Mycelial Visions is a work that I have been maturing for months and that deals with the wonders and mysteries that the Fungi Kingdom contains, a name that is used to designate a group of eukaryotic organisms where fungi or mushrooms, molds and yeasts are found. This kingdom is one of the 5 great ones that make up others, such as animalia, plantae, protista or monera, having very own characteristics that distinguish it from these others due to its taxonomy and complex life cycles.
Specifically, the so-called mushrooms of the Psilocybe family caught my attention and their role as sacred psychotropics (hallucinogenic or neurotropic) in vast cultures, with records of this use, from the Paleolithic (Siberia, Sahara and Spain) to the present day. The power that these have to expand the mind and open unsuspected portals is well known, and that it has a certain analogy with what Eliphas Levi explained, regarding the 3 states to know the secrets of the universe, such as the embryonic state, dreams and delirium.
Thus, since the dawn of animism, these mushrooms have revealed, with the guidance of healers and shamans, that which is invisible and also ineffable, since those who experience these trips cannot express or relate what they have experienced on these trips to what is supposedly the depth of being and soul. These mushrooms usually occur in the dung of animals and it is plausible that prehistoric nomads followed herds not only for their meat but also to collect these mushrooms that were found growing in the feces of the herds. Among these mushrooms are the Psilocybe Mairei in North Africa, Psilocybe Cyanescens, present in Europe, America and Oceania, or Psilocybe Zapotecorum in Mesoamerica, to name three of the most recognized.
They are heterotrophic organisms, that is, they acquire their nutrients from abroad. Their form of reproduction is by spores and they have specific anatomical structures for their production, such as asci (contain ascospores) and basidia (with basidiospores). In fungi, reproduction can be asexual (without formation of a fruiting body) as well as sexual. Like the other kingdoms, they have different shapes, colors and sizes. Its habitat and location varies according to species, being able to grow in treetops or at the foot of it, as well as on rocks or soil, preferably where there is humidity and shade.
written by Enrique de Santiago. The art works are acrylic and ink on 300 gm Conqueror paper. Each painting and poem is a door.
FULLNESS
A secret freedom opens through a crack
that you can barely see.
Rumi
The morning and its ancient mystery
with his new cycle
embracing my vertebral calm
with dawn light steep in aerial stays
of a non-Euclidean flight
and its fertile messaging that awakens the annelids
to caress my future memory.
CONCILIATION
There are times when all the accumulated anxiety and effort
they rest in the infinite indolence and repose of nature.
Henry David Thoreau
I have heard the incessant whisper of the maitenes
and felt its impetuous root that sings its light music
mounted on the invisible verticality of design
that escapes geometrically
by the high pendulum cusp where I found the voice of the origin
so I became a body in the bark
adding myself to the essential channel that pulsates in the hollow
where the bird flies
with his outburst of winged love
that awakens the astral eyelid
and light the new dawn.
DOWN
From the labyrinth of white meats
where the filaments fractionate the divine eye
the wise thread emerges from the molten magma before time.
DREAMS
in the belly of the stone
the dragon’s breath is hidden
and in every cosmic cycle
stir your energy that moves
the suns and their destinies.
You’ll know when the word goes on
in that object that radiates silent voices
by a demiurge who lost
love in a vortex
in that surprising weather.
HUGGING THE BELLY
Diverse waters nest
in the hidden embryonic embraces
where the blade of time
pick up the promise
made to the stem
in that sacred way.
And I saw a new way
and their metals hugged tightly
the sign of the night
dropping urgent shadows
as field dams
one upright and down
in his immobility.
LIGHT
The universe came down to my domain
Opening the lights before precarious
those who entered
In the bones of my soul.
Light of the hidden.
SEEING EYE
the flesh of god
opened the sky
and my inner eye
saw the route of the serpents.
HEAVENLY LANDSCAPES
In the surroundings of the uranic gem
the voices of the magicians are raised
that bear ancestral flowers
to heal the wounds of oblivion.
REVELATION
There was his high imponderable crown
on the distinguished and lukewarm verticality of the mystery
without leaving a shadow in the mirror of the high magistracy
of the verb
pouring her violet love towards his moist horizon
and restlessly embracing your silhouette that I don’t know
That’s how I saw you behind the meanders of destiny
in the sudden revelation of the morning birds
Will you be the trail to be followed in unknown times?
perhaps I will drink of your honey under the sign of the equinox
coming
As soon as you feel your eyelids full of the light of your
redemption
and rest the incandescent pearl that comes down from the dew
this will be the floral beginning of the silent explosion
like the one that leaves the pollen in the aerial possibilities
while I await your coming.
Someday they’ll die out under the rust
the gears that bind us to reality.
DIRECTIONS
My constellations that guide me
pushing my mild matter
in this immense sum of fiery spheres
and finite
inside the womb of mystery
with its unsuspected breath of flowers
because as above so below
since nebulae have their own pistils
and here I am with my steps apprehended
waved and sacramented
right and wrong
taking up the path dictated by the stars
smiling under high serene clouds
looking for other paths
that will bring a new hand to dream.
