The Oracle and Her Mushroom

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 0:08
Hello beloved listeners and welcome to No Future No Cry. My name is Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware and I’ll be your host as we deep dive into the wild imaginings of leading artists, activists and thinkers, who are all dreaming us into future worlds, while reckoning with the reverberations of the one that we all collectively inhabit and have inherited. Join us as we explore a series of short stories and speculative interpretations that engage with all that could be, and all that has been. All of these stories are set within a century from now. And these stories offer us a way of surviving and growing into something not yet created: the apocalyptic, the beautiful, the hopeful, the sacred.

Today’s story is entitled The Oracle and Her Mushroom, written by our featured guest, Yousef. Originally from Dearborn, Michigan, and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Yousef Kadoura is a disabled Lebanese Canadian actor, writer and curator. Yousef is a graduate of the Acting Program at the National Theatre School of Canada from 2017 and since graduation, Yousef has spent his time as an actor between Toronto and Montreal. In 2017, he produced and created the Walking the Space podcast, a three part series exploring disability in Canadian theatre. He is currently an editor and host of the podcast Crip Times. In 2018, he became the co-curator of the Flourishing Series at Tangled Art Plus Disability in Toronto. Yousef is a founding company member of Other Hearts, a new performance collective, which came together initially to produce Yousef’s show One Night in Aluna Theatre’s Caminos Festival. As an artist, Yousef seeks to draw from a plurality of experiences and disciplines to expand the boundaries of performance in pursuit of accessibility, presence and shared experience. Stay tuned after the story for a conversation between Yousef and I where we discussed their inspiration and writing process. Without further ado, The Oracle and Her Mushroom, written by Yousef Kadoura.

Yousef Kadoura 2:28
Our ancestors betrayed us. It is 2120 and our world has been transformed by humanity’s failure to protect the earth. So, she decided to act in self defense. Floods, fires, plagues, all to push humanity from the places they occupy. Leaving them, at best, as archaeological sites or playgrounds for wildlife, more often than not, as disaster zones. Humanity’s refugees fled from the ever expanding deserts along the equatorial belt to the few remaining settlements in the north. The Elders among us remember the day the earth had had enough. The clouds turned a sickly ashy white, and strange spores began falling like rain. The soil heaved, bellowing plumes of flame, and the sky closed over – stealing the stars away. Capitals began to fall, and monuments crumbled.

But new life emerged from the risen tides; fungi adapted thriving in our abandoned cities decomposing, consuming the steel we left behind; ancient plants sprouted from beneath the melted ice caps, providing hearty, and strange, food sources for once threatened species. – It was the downtrodden who rose like a wave from the collapse. The victims of greed and violence survived because we had been doing so for so long already. We did not set out to rebuild what was had before, but built anew; started listening to the planet, to her original inhabitants, the ones she sent messages to, warnings of the things to come. Created the Ears. Use them to listen, intercept what she intends for her other children – the trees, the fungi, the old inhabitants of the forests and the seas. Warnings of what approaches – so that they can move, adapt, survive with her. We live because of this knowledge.

The Ears appear improbable at first glance, seemingly organic, but not. Roots stretch down out of a thin silver tube, connecting them to its organically shaped polished metal stem out of which flowers three dials. One is a glass bobble the size of an eight ball with a red pin suspended inside, spinning like a compass confused about which way is north. Another has six rotating dials with various symbols and letters etched into each one. The third, nestled in the centre of the formation is a simple white gold convex disc that flexes silently with the breeze, imperceptibly expanding with the change of pressure. These, almost living, delicate instruments require sustained care, and the knowledge of how to care for them, how to use them, is guarded and kept close by those most trusted in our society, the Oracles.

They come from the poorest families. These few selected as children spend their youth learning to listen, to care for the Ears. Sent out after reaching an age of self assurance to live in solitude along the edges of their settlements, in the wild places. They are known when they return with messages by their vestments of thick patchworked canvas coated in wax, heavy boots, and belts of woven fabric strips on which hang, a shovel, a tin water flask, and a short knife with an inwards curving blade.

Today, in a settlement in the high north of what was once the American continent, a young Oracle begins her journey into solitude. Balhis leaves her childhood home before first light, not wishing for a parting word. A compact and weighty pack is strapped to her back. She strides past her neighbours homes, their tiny spaces zealously watched over. She pauses to silently thank them for their protection. She thinks of the Earth, and with a deep breath, presses on, past the high wood and wire barrier around their town and into the forest.

