Flesh of the forest floor

I took a short break from my writing today and wandered up to visit Zeph at his new cubby in the bush.

On the way there I collected some wood blewits (Clitocybe nuda) as a cubby-warming gift.

We cooked them on a small fire that Zeph had managed to start despite the soaked winter wood.

And made sure we cooked them well through as blewits contain a toxin that can be harmful if not well cooked.

I asked Zeph whether mushrooms shared closer DNA to animals than plants. He answered correctly.

Wood blewits are sweat meats to taste and before they're cooked smell of chocolate earth.

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Permeate (on Radio National)

The first installment of the Permeate series.

Throughout the year, Miyuki Jokiranta will bring us the stories of artists who draw inspiration from the environment. This week we hear from musician and improviser Jim Denley, who has recorded extensively in the Australian outdoors.

In the weeks to come Permapoesis will be featured in this series. I'll keep you posted.

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For the record

I gave a presentation on ecological and community food systems at RMIT a little while ago, invited by Juliette Anich who takes a pretty interesting class on urban food generation. Juliette's students have been developing a research project called The Inevedible Garden, and invited me back to talk as part of a short video work.



On The Inevedible Garden homepage these tenacious students get straight to the point:

"The inevitable advent of urban food gardens, to undermine the current unethical food production methods."

It is so great to see such courage and astuteness from students when big business (Coles and Woolworths and so-called public organisations such as CropLife Australia) is advocating so aggressively for ongoing chemicalised-industrial food production (check out CropLife's greenwash on their website).

We all have a role to play to bring on the local, mycorrhizal, ethical and ecological food revolution! And we all have a role to play to bring down the greedy, chemicalised, cancer-producing, environment destroying agricultures that are fueling climate change. Every dollar you keep out of the supermarkets is a small win for your health and the health of the planet. Don't be fooled by organic food in supermarkets – the ecological footprint of any supermarket food is far too much for the world to sustain. It only takes around 15-20% of market collapse to bring down a giant company, so get involved in your local community, backyard or balcony garden, start one up, find out more about the soil and its billions of workers, grow food anywhere you can, and share it and your experiences with others. These things will bring about significant change and raise your awareness of how our food and our ecologies are linked, things that all other earthly beings know inherently and we have temporarily forgotten. Take back our food systems, where possible make food a non-monetary resource, reduce our enslavement in the monetary economy that serves big business, and reclaim ecological functioning as creatures of the understory!

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