2006 rang – she wants her blog back
Although the About page gives you all the salient points on what Mycelial musings is (and isn't), I thought I'd use this inaugural post to go into a bit more detail about why this blog exists.
Saving seeds
To quote from the Tending to Endings card deck, seed saving is "the practice of safeguarding the best of today's garden for tomorrow". You can learn more about the card deck on the Tending to Endings website.
Over the years, I've done a lot of extra curricular activities alongside earning a living. I've curated a conference about redesigning places and building inclusive communities, plus spoken at many others. I've designed and facilitated workshops for tech folks, ran craft workshops in my local communities, set up a collage club – the list goes on. I also have a nascent creative practice that rarely sees the light of day and a healthy museum visitation habit.
Up until now, I've mainly spoken about these things on LinkedIn and Instagram. However, these platforms make for unsatisfactory archives for many reasons (including the fact that Meta actively censors people and communities I care about so the less time I stroll about in Zuckerberg's hellgarden the better).
Mycelial musings, then, is my very own digital garden shed, where I can talk about things that I've done and store the ideas that interest me.
Having said that, this is not merely a portfolio site (although as a self-employed person, it's certainly helpful to have something that demonstrates what I can do and how I think). This brings me onto...
Connecting threads
A cursory glance back at – waves hand vaguely – my life, or at least the things mentioned above and there are a few themes that emerge.
I'm interested in making (meaning and things, digital and analogue).
I'm passionate about sustainability, particularly what we use to make things, and what happens to those things once they're no longer useful.
I'm also curious about what happens when we introduce squishy, soft, emotionally-charged humans into the mix – in all our glorious forms.
Over the past year or two, I've tried to weave some of these threads together*. For example, I designed a craft workshop for digital designers, exploring creativity and AI and how these two things interact. More about that in a future post.
Mycelial musings is a continuation of this weaving process. Through documentation and periodic reflection, I hope to uncover and / or strengthen connections between the ideas I've saved in this blog-shaped seed jar.
Full disclaimer – this blog could also forever be a mishmash of disparate ideas. I make no promises to you, dear reader. But you might be inspired (or amused) along the way. And if a small community emerges over shared thinking, I'll be delighted.
A final note about the name
You may have picked up on the nature vibe that I've tried to imbue into my writing and intentions for this blog. I'm a sucker for a creative concept that ties everything together, which is where the name Mycelial musings comes in.
Mycelium is the underground root structure of fungi – a hidden network of thread-like structures that contributes to the ecosystem of the forest (or whichever habitat its lurking in). Fun fact: mycelium connects plants and trees, forming a 'Wood Wide Web' buzzing with nutrients and communication signals. Nature is cool.
Humans are also cool, and some have been exploring mycelium as a building material. This includes Bento Architecture, a Belgian design studio that 'grows' objects from mycelium – including the table and stools in the photograph below.
Connection, communication, threads, making. Hopefully you get the gist...
*Special thanks to Lady Kitt who was my mentor at the beginning of 2025. They were very encouraging and helped me organise my thoughts. You can find out more about their awesome work on their website: www.lladykitt.com.
