Mushrooms in Guatemala with Jasper from Fungi Academy
Alisa Nappa
If you've never heard of Fungi Adademy, you're sleeping on one of the greats. Based on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, they've been hosting mushroom events for years and now recently online with their new courses. We break it down with Jasper about all the exciting things going on in their world.
TRANSCRIPT
0:11
Welcome, welcome. You are listening to the mushroom revival podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dora. And we're about to dive super deep into the mystical, wonderful, aesthetic, beautiful world of mushrooms and fungi. We bring on guests from all around the world to geek out with us and hold our hand down. Whatever they're, they're geeking out about at this moment. And today, we have Jasper to talk about fungi Academy. He's He's tuning in from Guatemala. So what up twin? How you doing?
0:44
Alex, thanks for having me. Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. It's nice to hear the last time you had to be here. The last time we talked, I think it was during a webinar. And literally all the comments were like, are you guys are you guys related? Are you guys twins? I think we both had our hair down and like, yeah, we yeah, we can pull it off. We could pull it off. You know, I was like, we have like a piercing in our nose like red is looking hair long. Yeah, no static about mushrooms. I said we had a distant ancestor some somewhere. Maybe? Or something? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's for sure. Like, that's for sure. We'll go into that. Like I have no doubt that we're all like fungal descendants or like a brother Darren Luberon. Yeah, like says like, we're all human mushrooms having a human experience. Absolutely. So for people. We already had an episode about fungi Academy, probably like two three years ago now with Oliver. And for people who haven't heard that episode or don't know, you or fungi Academy. Who are you, Jasper and what is fungi Academy? Yeah, thanks. Good question. Well, I'm I'm Jasper or my, I guess my birth name is I'm Dutch. So my birthday would be osprey, Daikon ours. It's really hard to pronounce my last name, de GUNNARs is something you would have to do in like English. But yeah, who am I? Large questions. I think most of all, I'm like, fan about mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I love a lot of other things as well. But like currently, I'm the hyphae headmaster of the fungi Academy. And I love teaching people about mushroom cultivation is kind of my bread and butter. But I also like to teach about FL mycology, fungal ecology, a little bit of taxonomy have recently learned and just kind of all things fungal for us to view. Like we understand the organisms in our ecosystem better and therefore we're able to love them because they kind of like to see it as like, if we understand something better, then we have more capacity to love it. If you don't understand something, then it's really hard to be like, Oh, I really liked this. But the more like you know about something, the more capacity you have to just be like, Oh my god, this is amazing. And I think that's kind of like the silver lining through a lot of people in the mushroom mycology world that like, you know, people were kind of stoked in the beginning but like, like when you go super deep and you meet like the Gary link or something. He's like, okay, these people are just ecstatic. And they can't talk about anything else. But these organisms because they, you know, they call the vaids so much love within us. And I think it's it's kind of a catch 22 Because
3:22
it's almost like you you constantly have to re cultivate that beginner's mind. You know, like the Gary link offs. I love how
3:33
you know, he's just a static about these tiny Smuts and rests on a log. And he's just like, starry eyed. Like, this is the most fascinating thing he's ever seen constantly, every day, right? And and people always said when they went on walks with him like he was something special, because he was always looking at fungi from this beginners lens of like, Wow, isn't this the coolest thing you've ever seen? Rather than Oh, yeah, that's blah, blah, blah, Latin name. You're like, I know that. Right? And this is like a Zen philosophy of like, the second you see a tree, you stop seeing the tree, you know, and the more you know, the more you don't know and to cultivate that not knowing. And that that wonder of all of it, right?
4:20
Yeah, no, I think that's really important. And like, the first thing that comes to my mind is like lichens. And like, everybody's seen it like and before, right? But then you hear that they are estimated to cover about like seven to 8% of the Earth's landmass. Like, that's just ridiculous. So they're everywhere. They might have had like five different evolutionary origins. And then like, they have these four parts, where one is called the medulla, which is kind of like this weird, like, gas liquidy states within the lichen that nobody really knows what's happening within them. They can survive space, they can be like 9000 years old, you know, like a very common thing that then when you look at it with like, a little bit of knowledge because
5:00
I was like, Well, I really don't understand this. This is epic. And I think that's like, the healthy lens. And I think there's really the core of what science is about just being able to look at things from like a childlike wonder and curiosity and wanting to, to explain this without having the arrogance. Like I know it all. Because, you know, I like my bread and butter. Like I said before, it's mushroom cultivation. And it's really hard that these mushroom cultivation be like, Oh, there's one way. And that's it. Because, yeah, I tried to do that here in Guatemala, of what the things that I've learned in the Netherlands like 11 years ago, and I was failing miserably, because Guatemala is super different. Do it. Like we're like 1600 meters, which, like 3000 feet, I'm not so good and freedom units. But like, very high above sea level, compared to under sea level in the Netherlands, we have a subtropical climate, you know, everything is different. So you kind of always have to throw out everything you know, about my growing conditions and stuff like this to be a successful martial cultivator and you have to do is go with trial and error. So I think that's why I really like using mushroom cultivation as an as a metaphor as an example in ways of looking at life and things we know because kind of everything is an enigma.
