sort of
in and then like these towering plants all around you

(17:37):
and you're kind of in this metropolis of this other world.
And I think it makes them feel like dynamic because
they are dynamic. They're species that have complex lives and
probably feel all sorts of sensations that we've kind of
typically denied them, so like pleasure and maybe even pain

(17:57):
and fear, and we you know, we don't know too
much about insect neuroscience in terms of what sensations they're
capable of. But it kind of seems crazy to me
that we would just assume from the jump that they're
unfeeling entirely Like that doesn't make that doesn't really make
scientific sense to me, right, So, and then there's also

(18:18):
so there's other arthropods and and and then invertebrates. So like,
I really love the snail sex scene where these two
uh snails are there is like a gradual operatic situation
where they are finding they find each other in the
in the moss, and then they are entwined their bodies

(18:38):
together and it's just and the opera crescendos as it
is happening, and it's just like, Wow, these animals are
really like experiencing pleasure, Like they're really like in this
thing together and they're and also they're both you're not
sure what the sex is of either, because they're they
actually are both hermaphroditic. They both have both you know,

(19:01):
male and female reproductive organs in their bodies, so there
is this queer, literal, reproductively queer.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Element to them as well. So I just it's a
great film.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend just setting
aside a couple hours and immersing yourself into this micro world.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah. I had seen it years ago, and I noticed
that it's currently on Criterion Channel, so I pulled it
up during lunch the other day. Yeah, it's still gorgeous.
And this is something you touch on in the book
as well. It has almost no narration. There's like a
little opening, narrational, little closing, but for the most part,
like you're just immersed in this visual world of the

(19:43):
creatures studied here.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
So in the book, you bring up many examples of
queerness in nature, again not exceptions to an imagined binary rule,
but expressions of that abounding queerness that you get to
in the title. What are some of your favorite additional
examples to bring up in discussing queer ecology.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
I really am obsessed with eels, and they specifically the
American eel that I talk about in the book. I
think that they there's so much to their the they're
very there.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
So they have a very queer body, right.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
So they are organisms that spend most of their life
as intersex.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
In zoology, we use the.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
Word hermaphroditic, but I know that humans prefer intersex, so
I try I actually, I guess I.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Think that's probably the better term to use.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
So in the snail, sorry, the eel bodies are intersex
in that they both have both male or they have testes,
and they have ovaries for most of their life, and
so you can't you know, there was a lot of
mystery around them in the early days of natural history,

(21:11):
trying to understand well, what are they, you know, and
so a lot of scientists were determined that they must
be either male or female, and so that sort of
lens of trying to prove that they were one or
the other dominated investigations into their bodies in biology. And
one of those people researching eel sex was Sigmund Freud,

(21:35):
and I so I write a little bit about his
early days before he became interested in psychology or before
he was studying it, was studying natural history, and he
he was someone who wanted to sort of understand what
the el sex situation was, and Spoke spent actually a
lot much of his time dissecting the bodies of eels,

(21:58):
trying to find roof of like sort of one sex
or the other. And he kept he wanted to find specifically,
he didn't understand why, like where were all the males?
So I think it was easier to find ovarian tissue,
but it was harder to find testicular type tissues, And
so he dissected like hundreds of eels before finally finding

(22:20):
some evidence that.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
There were males or male sex organs.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
And some people think that this may have been this
sort of pursuit might have given rise to some of
his later concepts like castration, anxiety.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
And stuff like this, because he was maybe.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
Made anxious by the fact that this was not actually
something he could easily find. But eels are just, on
several levels, incredibly fascinating. And one thing that also I
grew really interested in was the way that they migrate,
so they are spawned. They are all of the American
eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, so kind of

(23:02):
near the Bermuda Triangle, and for up until very recently,
this exact location was unknown, and their whole sort of
sexual reproduction was not witnessed or recorded by science.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
And then the eels.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
Migrate from the Bermuda, like from the Sargasso Sea all
the way up to the along the length of the
North American Eastern seaboard and enter into freshwater systems through
rivers that reach the ocean, and they swim upstream and
they can go pretty far. They can travel hundreds of

(23:37):
miles within the freshwater systems. And I got to experience
eels at when I was teaching at Bard College in
the Hudson Valley, so on the Hudson River, and there
was an eel monitoring project because eels have their populations
have collapsed due to overfishing and pollution and habitat destruction.

