Scanning Electron Micrograph of Mycelium, magnified 500 X(P. Stamets)
I want to offer the analogy of fungi in a forest ecosystem as a way of understanding and appreciating our collective work as a"community of inquiry and action."
The primary, ongoing manifestation of fungi-- which in the case of the forms that span the forest floor, has been dubbed"the wood-wide-web"-- is mycelium. It is a network of tiny filaments that interconnect beneath the ground, often with the roots of living plants as well as in dead matter that is being digested. Information and nutrients pass through the forest system through this network in highly complex ways that are only now just beginning to be understood.
Then, there are the mushrooms. They are what get most of our attention. They are beautiful, often nourishing, and sometimes medicinal, poisonous, and even mind-blowing. They are also temporary and fragile. And they are somewhat mysterious, emerging only when conditions are right, and not necessarily with consistency or predictability. Their main function is to produce billions of spores, each of which is capable of bringing forth an entire mycelial mat, if the wind carries it to a fertile spot.
My suggestion is that we view DandDTrans as both a strengthening of the mycelial mat of the DandD community of practice, and a temporary blooming of mushrooms that will cast its spores to the wind.
The larger community of practice as the mycelial mat. The mat is what continues to live, and to do work that serves the forest ecosystem. By connecting the field to more of itself, DandDTrans has strengthened this mat and helped it to be more energized and engaged. The complexity of this structure, and of the larger"forest" in which it lives, may make it hard for that impact to be fully visible. It is mostly below ground. It operates mostly in the fine filaments of personal connections. We might try to measure this impact, but the best approach is likely to be to tell stories that are fractals of the larger work that has occurred.
DandDTrans as a blooming of mushrooms, casting spores to the wind. The ideas, questions, and insights we harvest are like spores. We want to identify them in tiny, light-weight packages that can be carried far and wide, and that do not require our tending and management, or even knowledge of where they have gone and what they have seeded. Meanwhile, the mushrooms that produced them(the team, people, structures and processes) can break down, having served their purpose(though the hackpads can remain indefinitely). More mushrooms may emerge soon, or they may not. We don't know right now, and that is fine. We are not mushroom farmers(i.e. we did not promise, nor do we have a current intention of, convening a DandDTrans 2, 3, 4 etc.).
BONUS!
Check out this way cool video, that imagines mycelium"growing" the image below:
Back to +Jan 29 World Cafe Main Pad
BONUS!