6:10
Exactly what, how long as fungi Academy been a thing. And what what was the origin story? And I know, this is a very big question, but how has it evolved over time? Like, what were what were some key changes that you've seen throughout the years that have defined different kind of growth stages of fungi Academy? That's a great question. So it's a little hard for me to answer because I wasn't at the beginning of funghi Academy fungi Academy started seven years ago now. And I joined about four years ago. So I go into the whole story, which kind of takes an hour and a half by itself, during our mushroom cultivation courses, slash retreats and other like in person things that we host, but in a nutshell is a bunch of friends got together, had a love for mushrooms, had a love for teaching about mushrooms, decided to start like a school about mushroom cultivation from basically nothing and kind of build it up and eventually, like got some funding for Buzz. Then they drove around Mexico, teaching people about mushroom cultivation from the school bus for a while. And always as the base here a lot like what I did learn in Guatemala,
7:23
where they like kind of just thought these these mostly one day courses, and then slowly started building into a six day Week Retreat style program. And when I joined, it was kind of a very interesting time for fungi Academy because I learned about fungi Academy in Wahaca. I was trying to like before I was full on mushroom. And I was mainly like a traveler. I've been traveling the world for
7:52
five years. And I kind of got bored with hostel hopping. So I put myself into these weird like, challenges. So I cycled through Europe, and I sealed a bunch of places and I tried to get from Seattle to the Amazon without flying. That was my goal. And without taking public transport unless it was absolutely necessary. So when I was in Mohawk, I heard about the fungi Academy being on LaGuardia gone, and I already wanted to go to Lago Atitlan. And I was like, Okay, this is great. And I got there. And apparently, just Oliver we mentioned before, he was the founder, and the two other founders just had a falling out. And like a kind of felt that energy. And I was like, Well, this is there's just basically a massive, like, power vacuum or something, a vacuum and like energy being put in and
8:37
long story short, like a pig ate my bank cards, because of the mushroom chocolates. And I couldn't get access to my paypal in Guatemala anymore. And therefore, I kind of stuck at funghi Academy. And then like, I kind of kept getting these messages, you're gonna be here for a while. And yeah, that's kind of how I got involved into it. And I kind of always had that, like, sensation of like, oh, just like, I'll just do this. I'll support and like, whatever happens happens. And before I knew it, were like, months further along. I was like, teaching although I've been growing mushrooms for 11 years, and I've never really fully thought somebody and then we were doing the six day courses together. And then COVID happened and like them, of course, we're going to do an online course. So I think the big change that I saw was like the two founders leaving. And then like me and Oliver, like starting to work together for and like kind of fusing his vision with my vision. And yeah, like he was like, such a powerhouse, man. He was like, I always call my Obi Wan Kenobi. In many senses. I was in kind of into tattooing of the soul and like he just gave me purpose of like, this is just what you got to do. You're gonna we're going to do this thing. We're going to teach people about mushrooms, we're going to share the wisdom of like fungal knowledge and magical fungal knowledge with the world.
10:00
And I was just in it man. Like, I feel like I've always been a natural teacher. And like, here I had that avenue and I enjoyed it. And there was the aspect of community living as well. So we're also an intentional community, not just a fungal Education Center. So, like, there's so much learn for us as humans in our interpersonal connections and the way we communicate and the way we show up and like, for me, it was the ultimate school of life that just kept kept on teaching and giving. And I just never bored I never thought like, I need to like step out and I feel like like our collaboration was just so yeah, fruitful, we just were able to get a lot of things done together. And like I always call them my wife kind of just because like I never fought with anybody so much as we have created there had like so many peaks. So that's a that's was that collaboration and like, during like the beginning of COVID, we already had our eyes set on this the online courses. So for anybody that has no work, we have the first like mushroom called the online mushroom cultivation course that teaches people the whole process really from germinating spores and Aguilar to fruiting to harvesting, like homestyle bass, so working with the steel airbox and like really focus on the people that like might not have access like us to a lot of things that you can buy on Amazon, and just giving the knowledge to be a successful mushroom cultivator wherever you are in the world. And what Oliver always envisioned is not only giving people the knowledge to grow mushrooms, and our online course focuses on the sacred mushrooms are in our in person courses are a little bit more. Yeah, just general. So teaching people about traditional gourmet mushroom cultivation, but only it was very focused on philosophy capensis, but he always wanted to, like, deliver that in tandem with
11:50
like, the tools to successfully get the most out of these mystical experiences that most of the listeners probably have had, or I have a lot of interest in right now. And we kind of saw it as the mastermind. So we kind of coined that term, we came up with the term sacred mycology, and we wanted to call it the sacred mycology mastermind, you have two courses, the mushroom cultivation course, there's like 80 video lessons. And then the psychedelic journey work course, which is presented by Julian vane who wrote an amazing book getting higher for anybody who's had not read it. And, and it all came together because like, purely by divine power, it was like this guy that I met on a beach in Vietnam, his name is Holden Davies. And he's an amazing videographer. So
12:40
and he like kinda did the directing of the whole video aspect of it. And my current business partner, Karina was his current, like his partner at the time. So like, I think all these changes that happened are always defined by the individuals that are
12:55
grabbed, like pools by the story of sharing the magic of fungal wisdom with the world and, like community living and the power that fungi and mushrooms have within our ecosystem. And, like, that was Oliver initially, and it was
13:12
yours truly myself, and then Holden, and Karina, and then Cory, and like a lot of other people in our team, and just when we released these two courses, after a lot of work, like the story goes way deeper, but after a lot of work, yeah, like Oliver had an accident, and his his soul the part of this realm, and decided to dance with the mushrooms in the in the Big Sky forever. And, yeah, that was a, there was a big change, of course, because, you know, he was the main vision man, and like, although we're doing a lot of things together, I was still more like, kind of a sidekick. And then you know, and that happened, and it was very sudden and tragic. And I remember it really clearly that like, I didn't want to have the vision die with him. And, and that, you know, that was some of these like, to have somebody like Oliver that just puts in so much. Like, suddenly that part is just, it's a very challenging, challenging thing to navigate and then having to deal with our own grief and our own trauma surrounding that event. to uplift that is like one of the things that I'm like most proud of in my life that we're still here, you know, we're still like teaching more people about mushrooms and mushroom cultivation, that we're still like carrying on his legacy of like, like enriching people's lives with fungi and other mushrooms. I think that's, you know, like I'm still super proud of today and the road was hard and like we can go into this like a little bit of astrology that there was the moment of my Saturn Return beginning that when he passed and it was kind of the the biggest trial of my life and here we are, we're still here. We're still doing the thing. We're still like producing new content, but like, I was in memories of him. We have this beautiful altar dedicated to him and like he's
15:00
Still, like such an important figure in in our life and like one time I told the story and somebody's like, you gotta build a statue for this guy. And I'm like, yeah, maybe one day, we'll build a statue. But yeah, I think that's, that's, that's kind of how it transformed and I kinda just want to pull back on that idea of like, the individuals that want to support a project are really what are catalyzing these big parts of change? The big rant? is, I mean, that, that moment took me by surprise, and I didn't even know Oliver that well, we just have one interview, and it almost didn't seem real. You when I first read what happened, we're coming up and just past two years, of, of that anniversary of that event, and
15:49
yeah, I mean, he's such a powerful figure, and I'm really happy to see fungi Academy still blossoming. And, and, and the vision keeps evolving, you know, and it is kind of a community collaboration and, and it is something that is bigger than Oliver is bigger than all of us, you know.
