<
https://theconversation.com/romy-ashs-novel-imagines-the-next-pandemic-as-an-eerily-beautiful-mushroom-disease-281017>
"Do you remember the very early days of the pandemic, before the freedom
rallies, before even the vaccinations, when we were spraying boxes of muesli
bars with Glen-20 in case that was how the germs were getting to us?
In those days, there was a feeling these lockdowns could perhaps save us from
all the things wrong with the world. Emissions were way down. People were
creating spontaneous collective musical experiences on the balconies of
apartments. The canals of Venice ran clear. Maybe all it took was a deadly
virus to make us change?
In the end, everything actually got worse and has continued to get worse. But
that spirit is what animates Romy Ash’s eco-fiction novel,
Mantle: the idea
that a pathogen might make us wake up to ourselves; make us stop, think and
change course.
What if we abandoned the idea of our separateness from nature? What if we
embraced our porousness – “our bodies are hosts; we’re always living
communally” – and treated ourselves as ecosystems, rather than individuals?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
