Cedar Falls Mycology Podcast

Episode #11 "Passport to Kingdom Fungi" featuring Dr. Gordon Walker

Alright good people,  welcome to episode #11. We have Dr. Fun Guy  himself here, Dr. Gordon Walker, here and we're gonna ask him some Theoretical mycology questions ,but first we're gonna talk a little bit about his new book, “Passport to Kingdom Fungi”. So, as the name implies “Passport to Kingdom Fungi” is your gateway to all things Fungi.
 
The world of mycology is always changing. , every decade or so, one of these really definitive books comes out and lets everybody know kind of where we're at right now as mycologists. And, you know, we really owe the authors of these types of books a huge debt of gratitude.  It is incredibly important that these books even exist because, , wherever you're at in your pursuit of mycology, there's always something to learn. That’s  probably one of the main reasons why a lot of us keep coming back to the never ending rabbit hole that is mycological science.
 
This book reads like a college level textbook. It's got everything you would want to know about Fungi in one book,  Accurate information delivered with photos, and also with illustrations and graphs that to really make it very obtainable  information.  If you do a brief Google search for Mycology Text Book you will quickly find a bunch of expensive and obtrusive books,  a lot of which are probably out dated.
 
You know, if you were teaching a college level, mycology class, you could just hand this book out to your students and you could say, “here memorize this book, and, come back at the end of the semester and there's gonna be a test. Um, if you don't feel like taking a college level mycology class, you can just read this book yourself and memorize it, and then, you know, you're there. You got, a very good foundation and, like I said,  this is information that is current, which is important.

Episode #10 Checking In With The Olympic Peninsula Fungi Festival featuring David Rogers

Alright Good People welcome to episode #10  today we will be discussing the Olympic Peninsula Fungi Festival.  This festival promotes discovery.., connection, and community. The festival encourages learning about various mycology topics and brings people together.  The festival is held October 18th -19th which is prime mushroom season and is located on the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula, a region renowned for fungi, this festival features lectures,... hands-on workshops,... guided forays,... mushroom cuisine and more from internationally acclaimed experts. There will be live music, a vendors’ market, and even  camping.   So.  no matter where you’re at on your journey into the mycology rabbit hole they guarantee this festival will inspire something new.  Our guest today is David Rogers.  David is a mushroom farmer and owns Maddies Mushrooms in Port Angeles Washington.   David is also the organizer of the Olympic Peninsula Fungi Festival our fascinating topic of todays episode.  So let’s get started....

Episode #9 Growing Wood Loving Psilocybes Featuring Jack Cyan

Greetings everyone. This is Tim Leavitt from Cedar Falls Mycology, Welcome to the  podcast where we ask ourselves not what the fungi can do for us... but what we can do  for the fungi.   We also  have  Jack Cyan here via zoom joimig us from Oregon.   Jack Cyan is really kind of the quintessential Johnny Appleseed character of the pschedlelic mushroom world atleast around the PNW.  Jack runs the wood lovers united FB, This page has 18,000 followers.  and is dedicated to distributing information on growing wood loving mushrooms specifically from the genus Psilocybe. In this episode, we’re going to discuss this fascinating topic

Episode #8 Mushrooms and Witchcraft, "Mushroom Magick" Book review featuring Shawn Engle

All right, good people. Welcome to episode eight.   Today we’re gonna talk about the book, Mushroom Magik, thats Magik with a ‘k” written by Shawn Engel.  We have Shawn  here on the show and we are going to ask her some questions...
 
But first I’d like to start by telling everyone the book we are discussing is called “ Mushroom Magik” this name does not refer  to medicinal mushrooms in a traditional sense, or psychedelic mushrooms. We are talking about mushrooms being used in magic for conjuring and spell casting.  Mushrooms have a long history of being associated with witchcraft and magic. On this episode we’re gonna talk about that relationship between,  the fungi, the witchcraft, and the magik....
 
This book is divided into three main sections. First, it has an introduction to 22 different mushrooms that are useful in magic, and then there’s kind of a journey around the globe exploring Ethnomycology through the folklore of a lot of different countries. You know, usually when you look into folklore, and , ethnomycology, you get overwhelmed with a lot of stuff from Central America, Russia and Asia . This book covers those regions but also includes historical accounts from Madagascar, the Congo... Malaysia places you might not normally have heard anything about mushrooms from.   The third part of the book gets into some step by step magik spells that involve mushrooms.
Sounds interesting, right?

Episode #7 Checking in with the DMA featuring Daniel Silberstein

Welcome to the  podcast where we ask ourselves not what the fungi can do for us but what we can do  for the fungi. I am super excited to have Daniel Silberstein joining us for this episode.  Danny is one of the founders of Developments in Mycelium Applications otherwise known as DMA. DMA is a virtual course covering the vast potential of fungi-based solutions and entrepreneurship from experts in the Mycelia  realm.    Dani is based in Spain; but DMA is a global collaborative project.

Episode #6 Checking In Down Under, featuring Caine Barlow

Greetings everyone. This is Tim Leavitt  from Cedar Falls Mycology,   I am super excited to have Caine Barlow joining us for this episode.  Caine Barlow is an Australian mycologist.   He is a fungi educator, an ethnobotanist, an independent researcher, and a Science Writer based in Melbourne.   He regularly gives  lectures on mycology as well as fungi conservation, and  he teaches gourmet mushroom cultivation. You can find him on the Internet as “Guerrilla Mycology”
On this episode we are going to discuss the fascinating topic of Australian Enthnomycology and entheogenesis.   

Episode #5 Having A Good Trip with Eugenia Bone

In this episode, I’m going to do a quick book review on Eugenia’s newest book.  "Have a Good Trip" and then we're going to discuss the fascinating topic of  tripping on psychedelic mushrooms. 
Some of you may know Eugenia as one of the stars in the movie Fantastic Fungi.  She is also responsible for creating the Fantastic Fungi Cookbook that goes along with the movie.   She also wrote the book Mycophilia but today we are going to talk  about her newest book  “Have a Good Trip, Exploring the Magic Mushroom Experience”
 
 

Episode #4 Interview With A Truffle Huntress, Featuring Dawn Meiklejohn

 In this episode, I'm going to give a mycological introduction to truffles. Then we'll get into some questions with Dawn about truffle hunting, truffle cooking, and then we'll get into some theoretical mycology questions.

Episode # 3 Discussion of Pychedelic Therapy

In this episode, we're going to discuss the fascinating topic of  psychedelic therapy.
 
We will start with some of the questions we can answer...like the legal status of psychedelic therapy... and then we are going ask a few questions that can not be answered.  As was mentioned in the intro to episode 1,  one of the recurring themes on this show is theoretical mycology  by that we mean mycology questions that can not really be answered beyond the point of speculation or opinion

Episode #2 A Brief History Of Psychedelic Mushrooms

Listeners are introduced to the historical mycozooistic relationship that exists between humans and magic mushrooms.