16:11
But what would you say is your you're
16:14
looking back at your time with Oliver, what would you say? Is your your most cherished moment with him?
16:22
That's a great question.
16:25
I think,
16:27
generally, the vibe that he got off, he was really good at empowering people to live up to their potential and their dreams. And
16:38
I think like, after our first six day course, that we ever did, together, we pence tree house on the property, and we, we did some holiday together. And like just seeing people laughing and crying and going through all this transformation, like, from their experience about like, like learning how to grow and connect to so many like minded individuals during the course. And like saying, like, this is just the beginning. And like, I had this immense sense of like purpose, and this immense sense of like, also, hunger and a sense of like, wow, we like these, these ripples that will go from changing these people's lives, they will carry so far into the future. And, like, really, like that was just the beginning since then, like 1000s of people have taken our online courses. Like, I think we're getting close to 1000 At least 500 Now taking the in person courses, you know, and that's just, it's an Enzo again, always about the people and like, he was really good and like, showing these really like, precious moments and making them even more special. So I think that moment in a tree house that that that's one of the ones I truly cherish the most. Yeah.
17:56
And
17:59
yeah, I mean, it's, it's been, it's been a hard time for all of us with with COVID. And, you know, you've guys had to adapt with doing online courses now. And,
18:12
and it's it I don't know why but the last couple years, I feel like Instagram has been targeting mushroom people. I mean, seeing all these accounts, including fungi academies being banned left and right, and being suspended and being shadow banned. And, like all all at once, I don't I don't really remember this happening, like five years ago. But it seems in the last couple of years, it was just like, constant. And what what has this process been like for you guys? I know you got banned. I didn't even I can't even count how many times you guys got banned? Like what? What did that feel? For you guys? I like nine times nine times. Wow. And the last last one was six months. Geez, I think. And this is the same year that Oliver passed away. So it was like 2021. So it is two years ago that we got banned for the first time. So we just lost all of her and then like, like our Instagram account we just worked so hard for to get to like a pretty astronomical number. Then gonna take it down and we got back and got taken down and then eventually, like, we couldn't get it back for like, I don't know, four or five months, six months, maybe even. And then through some contracts. We had to conduct it meta and we eventually got it back a bit. We're kind of Shin been shadow bands ever since for the last year. And like, I think
19:39
it's a really hard thing because at first we were like, oh psychedelics, but now. We have like Michael Pollan, and like even Paul Stamets when he like talks about micro dosing, he fucking goes viral and then we're like, yeah, what the fuck this is just kind of ridiculous. The other day is I even I saw like Aubrey Marcus talk about ketamine and I have nothing against ketamine but like, oh,
20:00
Why does he get like a million views. And the moment we talk about medicinal mushrooms or like regular mushrooms, just like exploring stuff in the wilds, we get like zero. And like sometimes it's less than 2% of our total audiences. It's just just, this is ridiculous. It's like somebody is to weaken. And I know a lot of people have this. And
20:23
I think, because partially the narrative, right? I think a lot of mushroom people that are also into going out in the forest, they don't want to spend as much time on the phone, and that's their business model.
20:34
And there's so much right, these people don't like these organizations don't talk about this bag, their policy at all, but like, it seems to be a universal, it seems to be even with people that don't even talk about psychedelics at all. Yeah, and like, you probably also have a bunch of imposters trying to sell people like drugs online. I and there's Hans dude, there's one more thing that we do about it. Yeah. And I've reported like, oh, we can't do anything about the things like, Ah, this is, this is just bullshit. So
21:04
I think it's just long showing the faults and the flaws of the systems. And it's, it's unfortunate that so much of you know, our communication with our audience, our fans, our like our students, like is put into the ground. And like, one thing I find is like, ridiculous, we had this video with Julian vane that talks about, like, what correct dosages of these sacred mushrooms would be for different states of mine, like, where you are, how much you ate, and like, what kind of it was really focused on harm reduction, this whole video had 200,000 views got taken down for like, promoting, like substance abuse. And then like, there's other videos out there, like visiting psilocybin retreats, like they like to call it and they get like, and I'm like, this, it has to be some cherry picking happening here. Because it can't just be an algorithm. So I know a lot of people think this as well. So I don't know, man, I think they're just very intimidated by the mycology scene, because they're afraid of people spend too much time trying to connect with local ecosystems. They're not spending enough time on Instagram buying stuff. That's, I think, just events, we pulled back a lot.
22:14
I, I used to care a lot about, you know, our Instagram account and how many followers we had and all that, you know, all the analytics, and then I just, there was just a switch where I, now I don't give a care at all, like, I probably look at our Instagram account, like,
22:33
maximum once a month. And I just yeah, it's just a different. I just saw everyone getting banned. And I was like, yeah, it's, it's not worth me spending so many hours and like paying someone full time to run it. When at any moment's notice, they could just take it away. You know, it's just not worth it to me at that point.
22:55
It just, it doesn't feel like a safe
23:00
investment of my time and energy with something that they they can control. So at a whim, you know, so yeah, that's, that sucks. I hope it doesn't continue with more accounts. I, you know, there's, I saw a couple people that have just forging accounts, like nothing to do with psychedelics. And same thing happened, they got banned. And the one thing I can say to everybody, because like, it sucks, you know, and like, we can go into this for a very long time. But one thing I can say about everybody focus on emails, because emails, they'll never be able to, like, shut that down. And if people really care about what you have to say them like, like a blog, and like, that's so much more powerful. And like, you know, you know it like the moment you put a tincture bottle in a video, boom, the algorithm doesn't like you at the moment, we're like, announcing this epic new thing. Nothing happens and like, that's just diabolical. So like, it what's funny, though, is that it's fucking social leverage. I can I swear, I could swear, right? Yeah, I'm a little bit of potty mouths and great. Friends. I'm friends with the owner of the podcast, so we're good.
24:08
Okay, great. It's fantastic. I was just like, I don't know, he's a good guy. Because that's where it's all good.