(23:59):
So there's a monitoring project with Hudsonia, an environmental org,
and we would I would take my students and we
would volunteer to help them trap eels, document them, and
then release them into the freshwater systems. And so I
started learning about how eels do this migration. They they
make this trip from the Sargasso Sea with just basically

(24:23):
only being about an inch long, and they're totally translucent
except you can see through their bodies. You can see
their eyes and then their their spinal cords and but
they're just this tiny little fish that like swims for
it can take them over a year to swim from
where they were born to these freshwater systems that the
systems that their parents came from. And so I was like,

(24:46):
you know, started reading about how they are using magnetite,
which is a oxidized iron material that's in their set
like in and around their brains.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
And this is something that other animals have as well.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
It's best studied in fish like salmon, which also are
you know, do these complex migratory routes. But it's magnetite
is present throughout the tree of life. Even humans have it,
but we're not sure exactly if its function in our bodies.
But what's amazing about magnetite is that it is in
the case of these complex animals, like multicellular animals, it's

(25:23):
probably it's believed to have been a bacterial origin, so
it's likely arose from an endosymbiotic event. So endo symbiosis
is a process by which, you know, one species of
a smaller size is engulfed by another larger species and eventually,
over time they become interdependent on one another through you know,

(25:47):
many generations. And so this is the case. This is
how many of our organelles came to be. So mitochondria,
for example, were used to be free living bacteria that
were absorbed by another cell and then instead of it
being maybe eaten or just being sort of killed by
that engulfing, it's stato illlive and then persisted as a

(26:08):
living cell within a larger cell. And eventually, over many, many,
many generations, they become you know, like entangled with each
other in physiologically and energetically. And so this process is
so I mean, it's just kind of crazy to wrap
your mind around. It's stranger than fiction in a lot
of ways, Like what are the odds of these types

(26:30):
of most you know, cellular events happening, And how is
it that such sort of randomness could then give rise
to such complexity. I mean, this is like the study
of evolution, right, It's just absolutely crazy. I mean, it's
like it sometimes feels just absolutely absurd. But what I
kind of am bringing it back a little bit to

(26:50):
quer ecology in a moment, which is that for most
of a lot of scientific history, Western science was pretty
resistant to this idea of symbiosis or to interdependencies or
sort of that you know, the individual could really be
made up of many, uh, you know, individuals, and we
are collectively a being that is not really discernible without

(27:14):
the presence of all these other micro organisms and such.
So the science there was a scientist, an evolutionary biologist,
Lynn Margolis, who was the person who's who brought endosymbiotic
theory to like the a tension of science, and for
many years she was dismissed as you know, being kind

(27:34):
of just like partly on the basis of her gender,
but just also on the basis of the fact that
this just seems so crazy, like we are how could
endosymbiosis really be like the foundation of the human body,
like the noble amazing, you.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Know, a complex person.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Couldn't really could we really be just like a bunch
of bacteria and fungi in a in a flesh, fleshy form.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
But over time, more and more.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
Evidence accumulated in support of her highypotheses, and now that
is understood as as a like a you know, a
fact of evolutionary biology and so that but she was
willing to sort of challenge the paradigm and push outside
of like what is normal and what is accepted in
the scientific discipline and at great personal you know, risk

(28:17):
and costs professionally. So I think that that part that
story of like how magnetite Okay, okay, So then going
back to the magnetite, there were these ancient bacteria that
probably through just a you know, random mutation, started accumulating
magnetite in their cells. And the magnetite is receptive to

(28:40):
the magnetic fields of the Earth, and so over time
these what was probably just like you know, a mutation
of accumulation of this of this material became beneficial to
that organism. They started to be able to sort of
orient themselves to the magn the magnetic fields of the
Earth and developed something of a magneto taxis, so being

(29:01):
able to move by magnetic fields. And so we have
like chemotaxis or phototaxis, and magomagnetic taxis is another form
of response, you know, stimulation and response. So the over
time and we have there there are these basically accumulations

(29:21):
of these little packets of magnetite in a bacterial cell
and they formed in a tiny like little chain, and
that chain became almost like a compass needle that could
move in response to the magnetic fields of the Earth.
And that some ancestor of that bacteria was probably what
was absorbed into another larger cell. That then is you know,

(29:44):
deep in the tree of life of animals, and just
a common ancestor of most animals probably had absorbed some
sort of magnetive tactic bacteria and that's why we can
find it scattered across all the tree of life. And
so some animals have you know, evolved these magnetostomes, these
more complex structures within with in which magnetite is found,

