From the Vault: 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. (originally published 4/9/25)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb. We have a vault episode for you here.
Today we're re airing my interview with Patricia Kaishian about
her book Forest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness of Nature from
early April, which I realize is sooner than usual for
a Stuff to Blow Your Mind vault episode. But the
book is now available to purchase in all formats as

(00:28):
of May twenty seventh, So without further ado, let's dive
right in.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb. In today's episode, I'll be speaking with
Patricia Kaishian 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,

(01:08):
or you can look it up at speaklangrou dot com
slash Forest hyphen Euphoria. So it's a fun chat. We
discussed 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. Thank you, Hi Patty,

(01:31):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
So the new book is Forest 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 4 (01:47):
Yeah, So I started writing this book a few years ago.
I have a degree in mycology. You 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 philosophy

(02:07):
of science 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

(02:31):
how where 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

(02:52):
of interested in understanding what were the sort of limits
of science and how does science and culture interact. And
as in my collegeist, 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

(03:14):
obviously strive for objectivity, I could find all throughout the
science record around my coology 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

(03:36):
just like dangerous or deadly or disgusting. And there was
actually a lack of objectivity and 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,

(04:00):
and what does that mean for sort of our understanding
of them now?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
And so as I.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
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, the understanding of categories

(04:26):
usually relating to sex and gender, but sort of how
we make sense of what is quote unquote normal, what
is quote unquote deviant, 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
or bad, or what is normal what's not normal. I

(04:46):
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 awesome.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
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 (05:21):
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

(05:42):
an insult or a pejorative term, and then people in
that community took that back and sort of proudly self
identified as 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

(06:03):
sort of disparate LGBTQ groups and like bind them together
and come together for the shared purpose 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

(06:23):
can be gay and not really embody queerness. And by
that I mean I think that for me, the use
of queer 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

(06:43):
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 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

(07:04):
on earth.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
All 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 (07:16):
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

(07:40):
element of queer ecology is the fact that many organisms
are simply not binary or sort of heteronormative and their
reproductive strategies. So throughout the animal kingdom, there's all sorts
of same sex mating behaviors, partnerships. There are organisms that
have multiple sex is that sometimes in the same individual

(08:02):
or 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, their entire lineages of

(08:24):
fungi that are just asexual.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
For all.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
We know quer ecologies interested in exploring the biological reproductive
strategies of different organisms and also the behaviors between organisms,
and sort of like bringing to the four research that
had been either neglected to be you know, conducted, or
suppressed or sort of just overlooked regarding these sort of non.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Non normal, you know, non.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
Heteronormative reproductive strategies. 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 the
claim that it's not natural right to be gay, it's
not natural to be transgender, or something like this. But

(09:13):
we actually know that throughout all throughout the tree of life,
there 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,

(09:33):
homophobic or whatnot, but that has been a long standing claim,
so queer 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

(09:56):
limitations to that worldview? Are there are ways in which
we've 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

(10:16):
of notion of an individual. Right, So I'm a taxonomist,
I'm someone 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

(10:36):
of like under I also understand that that's like a
tool and a way of making sense in certain contexts,
but sometimes to 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 steeped in Western philosophical thought, and

(10:59):
we really love the idea of an individual as a
unit as a structure. But for example, in fungi, we
see oftentimes 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 fundi or forming really complex webs of interaction

(11:22):
living you know, basically living in symbiosis, you know, sometimes
cells with in larger bodies. And then it starts to
challenge your ability to really like 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

(11:43):
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. And my goal with this
is always to do better science, right, So ultimately I'm
not trying to discard.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
The scientific method. Again, I'm very positive towards science.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
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 we push past some of
the limitations that we've imposed on our own scientific processes
by not examining our own biases.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
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 career ecology,
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

(12:44):
of nature?

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
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 yeah, like adding this
sort of like identity politics to science or something like this.
But really, like, actually, when you examine the scientific record,

(13:07):
you can see that it's already fraught with.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Those things, there's all.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
And that's why I think the mycological example is really
powerful because so like even we have examples of like
Carl Linnaeus, one of the founders of modern taxonomy, describing
fungi as rostichi poparini, the poorest peasants of the vegetable class. Like,
that's an incredibly subjective way of looking at an organism, right,

(13:32):
calling it poor and a peasant and obviously filled with disdain.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
So that's not objectivity. That's he thought they were weird.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
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.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Were Christian Western European.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Men of high class, 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. How do we
go through that 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

(14:20):
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 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