24:14
You can now you can swear on YouTube anymore. For example, that's a whole thing anyhow. But like, the thing I wanted to say is that like, it's funny how many doors opens because we have not 2020 to 24,000 followers. People are like, Oh, yes, we want to talk to you. That's that's the same thing. So for that, we're stoked that it's there. And like, hey, sometimes things come through the algorithm but like, if you want to do something right now just focus on a podcast write a good blog, I think substack is booming. Right like great and guy write a new weekly newsletter. It's called mushroom magic on Monday. I love writing it's it's fun. I there's a bunch of people that read it every week are able to like promote epic people doing amazing stuff in the scene. So
25:00
I'm like that I care way more about that newsletter than I would ever care about Instagram. And you know, you don't even need to hire anybody anymore because we just have Chet GPT. Right. All your Instagram posts. Yeah, yeah. Easy. Dude, that's wild. I'm reading. Like, I feel like, every day, there's just one ups what yesterday it did, it was just like, oh, it like did homework for middle schoolers. And then like, the next day, it's like, it literally did the bar exam and like, aced it. And then the next day, it's like, it's yeah, I'm
25:33
the I'm, I'm, I feel like tomorrow, or, you know, it's gonna be pretty soon that
25:40
that somewhat, someone's going to do some mushroom AI stuff. And it's going to be wild, whatever it is, dudes.
25:48
Just terrified.
25:52
Yeah, I think if you're it's fair to have like, because I don't understand it at all. So that's why it's hard to love it right. Again, with that same analogy. I just don't know. Yeah, how it works. But I think it's fascinating. It is a good segue to go back into mushrooms, right? Because now we've been talking about the social media and stuff, but like, I read, so I've been writing and doing a lot of research for over a year and a half. Now this phone call ecology course I've written like 50,000 words. I feel like I've read so many research papers. And like, I feel like I know, some obscure shifts. I asked judges about the most obscure shit I could think of, and it just came with fairly correct answers. And I was like, okay, really, like wow, know about these really, really obscure endophytic fungi. And you know, their functions. It's, it's connected to the Google database, right? So all these fucking research papers, it's amazing. I actually write anywhere that publication content or mushroom for that function. Yeah. On a percent for researching, it's potentially potentially I say that with a bit like writing on that.
26:59
Yeah, so talking about this new I like writing mycology course give it out. Yeah, fungal ecology course, you've had to pivot both on social media. And like, pretty much all fungi Academy is based on these these in person courses, right? People coming together in Guatemala, and having just a magical time. But because of COVID, that kind of, you know, through threw a wrench in the hole and the whole operation. And of course, everyone transition to online courses just made sense. And, but you guys killed it. I mean, like the videographer that you were talking about that you met on the beach, and the animations, whoever's doing your animation is killing it. Like it's, it looks so good. You guys are you guys are doing an amazing job. So what is this this new course? And then? Can you talk about kind of behind the scenes? What was it? What does it take to make an online course? What is your creative process look like?
28:02
Yeah, so thanks. First of all, it's like, We're blessed to have a lot of friends that like are very talented, that are very stoked about mushrooms. And, you know, everybody throws this one around. mushroom cultivation is an art and a science. But then I see all of the not all of them. But a lot of the visual of work and graphic design of the mushroom people out there on the internet, like, Okay, are you really into arts or you're just into science so much? And I think we, we always embrace that it's, yeah, it's, it's worth putting in the effort to look visually appealing. And because mushrooms by itself are visually appealing, like, like, all of our color schemes are based on mushrooms. And
28:46
yeah, so we just have some friends and recently like, like, also, Cory has been learning editing them, ourselves. And we were just like, we have a lot of freedom here in Guatemala in the sense that like, you know, none of us are doing a nine five and we net cost of living are significantly lower. So we were able to just play around and learn things. And now especially with YouTube, you can learn all these things. And but yeah, the online course process so for the mushroom cultivation course, in the psychedelic journey, we're of course, there was like, no doubt that that was all of his vision. And then for a long time, like, I was thinking like, Okay, what is that? What would I really want to teach? And I'm just really into, like, the story of fungi and the impact they have in our lives and how abundant down how quintessentially vital they are to all life on Earth. Right? So, like, I think a lot of people now with the some people call the Shroom boom, we're like no one mycorrhizal is and maybe some people learn about endophytic fungi, but there's the rabbit hole goes so much deeper, right? And like everybody seems to have not everybody but a lot of people seem to have a very surface level knowledge.
30:00
And if you want to go deeper let me deceit generally.
30:04
Yeah, like, that's like, I personally also had that, right. Like, I didn't go to school for this. I'm like, completely out of that act. I like, I just had a curiosity. And I chase that curiosity. And I tried to build a story around that. So actually, we wanted to make something that was just pretty, pretty fast, like 10 episodes, 10 minutes, like, like, of affordable course. And we don't, okay, so maybe like, we can talk about our philosophy of online courses a little bit, because 90 to 95% of online courses, they put a person that's either very important, famous and smart, probably, hopefully, all combined in front of a camera, and then they kind of do an interview style, and then they just hope they have good answers. And then like, there's an editing team that then makes a good,
30:49
like, you have a lot of rambling. Like, I seen a lot of online courses as like, uh, like, as so much, right? There's a lot of rambling and so much love is like, I don't have time to watch an hour and a half of like, lecture Yeah, screen. There's not interactive. So like, I am okay with the zoom thing. And you can ask questions, and I think that's fun. But like, looking at somebody doing that, maybe an ad and then rambling and watching that and maybe getting one or two points. So we're thinking, like, let's get all the fluff away. Right. Let's make it so that it's fun and precise. And like, you're constantly bombarded. So we script everything. So I've read from a teleprompter. And so it's very, very scripted. Because like, otherwise, I start rambling right now, like, like I already rambled? A lot, you know, 30 minutes I've been talking.
31:43
Yeah, crushing. Yeah. Yeah. But like to make it concise is way more difficult, right? How can you make like explain these really complex things in a fun way within 10 to 15 minutes, that's way more difficult. So at first, I was writing and I was really thinking 10 to 15 minutes per episode for 10 episodes, where I'm already noticing, like I this is, I can't tell the whole story. So actually, like, we decided to go with 10 modules. And now we have like 35 video lessons. Most of them are like 15 minutes. So it's like, four, it's like a mini documentary series on fungi, what it just became. And so that's, that's kind of where it starts. It starts with like script writing. And then like, first an outline, you want to make an outline, what is the story that you want to talk about, and then you write scripts. And then from the script, we we film, so I work together with Cory, and like, generally, just from a tripod, and then talking how this call. So I'm talking in the camera from the teleprompter and trying to make it fun, then we're trying to improvise a bunch of stuff to make it more fun. And then we're creating a storyboards. So like, how do we want to tell the story right? So what graphics? Do we need to be designs?