(30:09):
and they are basically sensory organs that so, like in salmon,
for example, we know that there's the complex magnetostomes in
and around their little noses and faces and they use
that to guide their migratory journeys from from you know,
c in fresh water. And so we think eels have
that as well, and that's how sort of how they're

(30:29):
able to travel through the ocean for weeks and weeks
and weeks or oriented towards this sort of ancestral water
that was probably somehow that imprinted into.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
The magnetostomes that they're using.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
So this is that was a very long story, but
I think both elements of the eel biology are are relevant.
So there's the queer ecological the queer biological fact of
their bodies being intersect for most of their life and
then when they are about to make their journey, so
they migrate up to freshwater, live there for several decades,
and then when they are it's time to reproduce, they're

(31:08):
sort of signaled into preparing for a journey back to
the Sargasso c And at that point they replace all
of their digestive organs get sort of cannibalized and cellularly
repurposed into sexual reproductive organs, and that at that point
typically they become you know, they develop more fully ovariant

(31:28):
tissue or more fully testicular tissues, or they can retain both,
and then they make that journey back to the Sargasso
c and they have a raucous I guess evening of
sexual reproduction. So that is super queer in a sort
of queer like in a direct reproductive sense, but then
also this sort of you know, the history of endosymbiosis

(31:51):
as being a kind of a rejected concept in the
scientific establishment because it showed that these you know, higher
quote unquote, higher level organisms were the kind of random
events of these lowly microbes. And that kind of perspective
is something that challenges like the agency of more complex
beings and the human Wow.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Absolutely, Uh, there's another organism that you bring up. And
I have to admit this is an organism that has
long been one of my favorites, but at a like
a a zoo tourist level, like I've never researched them
for the podcast or anything, so I only really knew
what was out there already, like you know, going to
zoos and you know up there on the little sign

(32:33):
and so forth. But the Castawary, Oh yeah. And granted,
there's a lot about the Castawary to catch your eye
and to explain to a general audience, like their you know,
their their coloration, their their flightlessness, their their feet, the
formation on the top of their head. But I was
really taken by your discussion of how they they fit
into queer ecology. Would you would tell us a little
bit about this Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
So castiwaries they're amazing birds. They're incredibly you know, like
they just are very much like, Okay, you understand that
they're related to how closely related they are to dinosaurs,
and so they're completely fascinating.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
But for in terms of the like they're sort of
queer structures.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
They for a long time, it was really not discussed
in any of the literature on their basic biology, like
how they were reproducing and the fact that like some
of the females have these fallacies and some of the
males have like inverted basically like they instead of having
an extroverted fallus, they have inverted structures.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
So they sort of have this.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
Like in what you know, what we would consider the
opposite and you know, most people would consider the opposite
type structure representing you know, on the male or female.
And so for a long time, people who the people
like indigenous to this area where castwerries are found, would
involve cassowaries in a lot of their cosmology and iconographies

(34:01):
and specifically were aware that they had these you know,
queer reproductive organs, organs that were not binary organs that
defied sort of expectations around gender or sex, and they
incorporated that into some into ritual and so forth. So
this was known to the people who lived amongst them
for thousands of years that they actually have really sort

(34:24):
of these these structures.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
But in the Western scientific descriptions of these birds there
were there was really no mention of this fact. And
and so actually I learned about.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
This through reading Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagamial, I believe
is the pronunciation of his last name, which is a
wonderful compendium, very textbook like compendium of examples of queerness
in nature.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
And I found that it's a wonderful resource.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
It's and it does get a little bit into sort
of the like reasons why certain studies were maybe not
taken seriously or suppressed or ignored. And so he notes that,
you know, these birds were known for a while to
be like this, but you could not find record of
that in in like publications. And he believes it's because

(35:11):
there was sort of shame and anxiety around just simply
reporting evidence of queerness or homosexuality or of you know,
sort of gender sex nonconformity in the scientific literature.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
So it's it's just an.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
It's an interesting example of the fact that like so
going back to the earlier part of our conversation where
we can have or we talk about you know, it's
not actually we're not actually being political when we pull
these things out. We're actually exposing the fact that there
were biases that clouded the objectivity in science, and it's
important to acknowledge those and sort of pull that subjectivity

(35:52):
out and actually just look at these things very factually.
So it's just a good example of like what you
what happens when you're just afraid to make waves in science,
or you're or you're just not looking correctly, so you
might have maybe maybe you you know. He has other
examples in the book too, where scientists would talk about,

