i hear the call of the myco-fish, they are still there. they live in the hot steam after a bath, in the steam filling the kitchen as I boil water. in the steam above the water of a hot pool.
like steam, capital shifts, capitalists shift, wars shift. we are living through such a dark period of war and fury unleashed by military generals who have bought into the beliefs of their own narrative. people so filled with anger they are blind, and forcing others to do battle for them. so much greed. the leaders of the countries - ukraine, israel - and EU countries, NATO countries, are caught in a loop that will run them to exhaustion. the only decisions that can be made in these cycles are, for sure, anxiety-filled ones.
in these moments, grieving these moments, i have been starting a daily practice of burning white sage. offering to the smoke, my thoughts, my prayers. i undo the knots that pile together in the day before, and free them so they can reach others, freed of knots.
in this i have co-conspirators, some larger challengers than others. one breakthrough a friend helped with - goaded/trolled me through - is, perspectivism. he said he didn’t understand how i could practise and live with TCM, with these alternative therapies, the way i did. i thought he was serious—i was shocked. only later i learnt it was a joke.
so, i think it is time to bring the playful into the real. to introduce to you the myco-fish characters: there are 3. one - whölle, is there. she is a mother character, a sad one, grieving something. nauin, is a lighter character, in the peak of her work life. and the last is a young adult. there is also, me, the other character, trying to figure out if they balance each other out, or not. they are not mother, daughter, cousin, to each other, but they are connected somehow, in a way you will see—and i will see—as the story unfolds.
and lest you wonder, yes, there are plants in these, and something mycelial.
about process, though, i am unsure how this unfolds. i can only say, it is fact, fiction, and the things in-between. think of it as a late-phase PhD experiment in non-linear writing, on a linear platform. it will be imperfect for now, but it will keep these characters alive in intersubjective space. which raises the question, should they be alive?
<what do you think? does reading fact/fiction in this newsletter work for you? let me know in the comments, or reply directly to the newsletter :)>