32:59
Excuse me? What things do we want to have animated? So it's clear what like kind of footage do we need to capture to like, show this like, we went and shot a bunch of like guns, I went to, like a large bundle mushroom farm United States. And, like one of the reasons why like, I went to the United States in 2020 of summer and like, went to all the mushroom festivals, just get shots of people with mushrooms, because that's what we're talking about. And then like, yeah, the editing process. And that's, that's takes a long time, especially with what we've been doing. And I don't, I know very, basically how to edit, I'm just very blessed to have amazing friends and, like collaborator, and her name is Corey, who was just I was trained by Holden, because Holden, like started doing something else and has been smashing it, we're teaching some, like, actually, his local guy, his name is Sue how to edit as well. So he has like, a super powerful skill and like, it's just kind of a passion project, right? Like, in reality, you know, if I was if we were in the United States, or in Europe, this project would cost like, way more. And like, we don't have any investors, we don't have anybody telling us what to do. Like, we did a little bit of pre setting of the course to fund a little bit.
34:12
But like, it just goes so much more work. So like as reference I wrote like 50,000 words a script for this course, which, you know, you've written a book before I think it's like a 200 ish page book. It's a lot of words, man, like Yeah, I wish it was a book but then have all those other steps on top of it, and then like creating an online course platform on our website, so it's like, I don't know it's it's very different, but we want to keep it in a sense of like, I I don't know about you, but I like watching YouTube and like me to learn so much YouTube University all day.
34:46
I like
34:50
I wouldn't say I'm not I'm not a I'm not sponsored by YouTube. So
34:59
I got
35:00
Okay, I got YouTube premium and I was like, I love it now because they don't have to watch commercials, but I wasn't gonna say it because, because not sponsored by them. So YouTube, if you're listening, come sponsor me.
35:12
But it's hard man, like, we, we did some video stuff for a podcast and we were going to we did some videos for our YouTube just to just to try it out and like how it looks in my head versus actually doing it are way different you know, and like I have these really polished, you know, like pretty animations, all this stuff in my head. And then when you're actually doing it yourself without a film background or without editing background is like, oh shit, this is way harder than than I thought it would be. And so I admire people who are actually really skilled at doing that is because I find it hard to translate that from my head. Like I find the same with music as well. Like, you know, I I love music. I'm a big music person. And I dabble with a bunch of instruments, but I'm not good. You know? And I'm sure if I put in like hundreds of our hundreds of 1000s of hours. Yeah. But you know, I'm, I'm just not there. So I look at really talented musicians, or just any artists in general, like anyone doing beautiful creative work. And I'm like, hell yeah, do your thing. Do your thing. So I admire it. And I think whoever collaborated to do these courses did a phenomenal job. All your videos look spectacular. They look really good. So whatever your vision was, nailed it, you nailed it. This is this is a little inspiration thing for like everybody there So Corey, I she
36:46
she was just trying to edit the video that she made never had like a film background in a cafe. And we were producing the mushroom cultivation courses. Like, we need somebody else. Like we just as holding the teacher and like it's been like, two, two and a half years and like she's producing that quality now, so if you're dedicated, you know, it's like, yeah, I, I basically learned like, 90% of what I know about mushrooms in the last four years, just by dedication, I read all the books, and then I started going into research papers and all of that stuff, you know, so I think dedication is is a big one. And yeah, I personally, I'm very similar in that sounds. But then people have what people don't say to me is like, Oh, you like for me writing is what I think other people have with music and maybe with graphic design and drawing and videography. And like, for me, it just my mind, I don't have that filter of like, Is this good enough? I'm just like, and it just like, if I have the story clear, it comes out pretty pretty fast. And like you've written a couple books. So I'm sure that's not the only thing we're twinning shit with two similar writers. I know I'm a writer. I got a D minus in English class multiple years in a row. Yeah, no, it's, it's actually wild. If I showed my pass English teachers, the books that I've written, they, their mind would explode because I was the worst student in the class year on year. And I'm not a good writer. I'm just like, and this process has been really good for me. Now going through a publishing company, because I told them on the phone, when they first pitched it. I was like, I'm a terrible writer, like, have some really good editors there. I was, like, if you usually have two editors pick for you. No, I was like, yeah, and they're like, all right, it can't be that bad. I was like, No, I've like I'm not a good writer, but I no mushrooms. And so I'll throw it up on the page, and then you guys cleaned it up. You know?
38:41
That's, that's where I'm coming from.
38:44
But again, dedication, I'm sure if I spent enough time understanding writing, I would get better like anything. You know, I think like there's so many rules to lots of things and like if you're like I'm not a native English speaker, right? So I'm just like, I'll just write however I want to write and like, it's people seem to enjoy it. Right and like comparing it to people that have gone to journalism school or like English literature. I'm like, do I want to be that? I don't really know. I like I like having my own my own style in many senses. Right? But what's your curiosity men, Dutch, Dutch, or you know any other languages?
39:25
I speak Spanish I speak some German. My French is really rusty but like when I'm in France, I can I can get around. Have you taught a
39:36
Dutch?
39:39
Yes, actually man. So I don't I don't go home enough. It's really funny because like 90% of Dutch speakers speak English so I like I can get around with like saying the interesting ya know in English and not in Dutch, like in English. I've also given a couple classes in Spanish. That's like jargon for me is kind of challenging.
40:00
Still,
40:02
but like yeah, it's a It's fun though. Like it's very different and like I don't speak enough Dutch to be super full and then good and knowing all the jargon but people understand it. Like I go Yeah, I tried to go home every year but like it's not always happening. But then I always try to organize little events and cultivation classes were actually so you mentioned we're doing a courses in Guatemala generally that we've done our first one in United States last year, which was really fun. And now we're planning one in the Netherlands in Europe was not in Washington or something want to take Yeah, I was in Walla Walla, Washington shout. Oh, she did. Yeah, Paul. He is a fungi dot life. He's an amazing mycologist mushroom cultivator. I just like focused on the work not like, like super spread out. He has some amazing videos on YouTube on liquid culture actually. But like he's He's based in Walla Walla. So I we flew him in to teach and then we're like, let's do one in Washington. So it was super sweet. It was
41:05
next year in the Netherlands.