(36:13):
you know, seeing something and just really not believing them
their own observations because it was contradictory to heteronormativity. It's
like or they would come up with very non parsimonious
explanations as to why they were seeing what they were seeing, like, oh,
this these two you know, birds are have a same
sex partnership, but you know, they're probably just confused or

(36:33):
something like that, right, and so making these sort of
like reaching for explanations that that are not really evidence
based but are just sort of like would would kind
of explain away the fact that you're constantly seeing same
sex behaviors in that species. So the same with the cassowaries.
This was the case as well, that they were just
like not either not report. We can't be sure exactly why,

(36:54):
but it seems as if they were either not reporting
what they were seeing or they didn't believe their own
examination of these birds that were like maybe I'm just
not getting it, but maybe it was just that they're
not conforming to our notions of what sexual structures should
look like in males or females.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
It's such a fascinating way to sort of turn the
tables on anthromomorphism and sort of see it as I guess.
You know, On one hand, we have to acknowledge that
anthromomorphism helps us in some cases care more about animals.
You know, we see ourselves reflected in them, but then
it can stand in the way of fully understanding what

(37:31):
they are and how they operate because even at a
subliminal level, like we're seeing ourselves in them and seeing
them as models of humans.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
I think that is a really important point because I
think anthropomorphism can be a good tool and it can
stand in the way, and it kind of is case dependent.
And it's also so it sort of requires you to
be constantly reflexive on like, if I like withhold all
of the complex city that I know is found in
the human species from another species, am I learning more

(38:04):
about it? Or am I making it?

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Like?

Speaker 3 (38:07):
Am I actually reducing my understanding of it?

Speaker 4 (38:10):
And so that kind of negotiation is something that I
try to engage with regularly. It's like, so for example,
going back to the insects, if I assume nothing like
no human qualities can be mapped onto insects, then I
might assume that they're incapable of experiencing pleasure or pain,
or that they don't have like complex social realities, and

(38:32):
then I might actually not really understand insects. But you
can take it then, as you're saying, you can also
for the castworries.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
If we assume like a male.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
Looks like this and a female looks like this, then
you know you're because of what we think is normal
for people, then we are also reducing our understanding of
these organisms. So it kind of is this constant like
negotiation and toggle between can anthropomorphism actually enrich our scientific
understanding or is in this moment is it restricting us?

(39:02):
And so there isn't like a one answer. It's sort
of a constant question. But I try time my sort
of inclination and this is just sort of my style
not to be prescriptive, is to sort of assume human
like qualities and then scientifically assess what you know.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Is that accurate?

Speaker 4 (39:21):
And so I'd rather over project, you know, feeling and
dynamicism and complexity and then maybe have you with evidence
take that away or under renegotiate that as opposed to
assuming being that you're this inert, unfeeling species and you
have nothing, you know, you're just a you know, like

(39:43):
a collection of molecules and there's no sort of vitalism there,
and so that's kind of that's if I had to
pick one. I actually think anthropomorphism is likely to enrich
our understanding, but caveats abound.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Now coming back to the realm of mycology and where
it intersects with human culture and understanding. I wonder what
your thoughts are on this. I know that, like in general,
writers have often touched on different cultures being micophilic or microphobic,

(40:30):
like on the whole seeing like the realm of mushrooms
and fun guys being dangerous or beneficial and not being
like wrapped up in their culture. And this of course
gets into what you're talking about earlier, about the about
certain despised species or forms of life within given cultures.
And I was just wondering, like, do you see an

(40:50):
overlap between traditional cultures that are more micophilic and ones
that are traditionally like less defined and by rigid binary
definitions of sexuality and gender.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
Hmmm, that's a really good question, I think in general, yes,
I would say that as I'm not you know, and
I'm not an anthropologist or a sociologist, but from you know,
so as a mycologist trying to sort of explore this topic,
I you know, I don't I can't speak super confidently
in for other cultures, but what I can say is

(41:20):
that a lot of the history of homophobia and the
history of sort of the way that the patriarchy functions
in Western European and euro American culture had you know,
that's something that has been exported around the world through
colonialism and other you know, there have been societies all

(41:41):
over the world that have had you know, have sought
to have conformity with gender and with you know, and
have been patriarchal and stuff. But the type, the sort
of manifestation that we are now all pretty familiar with
originated in you know, Western European and euro American thought
and then what has been imposed pretty forcefully.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Around the world.