Mosses and twisted saplings erupt from the pitched concrete of the forest floor, and caught up in the tree branches are tiny strips of plastics being corroded by multicoloured moulds, giving off thick sickly fumes. She feels the rising warmth from the morning sun behind the smog and marches deeper into the brick thickets, the remnants of a metropolis long abandoned. The climbing heat thumps up from the fractured pavement until finally, the midday sun forces her to take shelter. Finding cover in a ruined hovel with a sun faded menu hanging by a nail outside of it, she grounds herself and takes in her surroundings. Eyeing the shaded tables and dessicated trash bins she steps around the broken countertop and skeletal display case and spies, beneath a stripped espresso machine, a fistful of familiar looking mushrooms bursting from a pile of rotted wood and petrified coffee grinds.

Dropping to a crouch Balhis removes her pack, her hand fumbling as she opens it. “Where do you come from little ones?” She murmurs to the fruiting mushrooms as her hand almost absentmindedly, but with great care, draws the Ears from her bag, her fingers twisting the thin synthetic roots into the mushrooms’ gills. Placing her left hand on the convex disc, she finds stillness. Listening to the pulses imperceptibly rolling up from the roots and through the delicate stem silently whirring the Ears to life.

She recites a mantra of the Oracular Order to the disturbed spores of the mushroom and her thumping anxiety, “I am but one among the many children of the Earth. I come to you, elder of the species humbled by the meddling of my forefathers. Let me listen and learn, show me where do you reside?” Her focus narrows and the dials begin to spin, the needle suspended in the glass bubble begins to spiral, the silver disc pulses stronger, then silence. The needle settles, and points directly downwards.

She presses into the floorboards beneath her feet, feeling them give and bounce slightly. “A basement…” Pausing to thank the mushrooms, she removes the ears from their gills. In the back, hidden behind fresh vines is a rotted door, its brass mushroom rotted handle crumbles with the force of her palm. The steps leading down have rotted away and there is a ten-foot drop to the floor below. She deftly drops into the inky blackness of the room and pulls an ancient plastic flashlight from her bag.

The light blinds her momentarily, and when her vision returns her breath escapes from her throat. In this tiny basement, there is new life. Umbrella sized mushrooms erupt from the walls, brimming with beetles and other insects. From the ceiling, multicoloured vines and roots hang loosely in reds, greens, purples, and browns; in the creases, there are flowers and strange fruits. The floor is what entrances her; the stone has rotted into nothingness and in its place is a mass of mycelium, thrumming, breathing, with a crown of mushrooms expanding out from the centre.

Her heart beats fast, but she can spy upon the Earth here. Gingerly stepping forward she centers herself in the circle, burying the roots of her Ears deep into the mycelium network below, being careful not to disturb the fruiting mushrooms at its edges. With her flask she feeds the earth, the ground beginning to welcome the synthetic roots reaching deep into the network. Then with a sudden flash the Ears spark and scream, Balhis covers her eyes to protect them from the shower of flames which shatter the bulb in her flashlight. Darkness.

Her lungs are in her throat, heart in her stomach, and she’s silent in fear, this is not normal. She fears her body is broken by the blast. Her mind races, was she gifted a broken Ear? Is this her fault? Or worse, have her actions harmed the earth?

Light begins to flicker and grow, a spark perhaps? No, the mushrooms. Light blue and purple hues begin to expand and pulse from the beings in the basement, and in the centre of the circle she hears the Ears whir. She looks on in wonder as they pulse faster and faster – and scrambles forward, placing both palms on the now slightly ashen disc and listens, closing her eyes as her mind is pierced by cacophonous voices thrumming up her wrist, and into her spine; “We know you’re there. Why have you disturbed us strange flesh?”

Her eyes flash open, this can’t be, the Ears are broken, or her mind, mushrooms don’t speak her language. The Mycelium pitches below her and she hears this time through her palms;

“We feel your fear, it’s flowing from something in the centre of your being. Do not be afraid. Now, what are you and why do you disturb us?”

“I… My name is Balhis.” She says, the words unwittingly escaping her vocal chords. “I am an Oracle, a protector of people… what are you?”

“I am. ….. Your roots feel wrong, they don’t belong here, yet they have been invading my brethren for many cycles now. Why do you disturb us?”

“To learn”

“Learn what?”

“Learn what threatens us before it can hurt us. Learn of fire, flood, disease. You are wise, so with these roots we listen, we interpret, we try to heal the sins of our ancestors, the ones who betrayed the Earth. We protect your siblings, use our knowledge to prolong your lives, give nutrients back to you, we do not use you for anything else.”

The Ears shake with intensity, “You think you are better, you are not better, you are survivors of calamity caused by the inaction of those before you. You have not chosen to be better, you have chosen to break our cycle to prolong our death for your own purposes. Do you think you are noble for being forced to survive? You choose to spy, and steal. I see you and you are afraid… worry not, I will not harm you. But we might help you. We would have our siblings change our language so your kind can no longer hear us.”