41:08
This year, hopefully, like we're still cool putting in some some things in with locations. But like yeah, that's to me is my like dreams, we'll just bring it I had some pretty big mushroom vision. Working with the events is that I needed to do more in in Dutch, although yeah, that's, that's a later down the line. But now it's still enough to do in English, but I feel like more. The culture is kind of behind. It's catching on now. A little bit on the mushroom stuff. But yeah, it's do you do you want to it's very small. It's like 20 million Dutch speakers? Do you kind of want to spread the please. This, this mycelial patch in Guatemala in these other locations? Is that kind of the grand vision of spreading the spores and all these different countries?
41:57
Yeah, so like, that was really like, my vision. So we set up like a women's mushroom collective here now. So we taught this local girl to grow also mushrooms from sport like from like sports to through mining, oyster mushrooms, some reishi. And so she's producing like most of our spawn right now. And then like, we actually are teaching her to teach the local women because a Spanish done their first language, and she her Spanish is really good. And like, so we have like, way more ease communicating with her than with the other local women. And there's also like this gaps on like, for me, it's way beautiful that like, we're able to empower this local girl. And then she can teach other local women how to grow my oyster mushrooms from agriculture ways, like corncobs in their own home. And like, instead of having to travel like four hours to get spawn, they can just get away from us for, like, cost price or like we've like, even if they don't have enough and they want to grow up, we just give it away for free. So that's like a thing that like, I'm super passionate about, at, like within fruta. Guatemala, it's like
43:01
so sometimes a little challenging, because it's really hard to move around here. It's like very mountainous terrain. But yeah, we yeah, my goal that in like the next 10 years is that there's a funky Academy location and all continents.
43:17
Oh, yeah. I'm about it. Yeah, let's, let's have a research station in Antarctica. Let's go.
43:26
That's it, man. Yeah.
43:29
It's hard to go. I'm here to prove it.
43:32
So there must be fun. I've heard it's really funny. Because like, pretty much every festival or big event in person event. There's always the organizers perspective and then the goers perspective and the goers perspective. Oh, yeah. Is always like, Oh, this is great. This is like all sparkly and wonderful and everything's flowing. And then the organizers or, or people who are like volunteering or working the event are always like, this is a clusterfuck all these things are happening. Like all this chaos is happening behind the scenes that no one's seeing, and blah, blah, blah. It's all good in 10,000 feet, but I'm sure you have really interesting perspectives over the years of hosting these in person events. And I'm sure you get you've gotten wonderful, wonderful people show up and then head tilting people show up, you know, and shit hits the fan sometimes. So what has been kind of the the worst experience that you've had hosting some of these these in person events? And then on the flip side, what has been the most rewarding or memorable experience?
44:45
Hmm, great question. Yeah. And like 100% I don't know what you mean, event organizers and people on the ground being stoked, and I actually went to a bunch of the mushroom events in the United States and I always told organizations like remember
45:00
about the people. Everybody's having fun. That's like,
45:04
with us.
45:06
I think the first one that we did with Oliver that was we did some three months experiment, then that didn't even really was happy in that experiments. It was too much. That was a longtime us and it was too much for them. Yeah, it was a small group of three, four people, but that was too much. Yeah. Now that was like, Yeah, we nobody left happy. So and I think, like, we made a lot of mistakes in that moment. And like, I think we really learned from them. And so after COVID, and our kind of our Instagram kind of blew up and man, and this blew up during my COVID. So we decided to do an application form. And Adam was actually the best idea like we've ever had. Yeah, cuz we have some ability to filter out the people that might not create the best cohesive experience for everybody. So we have right like,
46:03
I most groups, we just had, like, such such such good cohesion. And like, especially the last one we did in January, we were like booked out 20 people, like it was like everybody came from such different walks of life.
46:19
And just was able to connect, like the mycelium immediately. And it felt like one big family and we're Yeah, that's amazing. Ryan Yeah, where the week was over. And it was just, I was beautiful, behind the scenes. You know, like, there's some moments that are like, high energy, and we check in with each other every day before we do is like, okay, How's everybody feeling? Is anybody feeling a little frustrated? And these things get out? And yeah, there's some challenges we also work with, we have like a core team. And then we have a team that makes kind of, is different every year. And last year, we had like more in living residents. And that costs sometimes a little bit of shift, because then your interpersonal react like situations can seep into the group. And that's really not what you want to have. But totally, it's we learned from that. And we took way more care into making sure everybody was in a good space this year. And like, yeah, this year, we have like a couple of like challenges, but like, we're working a lot with tools like nonviolent communication, and authentic relating. And, and that really helps in having like a mediator, if you have a stroke thing with somebody, like speak candidly, you're able to communicate what's on your mind, and like, able to come to a mutual understanding. And like, that's just like the one of the big lessons of living in community. And I think, again, like, that's our natural state of being right. Like, we're all we're pack animals, and we just haven't learned how to deal with challenges and like, like in any relationships, romantic relationship, business relationship, you're gonna experience challenges, and you're going to experience frustration with one another. And you can choose to not learn and grow in your way of communication. So those cracks don't become like unfixable. And then you burn a bridge, and you don't, you know, don't know how to relate to this other human being anymore. But there's tools, right, there's tools that people that are way smarter than me have figured out. And we're able to utilize those pretty effectively here. It's like, it's not perfect. You know, like, I think with any intentional community, like, it's really hard not to have, like, 100% people leave, like super full of love and joy and feeling seen. But like, we're Yeah, we're learning, you know, and we're also young team, you know, like, most of us are under 30. And like, including myself, so we're getting there. And like, I think if you want to work together with other human beings, be it like, in a mushroom foraging club. And this grows out of proportions. learning these skills is really important. And yeah, I think that's, it feels actually really good when you have like, charged to somebody and you can speak it out. And then you actually come to a conclusion and you are able to hug each other and say, I love you or whatever. Like you want to say to that person and like that's, that's really when you get trust when you have conflict and are able to resolve that conflict. If if you never had go through that you don't fully trust this. Yes. Is you know, you don't know how people show up and when push comes to shove. So I think those those are challenging moments behind the scenes, but like, man, like this is the most prevalent, right? Because this was in January now it's February, like we had this group and like there's just so much appreciation and like at the ending circle, when people were saying goodbyes, everybody's crying and like, like we really felt like we made an impact on the world that we like. I love how Charles Eisenstein says the world the more beautiful world our hearts knows it's possible. So cliche but so good.