Speaker 4 (42:05):
So I would say that in general there's a trend
that societies that had less rigid notions of gender or
still do have also had unders like cosmological understandings of
the earth as being you know, with as they're being,
like deep interdependence between species, and are generally less hierarchical

(42:29):
even in their understanding of species, not that are non human,
you know, so much of the the binary understanding of
like humans and nature that is also like at Western
you know, European origin, the exact manifestation of it in
you know that we're now familiar with.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
You know, there's like there's us and them.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
There are these two categories, there's human and nature, and
that you know, humans are placed atop this hierarchy. We
were you know, we were the chosen species. We are divine,
and we are the most complex and the most intelligent
and most rational and everything else is just sort of
beneath us to varying degrees, And in Western European thought

(43:13):
that the things that were the lowest on this sort
of pyramid would have been fungi and invertebrates, insects and
things like this, So that hierarchy is really foundational to
European and Western European thought. So that and that's so

(43:34):
it is like some I guess I feel most confident
speaking about this society because I'm someone who grew up
in it, and I'm part Irish Irish and part Armenian,
and i grew up in the United States, so I
feel like most you know, I'm most able to comment
on how that functions. Now, there are other societies, you know,
around the world that including Eastern European, places in Mexico,

(43:58):
places in West Africa, Japan, where mushrooms are not considered,
you know, not as strongly associated with anything negative and
have a long history being celebrated and integrated into culture
and in historically these places also had less rigid understandings
of gender. But now, of course it's hard to sort

(44:21):
of draw that line because of the impact of colonialism.
So I'd say that there is a relationship and I'm
always interested in hearing from people who grew up steeped
in other cultures about this specific topic, because there isn't
a lot written about it. So this is sort of
just what I've been able to kind of piece together
over time, again not being a sociologist, but there is

(44:42):
a relationship between sort of how does a culture respond
to the unknown. So in general, there's like a feeling
that what is unknown induces sort of anxiety and fear
versus the unknown inducing something sort of a feeling of
revelation orinity or you know, sort of magic. And I

(45:03):
think in our culture there's a association with wanting to
control the unknown, to be unknown as to be a threat,
and that's subversive. And so Fungi kind of are these organisms,
and same with insects in particular. They both are groups
of organisms that really subvert the desire to dominate because
they're like, you know, difficult to predict. They can they

(45:24):
move in ways that sort of are unexpected. They can
be ephemeral, they can amass, they can pop up overnight, right,
and this all of this sort of transitory, ephemeral, difficult
to predict biology makes them sort of induces a feeling
of fear, and I think that that is also there's

(45:44):
a parallel there to how people respond to people who
do not conform not just within matters of sex and gender,
but also in terms of ability, in terms of race. Right,
So there's also this feeling of like, if you're not
what I expect, I will fear you because I can't
I don't quite know how to control you, right, And
control is often, you know, executed first by putting someone.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
In a box.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
Right, you are either this or that. I need to
make sense of you, so I know what to expect.
Instead of Wow, I don't know what to make of you,
how interesting, how how beautiful, it's it's like, wow, I
don't know what to make of you.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
I'm now oppositional to you. Right.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
So that sort of response is something also that's very
like steeped into our culture.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Now, speaking of fun, guy, can you tell us a
little bit about labouls? This is this is not a
this is not something I was familiar with before.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Sure, they're not a well studied group of fungi.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
So I'm one of only like a handful of people
in the world who study this entire order of fungi.
The la bulbini Eli's kind of a mouthful. We call
them labulls for short, so that's a little easier, and
they are a very diverse lineage of fungi that live
and grow on insects. People are probably much more familiar

(46:56):
with another group of fungi that live and grow on insects,
the cortiseps or the zombie fungi, but these are in
the same phylum, but completely different orders and classes, so labouls.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Some of them we believe to be parasitic.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
We believe they take nutrients from the insect host at
the insects expense, but others seem to be maybe more commensal,
Like we haven't been able to quantify any sort of
damage they're doing to the host, and the host seems
kind of able to just go about its life as normal.
But in any case, they're really interesting fungi if you

(47:36):
can believe it.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
There's tens of thousands of species.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
Of this order, which just is you know, the biodiversity
is just staggering, right, So a group of fung i've
never heard of living their lives in insects and there's
just tens of thousands of species of them, and they're
really small. They sometimes can be sort of detected with
the naked eye.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
But usually you need at least a hand lens.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
And then the most common way to find them is
looking at insects under a dissecting microscope, and they grow
outward from the exterior of the insect. They're multicellular, they're
really flexible and durable. They're not like ephemeral, so once
they grow there, they you know, are there until they die. Essentially,