(14:42):
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 understanding how information moves,
how do we assign value, how to assign how does
power function to create meaning? And anyone is capable of

(15:06):
sort of like exploring that, right, that's not you don't
have to have a particular identity to be interested in
challenging that or like thinking through that critically.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, because I feel like it's one of those worldviews
where like it's 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 (15:28):
A good practice as a scientist, I think, to kind
of reflect on even if you think your 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 it can make you a more ethical, more grounded,

(15:48):
and more effective scientist to at least be like considering
these how this might function in your own work.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
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

(16:15):
rather out of keeping with the actual vibe of the film,
the vibe of which you discussed.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
So I really love that film because it's so immersive
in this world of insects and 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

(16:42):
and these you know, invertebrate animals that they're creepy, disgusting, they're.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Like unworthy of our care and love.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
You know, we we don't have any like coordinated system
for ethics around insect right, It's all like, actually the
ethic is really that you can kill them without mercy.
And so I I just find but I find them
to be so incredibly well. They are not just I

(17:13):
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 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,

(17:36):
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
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.

(18:01):
So I love that it kind of creates this drama
that you're like with the music and and you're sort
of in and then like these towering plants all around
you 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

(18:22):
and probably feel all sorts of sensations that we've kind
of typically denied them, so like pleasure and maybe even
pain 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

(18:43):
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 so there's other arthropods and and and then invertebrates.
So like, I really love the snail sex scene where
these to u snails are there is like a gradual

(19:04):
operatic situation where they are finding they find each other
in the in the moss, and then they are entwine
their bodies 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

(19:27):
You're not sure what the sex is of either, because
they're they actually are both hermaphroditic. They both have both
you know, male and female reproductive organs in their bodies,
so there there is this queer, literal, reproductively queer element
to them as well.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
So I just it's a great film.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend just setting
aside a couple hours and immersing yourself into this micro world.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
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 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 creatures studied here.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
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 3 (20:49):
I really am.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Obsessed with eels, and the specifically the American eel that
I talk about in the book. I think they there's
so much to their the they're very there. So they
have a very queer body, right, So they are organisms
that spend most of their life as intersex.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
In zoology, we use the.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Word hermaphroditic, but I know that humans prefer intersex, so
I try I actually, I guess I think.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
That's probably the better term to use.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
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 there was a lot
of mystery around them in the early days of natural history,

(21:45):
trying to understand what, well, what are they, you know,
and so the 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,

(22:09):
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 eel sex situation was, and spoke spent actually a
lot much of his time dissecting the bodies of eels

(22:31):
trying to find proof 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

(22:53):
some evidence that.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
There were males or male sex organs.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
And he some he will think that this may have
been this sort of pursuit might have given rise to
some of his later concepts like castration, anxiety and stuff
like this, because he was maybe 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

(23:21):
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 near the Bermuda triangle, and
for up until very recently, this exact location was unknown,

(23:42):
and their whole sort of sexual reproduction was not witnessed
or recorded by science.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
And then the eels.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Migrate from the Bermuda, like from the Sargasso Sea all
the way up to the along the length of the
North American Eastern Sea board 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

(24:10):
of 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.

(24:33):
So there's a monitoring project with Hudsonia and an environmental
org and we would I would take my students and
we'd 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 make
this trip from the Sargasso Sea with just basically only

(24:56):
being about an inch long, and they're totally translu 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,

(25:19):
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 (25:30):
And this is something that other animals have as well.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
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

(25:56):
probably it's believed to have been a bacterial origin, so
it's likely arose from an endosymbiotic event. So end of
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

(26:19):
through you know, many generations, and so this is the
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 stayed ill live and then

(26:40):
persisted as a 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, stranger than fiction

(27:01):
in a lot of ways, Like what are the odds
of these types of 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

(27:22):
I kind of am bringing it back a little bit
to 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, you know, individuals, and we

(27:42):
are collectively a being that is not really discernible without
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 end
of biotic theory too, like the tension of science, and

(28:03):
for many years she was dismissed as you know, being
kind of just like part 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 like the noble amazing, you know, a
complex person couldn't really could we really be just like

(28:24):
a bunch of bacteria and fungi in a in a flesh,
fleshy form. But over time, more and more evidence accumulated
in support of her hypotheses. 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

(28:45):
what is normal and what is accepted in the scientific
discipline and and at great personal you know, risk 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 these ancient bacteria that probably through
just a you know, random mutation, started accumulating magnetite in

(29:07):
their cells. And the magnetite is receptive to 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