49:53
But like we felt like we made an impact in that and that's just what else do you want to do in life man changing like people's lives with
50:00
better and especially if they're more closer to nature and mushrooms, it's congratulations dream for me. I mean, it's like, logically, you know, living on some permaculture community everyone passionate about connecting with each other in the world and, you know, sharing meals, etc. It sounds like yeah, da, but actually doing it, it's so hard. And I've like, I've stayed at some intentional communities, I have friends that have helped organize or been a part of, and there's a lot of drama, you know, and it's just, I feel like we've, you know, as a, as a human species, we all grew up in community, you know, tribal situations, and then grew out of that. And now we're, it's just in this hyper individualism, time frame, in our, in our global society, most of us, not all of us, but
50:59
but most of us are hyper individualized, and have kind of lost that. Those skills and like, how do you connect in community? And how do you resolve conflict and how to you move and grow in community as smoothly as possible? And for me, I know, like, I, I'm an introvert, I love being alone. And for me, like, logically, I'm like, Yeah, that sounds great living in community. And then part of me is like, No,
51:30
I want my alone time. You know, I've like, you know, and like, part of me, that sounds like I'm like, Oh, that would be so much. That'd be a lot. So to not only do that, but also to teach people to put out so much content to really shake people's lives as you're doing that I give you a lot of respect for for that, because it's not an easy task, for sure.
51:58
Thank you, man. I appreciate that sense. Like, trust me, I'm also an introvert, I also need a long time. It's all about having your separate house and your kitchen and your separate bathroom. And healthy boundaries connect, communicate like communing, right, like relating to the community.
52:18
Like when you decide to do it, there's some like mandatory meetings, like you have to order food and like, we have to make collective decisions. But like, yeah, it's not always like holding hands and Kumbaya. 24/7 That's, I don't think that's healthy for most people all the time, especially not multiple years, right. Like, we have a lot of people that come for like three months. And if you're listening and you want to come for three months, for free, we have an application form on the websites, as well. It's it's super fun. For a lot of people that's like exactly what they need. And I was also in the beginning, the first six months, I was just like always in communities, and even though I'm an introvert than them, yeah, after a while, you need to find your own routine. And I think that's, that's our healthy way of being is just like, yeah, just feeling like you're doing something together. And then also having your own time to write process your own, your own being down. And I think it's kind of like can't pour from an empty cup. Got it? It's got to take care of
53:13
that correctly. Yeah, to find to find that balance. And, and it's different for everybody. You know, some people get more revved up when they're around people, some people recharge alone. So, you know, finding, finding whatever works for you. And then all kind of sinking together, which easier said than done, but so, we're talking about this new course that's about to release, when is it going to release the mycology course?
53:41
It's 23 323. So 23rd of March 2023. Whoo. All right.
53:48
I don't know when this episode is going to be released, but I could probably could probably schedule it some sometimes it'd be released. Right? Right then. So if you're listening to this, if it is perfect. It is about to release, or it has been already or today.
54:08
That's that's exciting. And then there's possibly possibly an in person course in the Netherlands, right?
54:15
Yeah. So we also by then, we have announced our next courses here in Guatemala.
54:21
So like, if you're listening, you can go check out the websites, and check out the mushroom cultivation course in person section. But yeah, like, if you're listening to this come around around the time we're doing like a drip release. So we're going to do like, like nine weeks, and we're all coming together every week. We have like amazing guest speakers lined up. Not not 100% I can't share it with us yet. But like, everybody's favorite people in mycology. So it's like, it's just going to be like a nine week super epic, like get together of myco files and learning about like how fungi, like I call them the or
55:00
orchestra. Directors of the orchestra have life sometimes, right? Like how they like weave their hyphae. And sometimes not even the hyphae, you know, into, like, manifesting all that we see around us. We didn't even talk about fungal colleges. Cool. Okay, you just got to get the course to learn all the cool facts to share at your brother's Bar Mitzvah or something.
55:21
I don't know when people share mushroom facts, man. I'm like, I live in my own mushroom bubble. That's the only time let's see. Okay. I don't know when you share them. But that is for me that I actually. Yeah, I scoped them out. You know? I crashed Bar Mitzvahs. And then I just share mushroom facts.
55:42
The new cloud dudes. Yeah.
55:46
I'm a great, great guest at the bar mitzvah.
55:51
So, yeah, so we can also make codes. Final question. Okay. We can talk more, like for sure. Final question. Final question.
56:00
If
56:03
you're, you're, I'm sure you're constantly interacting with people that it's this is their first time, you know, getting into mushrooms, you know, and they're starry eyed. They're just getting into it.
56:14
And likewise, on this show, we have a bunch of people at that phase as well. They're just getting in there aspiring mycologist What are what's one piece of advice that you would give an aspiring mycologist
56:30
Oh,
56:32
like, I fingers always go with curiosity, right. Like,
56:37
like, to me what's interesting is that a new discovery that you made can actually be a new discovery for anybody like and like just eyeing any part of fungi like that by be hungry in that sense and like, like learn, like if you can get a microscope and look at microscopic fungi, like this so hard because for some people, it's mushroom cultivation. For some people. It's ethno mycology? You know, I'm like a massive, like fan of history. In auto sensor for me. Agatha mycology also clicked on just how our ancestors related to these mushrooms just like like first off like have maybe, okay, this is a good example if we're like using mushroom foraging methods metaphor first. Yeah, are like really like wide eyed, right? Are you looking at the whole forest floor until you maybe see one? Golden chantrell And then like you like dig on your knees and you look around, just find more chanterelles on your knees. So I think for anybody that's interested in mycology, first try to get a broad understanding. And then, like, try to go deeper into things that really speak to you.