Balhis’s heart drops into her stomach, “Please. Please don’t leave us. We are learning, we are trying, we are changing-“

“What are these?” the mushroom asked incredulously. “Promises? We have felt them in the wind before. These mean nothing to you. We have decided. You must reconcile with us. Eat only what is given, give back more than you take, let the world do what it will.”

“No, we needed your knowledge, else the world will destroy us. I cannot remove these Ears, or my loved ones, my siblings, my mother, my friends will be left defenseless, do not be so cruel, please! Please do not leave us to face the world alone.”

The breathing mass beneath Balhis heaved “You are not alone. Do not weep Balhis, I feel the sadness in your waters. Remove the Ears, and in return I shall give you a little piece of me to take back to your kind. Plant us amongst you, tend us, let our lives expand until our light fades into the dust, so our life and our death may nurture our progeny, let us mingle together, not spy and whisper fearfully in dark places.”

With that the Ears and earth fell silent, and the bioluminescence dimmed. Her heart still in her throat, stomach in her lungs. In a moment of seeming eternal silence, Balhis breathes deep, muttering,

“I shall be better. I shall be better.”

Balhis uproots the dented ashy Ears, tearing them to pieces with her hands and carefully places the mass of twisted material in a bunch of newly fruiting metal eating mushrooms. Rising to her feet, a vine unfurls itself from the stem of one of the larger mushroom caps, offering her a fistful of dancing spores.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 18:36
Well, thank you so much, Yusef. For that story, and for your reading. That was so beautiful. Tell us a little bit about the Oracle and the mushrooms. What are we dreaming into in this story? What world have you imagined for us?

Yousef Kadoura 18:53
Well, I guess about the world. I mean, first off, thank you so much for the opportunity to share this and the opportunity to even write and dream up the story. It’s very appreciated. The world–I wrote this, I think it was 2020 you approached me about writing this. And I was pretty well locked down in my apartment. Didn’t really have anything to do. And I was reading a lot of fantasy at the time.

And I wanted to imagine other worlds, different worlds, in relation to ours. So the world of the Oracle and her mushrooms, I wanted to think towards the future. But think towards a future that was narratively different from ours, almost in that world of fantasy like Tolkien sort of creates, that CS Lewis kind of creates, just to like, you know, use the English authors as my touchstone. I wanted to imagine a world and traditions and a universe that was bigger than the story I was able to tell (if that makes sense). Something like sprawling beyond the, you know, the little journey that Balhis takes, I wanted the rest of the world to feel big around it.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 20:41
What I love about this story, and I think that that’s true of a lot of short stories is that it leaves you wanting more, you know, because one of the things that’s so beautiful is that the world is expansive. These mushroom ears and the Ears that listen in, you know, that’s such an expansive idea, this idea that the natural world is communicating with itself, with the multiverse, with the universe. That, you know, our main character is trying to find a way to tap into those messages in order to make sure that her community survives, or that their community survives, while at the same time, you know, we have this window into this whole other universe, of these living beings that are growing.

And I think when we have the main character coming down into that basement and seeing that the sort of mushrooms growing everywhere, it just seems so expansive. And I think it really does take you into: what else is happening in this world? What other things are the plants saying? How are they communicating? And of course, right now, when we started working on this project, in 2020, could we have ever imagined that we’d be in this moment, right now, where the natural world isn’t a guarantee? Where we’re seeing climate, this was the hottest year on record, in 2023. You know, we’re seeing climate issues really affecting all of the living beings on this planet. And I love the idea that maybe there’s something else, that is happening, that we don’t yet know, that the main character gets to tap into.

Yousef Kadoura 22:19
Yeah, and I think we see that all over the place. Like you see that in so many different ways, and so many different places. I’d spent a little bit of time in 2020, out in the backwoods of Algonquin. I got out there for a little bit. And that was where part of the sentence came from because, you know, I adore going into the woods. To me, it’s a place of reflection, a place to interact with the natural world. But you could feel the changes happening. Like, I like fishing, and for life of you, you could not, they weren’t appearing that year. You could see in the water, like the damage already beginning to happen, things like that. And it’s been going on for such a long time. It feels like an inevitability in some ways.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 23:18
I’m so curious about this world that you’ve created. And what does it mean to live in a moment where climate change seems inevitable. You know, I want us to get to a place where we survive this, where the planet survives this, where the beings that live on this planet, survive this. And I think that Balhis, you know, offers us an opportunity because at the end of the story, there’s a relationship that’s built between the main character and the natural world, so that it’s not just extractive, but that there’s something else that is happening. I’m curious about the process of creating this story. Of course, you know, the prompt was: tell us something that is going to happen, or that might happen in the next 100 years. What are you sort of dreaming into? And I’m so curious, you know, I love this idea of you being in Algonquin and being called to sort of tell a bit of a different story. Here we are now, it’s been a couple of years since you wrote this. What’s changed? And how has your dreaming evolved since writing this story?