(48:20):
they're not like coming up and out of the insect body.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
They form.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
The spore basically lands on the exterior of the insect,
and then some minute penetrative cells germinate from that and
enter just like shallowly into the insect body and form
kind of like an anchor. And then from that, you know,
a few dozen cells will form in a definitive structure,

(48:47):
so meaning they always they're not amorphous. They have a
pretty defined cellular growth pattern, and so when we do
taxonomy on these fungi.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
We are looking at more.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
Our morphological descriptions involve draw you know, understanding the exact
cell like shape, size, and arrangement, and this is highly variable.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
There are like really.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
Thousands of ways these fungi can present itself, but it's
pretty fixed within a species, and even within a genus
there's like very common body plans, and so we also
would use genetic DNA sequencing to do the taxonomic work
on these fungi. But they're just really I mean, they're
What I love about them is that they are so

(49:33):
quietly existing in this tremendous diversity. They're the most diverse
lineage of insect associated fungi. So you have, you know,
the incredible diversity of the insect world, and then on
that you have this other whole realm of species that
are you know, have evolved and are living and dying
and I'm pretty much unbeknownst to you know, any witnesses.

(49:54):
And to me, that's just a very like That's one
of the things I love about studying biodiversity, and of
these fungi in particular. It is just that they they
are really kind of uninterested to project a little anthropomorphically
on them. They're just you know, they're here whether or
not people are and this like and this, and it
kind of really reminds you of It makes me think

(50:15):
as a person, like, Wow, the world like is so
dynamic and it has was.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Here before me. And will be here after me.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
And there's all these processes going on that really are
kind of be apart from the the so like my
social perception, you know, and I just think that can
be kind of calming and meditative. But I really like
working with them because I get to also work with insects,
so it brings me into contact with multiple kingdoms of
life in this really intimate way. I love doing microscopy.

(50:43):
I love being like kind of immersed in the micro world.
So going back to the microcosmos, I get to, you know,
getting to stare at the the an insect under the
microscope a dissecting scope is so fun. You really see
like all of its elaborate evolutionary you know, all the
appendages and hairs and colors, and and it's it's you

(51:06):
can it makes you feel like in touch with these
this whole other realm. And then what's really exciting about
being a micologist is that there are because we've only
described you know, around we estimate three to five percent
of fungal species diversity, there's no shortage of new species
descriptions that can be just authored. So I get to,

(51:29):
you know, been able to name and describe about a
dozen species new species to science, all within this group
the level of anilies.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
So that's a fun thing too.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
It's like you can say, you can say pretty definitively
that you know, a person has not looked upon this
fungus before because a no one is looking for them,
and also because you need a microscope to see it,
so it's just not likely that someone would have just
bumped into it.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
You know. There there.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
You have to be looking for them to find them.
So it's just a kind of a fun opportunity for
me to like be contributing taxonomically. And then also one
thing that I like about being a taxonomist is that
the practice of naming, and you know, taxonomy does have
a complicated history in terms of ethics, and you know,

(52:15):
all of these forces that we've been talking about, you know,
sort of around colonialism and power and who gets to,
you know, put a name on something and in what language.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
So one thing I like to think about.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Is taxonomy as a practice of honoring, so not stamping
your authority on it as like an act of I
guess possession, but being like okay, here, this is a
species that I share the planet with. This is a
species who's been on this multi billion year journey like
every other species here, and how can we sort of

(52:49):
honor its diversity, regardless of its role in doesn't matter
if this fungus is of utility to me or to
people like it.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
It's here, it exists.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
It is complex and dynamic and worthy of a name.
So I like to think of naming as a system
of like as a practice of honoring other the existence
of and the sort of what I like to think
of as sort of like the agency and almost like
personhood of another being. Right to name is to sort
of acknowledge that complexity. It's also an opportunity to sort

(53:23):
of embody some of the practices that I think have
been missing in the field of taxonomy, which would be
to name things, you know, perhaps based on using indigenous languages,
from the location that organism was found, or from you know,
you know, naming scientists who've been forgotten or were you know,
sort of like acknowledging like the complexity of the human

(53:44):
life that might surround the procurement of that species in
the first place. So, yeah, that that's sort of a
fun thing that I can do.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
With with libules.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Now you mentioned the cord of steps and I want
to highlighted that you you you did appear on Science
Friday to discuss uh the fund these particular fun guy
uh and HBO's The Last OBUs, which of course has
this I guess you'd say, like very sort of you know,
of course, a fantastic sci fi treatment of Courtyceps. It's
very uh micophobic in its manifestation. But I do refer