57:40
I think that's, that's a good advice to anybody that's interested because it's too wide of a field, you can be in into all the things as much you know, it's like, sometimes, like when I was in United States, man, I didn't feel like, I felt like I didn't know any mushrooms. It's like, yeah, and there's all these people that know all the Latin names of everything. And I've never even like seeing any of their things before and I'm like, You're Wow, that's very impressive. Oh my god. So, you know, like, that's just not fully me. I like the edible once and medicinal ones. And like, Sure, humbly wider on the standing but like, it is humbling going to a new place and seeing a totally different fungal ecology and being like, I thought I do mushrooms. But I'm in this new place, and I'm seeing all these new mushrooms that I've never seen before. And I don't know what their names are. I sometimes feel like that when I I still feel like that. But when I first moved to Austin, Texas, I I would go on walks with people and they'd be like, Oh, you're a mushroom person. Like what? What kind of mushroom is this? I'm back. I don't know. We I didn't I didn't see those mushrooms. Back in Massachusetts. Like we didn't have those mushrooms. This is just this specific ecology and I don't know, actually. And it was really humbling, you know?
59:03
Yeah, it is humbling every time you say man, so thank you.
59:09
I go out like these indigenous knowledge keepers. Quite often for my own bike research. I have like a mycology here of the Mayan Highlands. And I've eaten mushrooms that have never seen that I still don't know the Latin name. I can hardly pronounce the superhero name, which is one of the local languages that they speak here. And it's delicious. It was amazing. And like I showed you some people and they're like
59:34
it's like I want to if I'm one of the you know first people that is into mushrooms that eat in the mushroom because like we don't know like how widespread these these fungi are, you know, it's like they can be in a like the mushroom that you find in Austin Texas. May be very Maybe it's like a mushroom that is hardly found anywhere else. You know, it's like they some of these fungi like living in these very obscure mini climates and almost nowhere else. What else
1:00:00
What was interesting is like the Eat all of the Agaricus a girl sort of button mushrooms right that what mushroom and Kamini and like the bellows that you buy it all of them while in Europe, man, like half of them will give you like a bad bad stomach ache if you eat them and they just ate all of the ones they find here. They said there's no poisonous ones. And that just blew me. Wow went against anything I knew. And like yeah, I just told them immediately if you ever go somewhere else, don't Yeah, don't do that. That's don't do that.
1:00:29
Yeah, like Yeah. All the time. And anywhere we can find.
1:00:35
I heard it. It's a big thing with people that love paddy straw mushrooms. And they're in like Southeast Asia or something. And they grew up eating tons of paddy straw mushrooms, and then they come to the States. And they pick like a death cap or something. Thinking it's a paddy straw.
1:00:53
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, different. I guess you got to learn different fungal ecologies sign up for the sign up for the course. So if people want to learn more about you the course fungi Academy, plug it away? What? Where can people go? Oh, nice. Best way to keep in touch is the newsletter from the academy.com/newsletter. We're at fungi Academy on YouTube and Instagram. So you can find it there.
1:01:20
Yeah, just funky. academy.com is the websites and actually just like, completely made like a new course platform. And we're probably gonna give like some of the lessons for free. So have a little sneak peek. Do you have a discount code yet? We'll make it. It's going to be a of course Marshall revival. Just. Yeah, mushroom revival. People get a discount? For sure. We'll make it happen if it's not in place yet. Great. Let's do 25% You'll get 25% on all of our online courses. Let's do it. I'll set that up. I mean, well, yeah. All right. But like Yeah, you heard it here. Yeah, you can also just email us connect. Connect with funky academy.com. Check us out like we have. Yeah, like we're super responsive. We'd love to get your questions. Not so much emotion caught like, cultivation. Yes. Not so much the mushroom foraging ones because, like we just talked about before, I don't live where you live. You got to figure that out yourself. But like, Yeah, feel free to reach out. Like we really like to connect everybody in the world that's into mushrooms. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me on, man. It was it was a lot of fun. Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's it's always fun looking in the mirror and connecting with my mushroom twin.
1:02:31
Yeah. Are you are you coming to Telluride this year?
1:02:35
So this year I Are you just I'm just like your your one year of US tour.
1:02:42
Yeah, so like, maybe maybe next time it just like it's hard for me because Telluride is like, going to tell you right in August or something, right?
1:02:51
It is an August. Yeah. When like every other Yeah, that's like that's right. Um, Europe time. So like, that's yeah, challenge. I'm trying like, I'm still like very conscious of like, how much impact like flights have especially into continental flights and not trying to be the person flying everywhere all the time. But I'll make it to, like tell you right, one year for sure. That's, it's on the list yet at least but like I'll be in your pocket. It is timber. I'll do it once. Nice. Nice. It is. It is expensive. It is hard to get to. But it is worth it. At least once you know it is I grit my teeth every time I book it because it is kind of inexpensive ski town but
1:03:38
when I'm there I'm like yeah, so worth it. And then looking back for the rest of the year. It's just like the memories that make it's it's great. I'm with any pretty much any mushroom festival and it's so exciting to see so many new ones pop up around the world every year. Um, there's like I feel like there's five new ones that I'm hearing about. And everyone's just making their own and
1:04:01
soon we're gonna have mushroom, mushroom festivals all over the place which which is really fun.
1:04:08
And with that, that's a wrap. Thank you Jasper for giving us the lowdown on you exotic mushrooms fungi Academy.
1:04:18
Thank you everyone for tuning in and tuning in to another mushroom revival podcast episode, wherever you're tuning in from around the around the globe. And yeah, we don't have a Patreon or any way that you can donate but if you liked the show, you can support us by going to mushroom revival.com. We have a bunch of goodies from tinctures, to gummies to powders to capsules
1:04:41
to support your health from from your own or a little goodie for a friend family member. If you want to win some free goodies we have a giveaway going on right now which the link is in the bio and you can sign up to win
1:04:56
a free mushroom product and we're it's an ongoing
1:05:00
giveaway so you can enter and we pick a winner once a month to win some goodies and then apart from that just tell your friends tell your friends family go to your brother's but Mitzvah and spew some mushroom facts, you know?
1:05:15
This this global mycelial network relies on all of us just sharing information and creating this global community.
1:05:27
Like our heart desires or whatever the quote that you said, or
1:05:32
the more beautiful world our hearts know as as possible. Exactly. We're trials together. So thank you. Everyone's with that much love amid the spores be with you. Ciao.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
