Mitakuye Oyasin

 This week at Prairie Hill, we had a special guest at our "Tasty Tuesday" weekly meal. She is the mother of one of our new members, born of the Lakota peoples from the Pine Ridge Reservation. She has taken on the task of talking to groups about Native American life in this country, past and present. We watched her powerpoint presentation and heard about her own history as well as a wider view of the Native American presence in this country. And she brought along special items from her family including a scoop made out of a buffalo horn and a huge owl feather she uses in prayer. We also enjoyed a special traditional pudding she made for us with choke cherries (including the seeds). This evening that focused on the Native American worldview resonated with me because I had just been reading about this. I had run into the phrase "Mitakuye Oyasin", and then JJ's mother used it in her talk! It means all my relations, and it expresses the belief that everything in nature is related: people and animals, birds and fish, rocks and trees, the whole earth.

Here's something I wrote in my very first blog post: I remember hearing a Native American story about the beginnings of life on this planet. First there were our rock ancestors, and  then there was water grinding the rock into small fragments. And then came the plant ancestors, the green tribe that would transform our future home into a vital living space for the millions of life forms that followed. I've done a little more reading about those very early times here on earth. Sometimes you hear people who are close to the land talking about the elements of Air, Fire, Water and Earth, all necessary to life. And when you add sunlight to this mix, there seems no end of the magic that can arise. Eventually here on earth, life evolved.

Everything here has been co-evolving from those early beginnings. 3 billion years ago, some anaerobic bacteria evolved to a point at which they could absorb CO2, with oxygen given off as a waste product. That was a huge step. But eventually so much oxygen was given off by the bacteria that the air and oceans became saturated with it. This produced the first major extinction on earth, for to the bacteria, oxygen was poisonous. It could have all gone downhill from there! But fortunately evolution continued, developing an oxygen-metabolizing bacteria that could use the plentiful oxygen. These new bacteria gave off CO2 as a waste product, which made the other bacteria happy. Balance had been created. We're coming to see that the survival unit in nature has not been individuals or species, but whole ecosystems. Nothing exists without the rest in constant interconnection. And the evolution of those two balancing kinds of bacteria is a good example!

All living things have waste as a by-product of their growth. And a huge diversity of life forms have evolved to metabolize that waste. Fungi is one of the prime waste-metabolizers in the world. Its dominion is everywhere, above and below the ground. We're finding that it can change some of our most dangerous by-products into harmless soil. And one theory states it was here at the very beginning of the evolution of life on earth. It is not a plant or an animal, but it would seem that we animals have evolved from it! Fungi, unlike plants, needs oxygen and releases CO2. Rather than having lungs inside its body, this process of taking oxygen and releasing CO2 occurs outside on its edges, in the mycilium network underground, under the fruiting bodies we call mushrooms.

Fast forward millions of years from those first living things, and we have huge forests made up of thousands of trees talking to each other through that mycilium network underground. Trees and other plants trade information, give warnings, and even obtain food through the mycilium. In this way, one forest ends up being a whole living organism, one living being, all the trees and other plants and animals connected to each other by the network of fungal roots which some call the underground internet. One individual's health is connected to the health of the rest. As the living members of the ecosystem find a sustainable balance, the system thrives.

Although I haven't yet acquired a taste for mushrooms, I am fascinated by this shy, mostly hidden life form, so important, so indispensable. I've learned all kinds of interesting facts about this amazingly huge category of growing things. They do not need sunlight to live, making energy for themselves without it. They are 90% water. The largest living thing in the world is actually a mycilium. It is located in the Blue Mountains of Oregon. It's over 2400 years old and covers 2200 acres (3 1/2 miles wide). It's mostly underground, and since it's still living, it keeps growing! 

With the help of two young neighbors at Prairie Hill, I've planted a round bed of mushrooms right outside my door in a relatively shady part of my garden. The bed is layered with soil, straw, wood chips, soil, straw and wood chips, then watered well, and planted with the spores of winecap mushrooms. So far nothing has appeared, so probably we'll have to wait until spring to harvest. With so many health benefits from mushrooms (at least that's what I've heard), I'm hoping I'll develop a taste for them. If not, there are many folks here at Prairie Hill who already love mushrooms so I have no fear they'll be unwanted. I'll keep you posted.....