Sitting across the table from me, overlooking a valley of vineyards and under a sky incapable of making up its mind whether it was still winter, sat two of the three generations of an academic genealogy. The third generation was sitting next to me. Person 1 had supervised Person 2’s PhD and Person 2 had supervised Person’s 3. A special kind of cadence was visible, a shared language, love of learning, respect, honour and grace. The clouds parted to let the warmth of the wintry sun meet the warmth and love of the shared space created so easily on this lazy Saturday afternoon. These kind of connections I am privileged to witness, confirm my appreciation of the metaphoric mycelium that goes beyond the topsoil, reflected in some thought version of deep time.
Over and over again I find these moments.
At a community event on Friday night I am in a colonial hall marked by tradition and customs of times gone by, celebrating the generosity of a village’s volunteers. I am greeted by an old acquaintance who shares stories that connect past, present and future of both our lives entwined by the way we each express our shared commitment to community and service. There is witness to story, and even song, when a local musician plays a piece that I had been singing to myself earlier in the week … it isn’t that well known … and I feel the tug of time pulling me into a vortex of memories. How is it that everything is connected?
Hearing the news of the real possibility of a former US President being sent to gaol, while I am dealing with some of his fans and the imprimatur of his behaviours in our country as we begin to ramp up the campaign for YES in the referendum, seems like an inversion of the kind and gentle mycelium referred to earlier. We are in dark days, and days of glorious warmth and light, and days where the dominance of binary is over, yet it continues to haunt the way we work together. Just like the clouds on Saturday afternoon, there are times of brightness and even heat, and times where we can tell more than a sprinkle of dampness is coming. Perhaps enough to make mould grow, and those spores have potential too for new life and renewal.
Digging deep into noticing the relationships of those at the aforementioned table, I am touched by having the opportunity to witness. Intergenerational moments are only possible when there has been enough time for a new generation to emerge. This phenomenon is also not binary. this is multidimensional, with a knowing that the initial deposit can be built upon, a new discovery, a novel interpretation of the same data, perhaps seeing something that was always there but naming it and framing it for the first time. Seams of thinking, strata of enquiry, like the ancient cliffs facing the Great Southern Ocean, I point out on the road home, are deep and wide. The conversations and connections have tracks leading to conscious and unconscious levels of knowing and understanding. The cliffs hide some of the ancient stories from the uninitiated, and while I share a fragment of one of the stories I notice that it is not mine to tell. I suspect that is true for the three friends too. Fragments is all that can be on offer this day, however it doesn’t matter, as the mycelium is there and holds it altogether, whether they are at the same table or apart.
Amnesia is the precursor to loneliness and to appreciate our interconnectedness and understand all that holds us together is the only antidote to individualism. To be truly fit for the future, re-membering is necessary. We are all sitting at a table with generations all around us, sometimes we are lucky enough to see them in real time.
And then there is the ancient three hundred year old redgum waiting for us at the next brewery we call into … yes all of creation is calling.
Letters to 