(29:28):
to the magn the magnetic fields of the Earth and
developed something of a magneto taxis, so being able to
move by ma magnetic fields, and so we have like
chemotaxis or phototaxis and maxomagneto taxis is another form of response,
you know, stimulation and response.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
So the over time and.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
We have there there are these basically accumulations of these
little packets of magnetite in a bacterial cell and they
form 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

(30:14):
into another larger cell. That then is you know, deep
in the tree of life of animals, and a common
ancestor of most animals probably had absorbed some sort of
magneto 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

(30:39):
structures within with in which magnetite is found, and they
are basically sensory organs that so, like in salmon, for example,
we know that there's the complex magnetostmes in and around
their little noses and faces, and they use that to
guide their migratory journeys from from you know, sea in
fresh water, and so we think have that as well,

(31:01):
and that's sort of how they're 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 the magnetostomes that they're using. So this
is that was a very long story, but I think

(31:21):
both elements of the eobiology are are relevant. So there's
the queer ecological the queer biological fact of their bodies
being intersects 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 sort of

(31:41):
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 tissue or

(32:02):
more fully testicular tissues, or they can retain both, and
then they make that journey back to the Sargasso ce
and they have a raucous I guess evening of sexual reproduction.
So that is super queer in a sort of like
in a direct reproductive sense. But then also this sort
of you know, the history of endosymbiosis as being a

(32:26):
kind of a rejected concept in the scientific establishment because
it showed that these you know, 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.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Absolutely, 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 and

(33:06):
so forth. But the castawary, Oh yeah, And granted there's
a lot about the castiwary 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 fit into
queer ecology. Would you would you tell us a little
bit about this.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah, 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. But for in terms of
the like they're sort of queer structures. They for a

(33:49):
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 thesees and some of the males have like inverted
uh basically like they instead of having an extroverted fallus,
they have inverted structures.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
So they sort of have this like in what you know,
what we would consider the.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Opposite and you know, most people would consider the opposite
type structure.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Representing you know, on the male or female.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
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 cosmologies and iconographies.
And specifically we're aware that they had these you know,
queer reproductive organs, organs that were not binary organs that

(34:44):
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
of these these structures. But in the Western se scientific
descriptions of these birds there were there was really no

(35:04):
mention of this fact. And and so actually I learned
about this through reading Biological Exuberance by Bruce Begamial I
believe is the pronunciation of his last name, which is
a wonderful compendium, very textbook like compendium of examples of
queerness in nature. And I found that it's a wonderful resource.
It's and it does get a little bit into sort

(35:26):
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
there was sort of shame and anxiety around just simply

(35:49):
reporting evidence of queerness or homosexuality or of you know,
sort of gender sex nonconformity in the scientific literature. So
it's it's just an 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

(36:10):
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 out and actually just look at
these things very factually. So it's just a good example

(36:30):
of like what you what happens when you're just afraid
to make waves in science, or you're or you're just not.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Looking correctly, so you might have maybe maybe you you know.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
So he has other examples in the book too, where
scientists would talk about, 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. Oh, this these two you
know birds are have a same sex partnership, but you

(37:05):
know they're probably just confused or 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.

(37:25):
We can't be sure exactly why, but it seems as
if they were either not reporting what they were seeing
or they didn't believe their own examinations of these birds.
They 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 1 (37:44):
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

(38:05):
they are and how they operate, because even at a
subliminal level, like we're seeing ourselves in them and seeing
in them as models of humans.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
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 complexity that I know is found in the
human species from another species, am I learning more about it?

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

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Like?

Speaker 4 (38:41):
Am I actually reducing my understanding of it? 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 then I

(39:06):
might actually not really understand insects, but you can take it. Then,
as you're saying, you can also for the castworries. If
we assume like a male 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.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Understanding of these organisms.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
So it kind of is this constant like negotiation and
toggle between can can anthropomorphism actually enrich our scientific understanding
or is in this moment is it restricting us? And
so there isn't like a one answer. It's sort of
a constant question. But I try my sort of inclination
and this is just sort of my style not to

(39:46):
be prescriptive, is to sort of assume human like qualities
and then scientifically assess what you know.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Is that accurate? And so I'd rather.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
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 you know, like a collection of molecules and

(40:19):
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 1 (40:42):
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,

(41:03):
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 were 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

(41:23):
overlap between traditional cultures that are more micophilic and ones
that are traditionally like less defined by rigid binary definitions
of sexuality and gender.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Hmm, that's a really good question.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
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 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 for other cultures, but
what I can say is that a lot of the
history of homophobia and the history of sort of the