(54:21):
listeners to that interview if they want to they want
like the full story.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Yes, yes, I sort fungal fact from fiction on that episode.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
As we're I believe we're about to go into the
second season of the Last of Us, any like quick
reminders for folks about Courtyceps and sort of disconnecting the
fantasy from the reality totally.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
So I've been asked a number of times like could
people be turned into zombies by a fungus as they
are in the show, And the answers know that these
fungi and the insect hosts that they have on we're
in a you know, coevolutionary dynamic for millions of years

(55:07):
and it took That's how the fungus is perfectly adapted,
not just to like insects broadly or not even just
to like, you know, a whole group of insects, but
specific species of insects. So, for example, Cordyceps could be
found on a number of species of ants, but there
are ants other ant species that live in and amongst
you know, those in the areas that Courtyceps grows, and

(55:29):
they're not affected because they have you know, the subtle
differences in behavior or or chemical ecology is enough that
it's incompatible with that very precise coevolutionary dynamic. In order
for fungi to evolve to be doing that to people,
we would need probably millions and millions of years of exposures.

(55:53):
And our our just biologies are so different from our ants,
so we're not really at risk in that way.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
I do really like the show. I think it's a
great story.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
It is a little challenging that funjer are demonized, obviously,
that's kind of kind of you know, stressful for me,
But from a from a storytelling perspective and from an
action perspective, is a great show.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Yeah. My my wife is a mushroom enthusiast and and
does like some mushroom club stuff and forging stuff, and
so I'll often I would often joke to her after
we'd watch an episode of the show about, Oh, well,
mushrooms are bad news. I got to be watch out
for those mushrooms.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
Yeah, that's a good way to get under her skin,
I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Now coming back to the book again, there's a lot
of there's a lot about science in there. There's also
a lot of lately, a personal interpretation of everything, and
you get into the philosophy of it all. Can you
take a moment to tell us what a sit spot
is and how that can potentially help us all in
our daily lives.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Yeah, So a sit spot a place you go regularly.
I mean it could be every day, it could be
once a month, but it's something that you do with
some sort of routine and frequency. And it can be
deep in the forest, it could be in an urban park.

(57:17):
It could be looking out your window if you're someone
who can't leave the house or can't do so easily.
So it's not really about being in you know this
quote wilderness, It's just about being in community with as
many species as possible.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
So I have I'm a teacher.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
I've taught college classes and nature classes, and I have
one thing I tried. I often incorporate into my classes
is having my students do a sit spot. And the
instructions I give is to start by going once a week.
I think once a week is a nice amount of
time because it's both like kind of reasonable for our
hectic schedules, but it's also frequent enough that you it

(57:57):
can kind of become like a personal rich And when
what I advise you do is that you go to
your sit spot and you go by yourself.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
I think I do think it.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
I mean, it's not that you can't go with a buddy,
but I think it's really nice to go totally to
be the only human right in that spot. And I
also recommend that you don't bring anything at first. The
first couple spot times, I wouldn't even bring a notebook.
I wouldn't bring anything but just some stuff, maybe some water,

(58:31):
maybe a snack if you're you know, but just try
to go with you know, keep your phone away, don't
try to take pictures, don't try to record anything, and
just be present. And I would recommend the first time
doing it for at least thirty minutes. You go, you
sit for thirty minutes, and you take note as of
everything around you, what do you smell?

Speaker 3 (58:52):
What do you take touch with your fingertips? What do
you see? Of course, what do you hear?

Speaker 4 (58:57):
Kind of roll through the senses, you know, go, Okay,
what am I hearing right now?

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Wait? What am I seeing right now? You know? Look around?
What am I smelling right now?

Speaker 4 (59:07):
Maybe you're sitting on a bench, or maybe you're sitting
on the forest floor, like what are your fingertips sensing?

Speaker 3 (59:12):
And kind of go let yourself sort of move through that.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
My students will tell me that the first few times
they did it, they were incredibly bored.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
The time for them moved very slowly.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
They were actually some of them were even detectively irritated
with the assignment. But as the weeks progressed, one hundred
percent of the students began to enjoy their time. And
then after a few weeks you start maybe you decide,
maybe you're an artist and you love illustrating. Maybe you

(59:43):
bring a notebook and you sketch some of the plants
that are growing. Maybe you're you like your sound person,
you bring an audio way to record some audio. But
maybe you decide or maybe you're I wouldn't I wouldn't
do too much writing while you're there because you do
want to be mentally loose and receptive, so whatever, and
that's that does look different for everyone. So, however, you

(01:00:05):
can be in a state of looseness and receptivity, to
be porous, to be receiving this sort of the energy
and the sort of information that's flowing from these other
species and from the wind, from the humidity, you know,
whatever it is. And so I think that over time,
the point is that you become really immersed and really

(01:00:26):
in tune with that spot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
So I think in the age.

