What is Mycelial Law?
Building a law firm in service to applying mycelial principles
On Aligning with the Great Work as an Earth Lawyer -
Thomas Berry is the core advising elder of the Earth Law field – bless his past embodied and continuing spiritual presence with us all. 👼 He believed each generation has its Great Work, and for ours, it is transitioning to alignment between human and earth systems. 🌲 Part of our journey is humanity's need to shift from an anthropocentric worldview to a biocentric or ecocentric one. 🌎 That gives us the Earth Jurisprudence project. His best-known quote on this:
"The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner." – Thomas Berry
I have been tending to an inquiry throughout my twenties around grassroots earth law. How do we integrate the principles of earth law practice - representing Earth’s inherent rights and integrating her intrinsic value - in our communities? How do we ensure each action within earth law practice enhances human thrivability, thus rendering it irresistible? How can human evolution into Ecozoic era lifeways be rendered irresistible in every community of the United States, bridging historical socioeconomic and political divides? This inquiry has led me to -
Mycelial Law.
Mycelial Law is law as the mycelium practices it. It is a specific sub-sector of Earth Law, the legal practice building a civilization in service to all life - cultivated by thinkers such as Thomas Berry, practitioners in the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and at the Earth Law Center. Think: Grassroots Earth Law – the exercise of building and strengthening pathways of Mother Earth Centric law practice - as Earth Law Center terms it in their beautiful 2024 COP 16 Brief:
I decided to devote the first half of my 20s as a listening exercise within the inquiry: How are regenerative movement humans (working towards mutual earth human flourishing) designing their co-creative ecosystems to harness collective intelligence, reflecting the principle that earth’s intelligence is expressing through collectives? (Blog post to come). AND how are Attorneys answering their calls?
Some might have a foundational idea of ways mycelial dynamics translate to human organizational design principles - perhaps through exposure to the gift of the MycoFi movement. Or even on a high level, by following Paul Stamets, watching Fantastic Fungi.
Personal Context of a Mycofile Attorney
I am a child of the Wood Wide Web era, raised on the 1990s revelation that species in forests connect to and nourish each other, rather than competing.[1] I am a child of rich organic New England and Swiss soils, the smell of which I adored so much I craved being around it more than sugar. I am a passionate lover of healthy soils, first and foremost - and I know I have the mycelium to thank for them. Suffering from hormone imbalance, I came to revere it as my medicine. I continue to revere the way time on, and eating the fruits of healthy soils alchemizes the painful imbalances of my gut microbiome. I bury my pointer finger in the chocolate black cake of the earth, and relish licking it clean. I can feel the miles of fungal threads within one teaspoon of soil, re-aligning my gut with its most vital state by the day.
I came of age during a phase of collective societal celebration of healthy soils and the wonder-inducing presence of the mycelium. The wondrous fungal beings that decompose organic matter, transforming waste into life-sustaining nutrients. That respond dynamically to environmental conditions, rerouting resources and repairing damaged networks. The master teaches humanity about resilience and renewal – beckoning us into a vital relationship with death and regeneration – with decomposition and radical changes of form.
And now, I am an earth lawyer - cultivating a movement law practice to provide legal services to those building local, regenerative economy and culture.
I was blessed to be schooling during a time I could draw from Sophie Strand’s ecological writing and Merlin Sheldrake’s work in fungal biology. My mind was ever filled with reflections on how the mycelium teaches us about how nature governs her own systems in the direction of balance, harmony, and vitality. I’ve had a fair amount of time, as founder of the Northeast Healthy Soil Network, Rights of Nature paralegal, and attorney at Regen Network, for connecting the philosophical lessons of fungal networks to practical human systems of place-based-intelligence driven governance and resource distribution. (Blogs to come)
The Mycelium gifts humanity a modus operandus for legal form architecture.
Or in English, the perfect operational framework for designing and structuring legal entities, agreements, and/or governance systems.
Therefore I give you, the Mycelial Law Firm (PLLC): in service to actualizing the Mycelial Principles legal operational framework. Woohoooo!
The behavior of mycelial networks in ecosystems offers a model of collaboration tested and proven by the master systems architect – Mother nature herself.
Check out my next post: The Mycelial Law Firm Manifesto, in which I apply mycelial principles to the structure and practice of grassroots Earth Law.
[1] Simard’s 1997 paper, published in Nature, showed that Douglas firs and paper birches share resources via underground fungal networks, fundamentally challenging the dominant paradigm of competition in ecology.