(42:01):
way that the patriarchy functions in Western European and Euramerican
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 over the world that have had,
you know, have sought to have conformity with gender and

(42:21):
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 around the world. So I would say that
in general, there's a trend that societies that had less

(42:44):
rigid notions of gender or still do have also had
under 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 even in their understanding of species

(43:04):
not that are non human, you know, so much of
the the binary understanding of like humans and nature that
is also like a Western you know, European origin, the
exact manifestation of it in you know that we're now
familiar with.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
You know, there's like there's us and them.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
There are these two categories, there's human and nature, and
that you know, humans are placed atop this hierarchy.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
We were, you know, we were the chosen species.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
We are divine, and we are the most complex and
the most intelligent and most rational, and everything else is.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Just sort of beneath us to varying degrees.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
And in Western European thought 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.

(44:06):
So that and that's so it is like some I
guess I feel most confident speaking about this society because
I'm someone who grew up in it. 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

(44:28):
Eastern European, places in Mexico, places in West Africa, Japan
where mushrooms are not considered, you know, not as strongly
associated with anything negative, and have a long history of
being celebrated and integrated into culture and and historically these
places also had had less rigid understandings of gender. But now,

(44:53):
of course it's hard to sort of draw that line
because of the impact of colonialism. So I'd say that
there is a releasetionship. 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

(45:13):
a sociologist, but there is 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 or divinity or you know,

(45:34):
sort of magic. And I think in our culture there
is 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,

(45:55):
you know, difficult to predict. They can they move in
ways that sort of are 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,

(46:16):
and I think that that is also there's 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

(46:37):
control is often executed first by putting someone in a box. 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 beautiful, it's it's like, wow, I don't
know what to make of you. I'm now oppositional to you, right,
So that sort of response is something also that's very
like steeped into our culture.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Now, speaking of fun, guy, can you tell us a
little bit about labouls? This This is not a This
is not something I was familiar with before.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
Sure, they're not a well studied group of fungi, so
I'm one of only a handful of people in the
world who study this entire order of fungi. The Laboulbinili'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.

(47:28):
People are probably much more familiar with another group of
fungi that live and grow on insects, the cordyceps or
the zombie fungi, but these are in the same phylum,
but completely different orders and classes.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
So labulls are they? Some of them we believe to
be parasitic.

Speaker 4 (47:46):
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 they're really interesting fungi, if

(48:09):
you can believe it.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
There's tens of thousands of species of.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
This order, which just is, you know, the biodiversity is
just staggering, right, So a group of funge i've never
heard of living their lives and 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,
but usually you need at least a hand lens. But
and then, but the most common way to find them

(48:34):
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, they're not like coming up and out

(48:55):
of the insect body. 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

(49:18):
form in a definitive structure, 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 we
are looking at more Our morphological descriptions involve draw you know,
understanding the exact cell like shape, size, and arrangement, and

(49:40):
this is highly variable. There are like really 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
funge But they're just really I mean, they're What I

(50:02):
love about them is that they are so quietly existing
in this tremendous diversity. They're the most diverse lineage of
insect associated fungi.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
So you have, you know, the incredible diversity of the insect.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
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, 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's just
that they they are really kind of uninterested to project

(50:39):
at anthropomorphically on them.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
They're just you know, they're here whether or not.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
People are and this, like and this, and it kind
of really reminds you of It makes me think as
a person, like, while the world like is so dynamic
and it has was here before me and will be
here after me, and there's all these processes going on
that really are kind of be apart from the the
like my social perception, you know, and I just think

(51:03):
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. 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

(51:25):
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 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

(51:48):
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 you know, been able to name
and describe about a dozen species, new species to science,
all within this group the level of inniles. So that's

(52:11):
a fun thing too, is 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, you know, there there.
You have to be looking for them to find them.
So it's just kind of a fun opportunity for me

(52:32):
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, all
of these forces that we've been talking about, you know,
sort of around colonialism and power and who gets to,

(52:56):
you know, put a name on something and in what language.
So one thing I like to think about 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

(53:18):
been on this multi billion year journey like every other
species here, And how can we sort of honor its diversity,
regardless of its role in doesn't matter if this fungus
is of utility.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
To me or to people like it. It's here, it exists.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
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

(53:56):
of embody some of the practices that I think have
been missing in the field of taxon I, 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 or you know, sort of like acknowledging like the
complexity of the human life that might surround the procurement of.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
That species in the first place.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
So yeah, that that's sort of a fun thing that
I can do with with mabules.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Now you you mentioned the Court of Steps, and I
want to highlight that you you do. You did appear
on Science Friday to discuss uh the fund these particular
fun guy uh and HBO's The Last Office, which of
course has this I guess you'd say, like very sort
of you know, of course a fantastic sci fi treatment
of court Asteps that's very uh micophobic in its manifestation.