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
Of climate change and the age of globalization, it can
be really really overwhelming to understand where where do you
put your focus right There's so many crises, there's so
many stressors, there's so many things drawing and pulling at
your attention. And so I this is like kind of
a practice of attention. Where do you give your attention

(01:00:50):
in an intentional way and how does that sort of
make you feel held and attuned with the other organisms
around you. I also had a number of students actually
cry at the end of the semester when they had
to leave their spots. They were graduating, or they had
to leave for the summer or whatever. It was and
they were like, I can't believe I have to leave

(01:01:12):
this spot, Like this is my spot, this is like
my place. And that happened just in a few months. Right,
that's just the duration of a college semester. And so
for a lot of people, it's an opportunity to become immersed,
to be but also to be like a steward. Right,
You suddenly may the more you pay attention to a spot,

(01:01:33):
the more you see. So it's not just that you're
there longer. So it's like, you know, an exponential line
of like you're there longer, so you're seeing more, but
you're actually like it's actually that your brain starts to
rewire a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Especially if this practice is really new to you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
You start to be a you actually are capable of
noticing more the more you sort of engage with this meditatively.
And so for some people that can it can help
you find a role in what is otherwise a very
crazy world. Right, how do you become a steward of
your own backyard? Like how can you care for the species?

(01:02:09):
Like maybe you're helping monitor the health of the trees
in that area. Maybe you're realizing that there's a ton
of there's a you're seeing all these salamanders or amphibians
and that actually, oh, actually this is like a vernal pool,
and this could be protected because you know, by local legislation.

(01:02:31):
There's all sorts of ways that you can sort of
tune into the life around you and then actually do
something to help care for it. So I definitely recommend it.
I think it's such a nice way of like sort
of I find it really peaceful and therapeutic and sort
of a bomb for my nervous system every time I
go to my sit spot.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
So I recommend it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna have to try it as well,
because I go out of nature, we go on walks
and hikes and all. But this kind of like intentional
medita native approach, setting aside so many distractions and tasks
and objectives, you know. Yeah, I think it's truly attractive.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
Yeah, and it can take a little while to like
not be a little bored, but that's really normal that
we're all kind of, you know, overstimulated, So it could
take a little bit of time, but I can assure
you that you'll enjoy it as the ritual is established.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Awesome, Well, the book is Forest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness
of Nature. It's out next month in all formats, but
available for pre order right now. What is the one
thing you want readers to get out of Forest Euphoria?

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
So I think actually the Sit Spot conversation is kind
of closest to what I want readers to get out
of it. I think that I want readers to feel
closer to nature. I want readers to feel it like
they're part of nature and nature is part of them,
and these are things that will strengthen each other, like

(01:03:58):
that knowledge I find is strengthening.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
It's something that's comforting.

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):
It is a a magnetic compass in a time of
you know, poly crises.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
So I want people to feel that they belong.

Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
Their differences are what make them a part of this
ecology that you know, ecology is.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
All about difference.

Speaker 4 (01:04:22):
It's all about multiple, multiple ways of being in forms,
and so to not feel shame around that. And I
want people to, you know, see that nature is really
all we have.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
There's nothing without it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
I'm sure a lot of my readers will already be
environmentalists and people committed to the protection of nature, but
maybe it'll bring some more people into that fold as well,
or or strengthen that someone's commitment to that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
All right, well, Patti, thanks for coming on the show
and chatting with me.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it's
fun to talk to you. Rob.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Thanks again to Patty for coming on the show. The
book again is Forest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness of Nature,
publishing next month and available for pre order in all
formats right now. Again, you'll find a pre order link
in the episode description, or you can look it up
at Spiegel and Grau dot com slash forest hyphen Euphoria.
Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

(01:05:21):
primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, we set aside most serious
concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
House Cinema. Thanks as always to the excellent Jjpossway for
producing the show, and if you'd like to get in
touch with us, you can shoot us an email at
contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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or Wherever you're listening to your favorite shows,