"We perceive this lifecycle as a metaphor for the way humans and, more specifically, radicals, can choose to view our interactions with each other. We see our spores as the ideas we have every minute of our lives: those of a better world and freer existence. And while many of our spores, just like those of our fungal allies, do not immediately find a solid footing and lay to wait, at times a select few hold on to eventually find space to thrive.
Over time our spores encounter ideas flowing from like-minded allies and, if found compatible, the two inevitably combine with infinite variety toward the common goal of survival. In this way, we see our networks of mutual aid and grassroots organizing form an organic web through our communities just as mycorrhizal fungi share nutrients and knowledge across the forest. Slowly, resources are pooled as information is gathered and shared -- acts hidden underground from the mainstream -- until the point that the culmination of all the previous toil leads to a final direct action: the projection of a fruiting body.
As this fruiting body thrusts forward with strength and determination, the now unsettled ground reflects the change that has occurred. The time spent building and working, we now see, wasn't for nothing. Action has happened where it could not be stopped.
And as the fruiting body dies back and the immediacy resolves, it sends out spores all over the world to influence, inspire, and grow where they can; to continue the cycle of resistance in the face of oppressive forces."
Radical Mycology Ed. 1.1, 2010
The Spore Liberation Front
A single sheet of eight and a half by eleven inch standard Xerox copy paper is imprinted with the black and white image of a waterfowl and stapled at its corners to a telephone pole covered in flyers. Underneath the image are the typewritten words.
If this bird hisses or quacks more than normal, it is said that rain is on the way. If the bird lays any dun-colored eggs it should be destroyed, along with the eggs.
At the bottom of the page are the additional typewritten words
Have you seen this bird? Tell us. Call the Bird Hotline: 1(800)621-1091.
This notification appears within a rectangular image in jpeg format produced using a digital camera and posted in an internet blog. It is displayed below the words "Tuesday, December 2, 2014" and the title "precipitation induced by avian vocalization." The latter alludes to the text of the notice, and casts satirical aspersion upon the dubious claim that increased frequency of vocalization may be utilized as a means of meteorological forecasting as it pertains to a particular unspecified species of amphibious bird. However, it rhetorically distorts the literal meaning by use of the word "induced" which improperly suggests a cause and effect relationship that is not explicitly postulated to exist.
"I am from you, and at the same time, you have devoured me.
I melt in you since through you I froze.
You squeeze me with your hand,
and then you step on me with your foot.
This is how the grape becomes wine.
You cast us like sunlight upon the earth.
And our light, passing through the body
as if it were an open window to our Source,
returns, purified, to you.
Whoever sees that sun says,
"He is alive,"
and whoever sees only the window says,
"He is dying."
He has veiled our origin in that cup of pain and joy.
Within our core we are pure;
all the rest is dregs.
Source of the soul of souls,
a hundred hearts are afire for you."
-Rumi
Ama me fideliter!
fidem meam nota;
de corde totaliter
et ex mente tota
sum praesentialiter
absens in remota.
Quisquis amat taliter,
volvitur in rota.
- Carmina Burana
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Except that in place of an actual screen capture, there appears instead a block of text in square brackets that reads
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which is however not a photograph of a photograph, but rather a
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