(54:54):
But I do refer listeners to that interview if they
want to they want like the full story.

Speaker 4 (54:59):
Yes, yes, I sort fungal fact from fiction on that episode.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
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 Cortyceps and sort of disconnecting the
fantasy from the reality totally.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (55:15):
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 evolved on were
in a you know, co evolutionary dynamic for millions of

(55:39):
years 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

(56:00):
you know, those in the areas that Cordyceps grows, and
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 co evolutionary dynamic. In
order for fungi to evolve to be doing that to people,

(56:20):
we would need probably millions and millions of years of exposures.
And our our just bryologies are so different from our ants,
so we're not really at risk in that way.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
I do really like the show. I think it's a
great story.

Speaker 4 (56:37):
It is a little challenging that fungi 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, it's a great show.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Yeah. My wife is a mushroom enthusiast 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 (57:05):
Yeah, that's a good way to get under her skin.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
I'm sure. Now coming back to the book again, there's
a lot. 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 six
spot is? Sure, how that can potentially help us all

(57:28):
in our daily lives.

Speaker 4 (57:30):
Yeah, So a sid spot is 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,

(57:50):
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,
It's just about being in community with as many species
as possible. So I have I'm a teacher. I've taught
college classes and nature classes, and I have one thing

(58:13):
I tried I often incorporate into my classes is having.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
My students do a sid spot.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
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 can kind of become like a personal ritual.
And when you what I advise you do is that

(58:38):
you go to your sit spot and you go by yourself.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
I think I do think it.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
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 of spot times. I wouldn't even bring notebook,
I wouldn't bring anything but just some stuff, maybe some water,

(59:04):
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, what do you

(59:26):
take touch with your fingertips, what do you see? Of course,
what do you hear? Kind of roll through the senses,
you know, go, Okay, what am I hearing right now?

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Wait? What am I seeing right now? You know? Look around?
What am I smelling right now?

Speaker 4 (59:40):
Maybe you're sitting on a bench, or maybe you're sitting
on the forest floor, like what are your fingertips sensing?
And kind of go let yourself sort of move through that.
My students will tell me that the first few times
they did it, they were incredibly bored.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
The time for them moved very slowly.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
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 you may maybe
you decide, maybe you're an artist and you love illustrating.

(01:00:16):
Maybe you 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,

(01:00:39):
you 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

(01:00:59):
into tune with that spot.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
So I think in the age of.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
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 this is like kind of a practice of attention.
Where do you give your attention in an intentional way

(01:01:26):
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 this spot, Like this
is my spot, this is like my place. And that

(01:01:49):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Immerse, to be but also to be like a steward.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
Right, you suddenly make the more you pay attention to
a spot, 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, especially if this practice is
really new to you you start to be a you

(01:02:23):
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? Like maybe you're helping
monitor the health of the trees in that area. Maybe

(01:02:48):
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 pretty because you know, by local legislation, there's all
sorts of ways that you can sort of tune into
the life around you and then actually do something to

(01:03:09):
help care for it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
So I definitely recommend it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:12):
I think it's such a nice way of like sort
of I find it really peaceful and therapeutic and sort
of a bomb.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
For my nervous system every time I go to my
sit spot. So I recommend it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
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,
meditative approach, setting aside so many distractions and tasks and objectives.
You know. Yeah, I think it's truly attractive.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Yeah, 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 1 (01:03:56):
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 forrest ephor
you So, I.

Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
Think actually the 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 that knowledge I

(01:04:32):
find is strengthening.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
It's something that's comforting.

Speaker 4 (01:04:36):
It is a a magnetic compass in a time of
you know, poly crises. So I want people to feel
that they belong their differences are what make them a
part of this ecology that you know, Ecology is.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
All about difference, it's all about.

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):
Multiple, multiple ways of being in forms, and so to
not feel shame around that. And I want people to
see that nature is really all we have.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
There's nothing without it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
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 strengthen that someone's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Commitment to that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
All right, well, Patti, thanks for coming on the show
and chatting with me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it's
fun to talk to you. Rob.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
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

(01:05:54):
primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, we set a I had
most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
on Weird House Cinema. Thanks as always to the excellent
JJ Possway 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 2 (01:06:22):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.