Standing at work, looking out on the bare trees and rain soaked emerald grass. Near a tree trunk a grayish white plant pokes out from the ground, strange, yet beautiful. Mushrooms- Shaggy Mane and toadstools, have been appeared where there wasn’t one before. Mushrooms have been popping up all around the grounds where I work for the past few weeks. Mushrooms, fungi, strange plants are what has been popping up lately in my life. With this year being what it is, I started wondering what mushrooms could teach us about 2020?

Mushrooms are considered to be a symbol of good luck. good fortune and represents rapid growth. For some of us, we have been in a constant growth period while navigating the ups and downs of the year. These pictures were taken after Thanksgiving, a time of being thankful for good fortune all year long.

Out of darkness comes life.

This may sound morbid in times where people are dying from COVID-19 and other diseases. Truth is, mushrooms grow from darkness from dark moist environments below the soil surface. In dark times, life still goes on.

Growth during dark times in one’s own life. Many of us did grow during these dark times. With learning to live with a new normal, and learning new ways to live during a pandemic.

There are few things greater than beauty and nature as all the answers. Nature can be healing and rest for many of us. Mushrooms remind us while we all have been separated from it in the beginning, it always wins in the end with us. We have more appreciation of our own backyards and nature preserves.

Unexpected and long lasting effects that are strange and unthinkable. Looking at how the effects are on all of us, and you can see how strange and unthinkable they would have been only a a year ago.

Time in relative. Mushrooms are only here for a small window of time before they dissolve back into the soil in which they sprout from. For us, time moved either slowly, or at a decent pace. It is all in the frame of reference.

All Living Things Matter and everyone has a purpose. Most people see mushrooms as nuance in their yard. Yet they serve a purpose in the overall ecosystem we live in. The same for us humans. Everyone has a purpose on this earth. All things, no matter what, matter, and that matter makes this place so diverse.

Overall, mushrooms teach us no matter how this year went, you are a growing, living, purposeful, beautiful human being. No matter what this year has been like, dark times are soon to be bright sunny times soon.