Yousef Kadoura 24:25
Um, it changed in a big way from when I first wrote it. I could see pretty immediately I had a sense of who the character was. I was able to create the world around it rather rapidly. In terms of the ending, in terms of something that you know, wrapped it all up, I really struggled with it. Because I don’t know what the future holds. I have things that I would like to see, but it’s difficult to have any sense of assurity around those things. So I did actually change the ending of the story, because I really was not pleased with how I did it the first time. I want to let people know, or you know, or at least for Balhis, for the character to know, that the next day isn’t sure. The next thing that’s coming up, we don’t know what it is, but we can learn from the people before us. We can interact with nature, with the natural world, in a way that is mutually respectful and mutually beneficial, as opposed to the usual human thing over the last two centuries (two and a half centuries), which is the really over use, the rapid consumption of the world and the environment.

And I wanted the reader, I wanted the character to know that the future is unsure. But we can take steps to live within it meaningfully now. And that might be the thing that saves us, is to live with mutual respect, care, support your community support the natural world around you. It’s possible to live within our means within the means of the natural world. And it’s possibly possible to do that comfortably. There’s been some stuff I’ve been reading over last few years about social justice and climate justice. And the big debate, one of the big debates, I find kind of foolish, is the: do we leave the world for future generations the way that…do we leave the world in a state where future generations will have the same opportunities as us in the same level of comfort as us? Or do we sacrifice things now to give them more of that? And my feeling on it as not a scientist, is why are we thinking purely about ourselves when we should be thinking about working in tandem with the natural world? Which makes it really hard to write an ending when you’re unsure what the solution is. That was a bit rambly, but I think that, I hope that, answers the question.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 28:26
Yeah and it’s so interesting, because of course, the reality is that when we tell stories about a future that hasn’t yet happened, you know, how do we possibly tell the kinds of stories that our, our children’s children need us, need to hear from us right now? The kind of stories that propels us towards some sort of action, some sort of catalysts and sort of change. And so I’m really interested in your perspective, and that you mentioned, you know, that you’re not a scientist. And I think that what’s so interesting about this project is that it is artists, not scientists, as artists, who are dreaming into the future and about the future. And I think that when we think about what Walidah Imarisha talking about speculative fiction, and she said, you know that all activism was speculative fiction, because we were daring to dream that another world was possible.

So you know, art and artists sort of help us to sometimes quite literally, draw a picture or paint a picture of the future, tell us a story about the future. This idea of practicing the future through speculative fiction that we hear from Adrienne Maree Brown. You know, and I think that what I took from The Oracle and Her Mushrooms was that it was entirely possible to live forward into a kind of future where we were connected to the natural world. So for folks who are tuning in, who aren’t familiar with Yousef’s past work, you’re, of course an incredible actor, a playwright, you’ve done directing and all sorts of work in the theatre realm, as well as teaching students. I know you teach at the National Theatre School and other places, and you’ve been helping people perform different kinds of futures. I’m curious about how this story relates to your artistic practice.

Yousef Kadoura 30:06
So in the process of creating this… to me, names are very important. My family–I’m originally from Dearborn, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. Going back to Lebanon, my family mostly comes from a village in the Beqaa Valley called Majdel Balhis or the House of Balhis. In Arabic Balhis is the Prophet Solomon’s wife, who in the Christian tradition is known as the Queen of Sheba–you know this character? And even though English is my first language, and there is a love of, you know, old English European storytellers. I also wanted to bring in traditions that were not just white settler perspectives. So, I used Balhis. And I tried to think through Balhis through the perspectives of land that my grandmother, Bahia Osman had. And her garden that she would take care of–of that there’s a mutual respect and these sorts of things. So when I was writing the character, I was trying to think through how would a young woman with this perspective of the world and land, how would she go through this world, even if it is the Western settler world, which is the one we live in, in North America for the most part. So I was really trying to think of it through a character first perspective, right? What are the things, what’s important to her?

In Balhis’ case, it is family, it is community. And it is place, placeness is important, right? Less so, you know, things that are important in Western societies, which isn’t necessarily bad, but the idea of exploration, and the idea of the personal narrative is much less important, culturally. So that was really helpful in terms of where the story went. And yeah, that’s kind of my process, is that I think of the character I create–you know, what are their perspectives on life, on land? And then, after you create the world around it, it becomes much easier to envision what this character is going to do, how they will respond to these challenges, to you know, the struggle of humanity versus I mean, I’m still struggling on this with this story, but it’s either humanity versus the environment, or really, humanity versus humanity.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 33:51
So I’m really interested in this idea. You said that your story is one of the only stories that had an ending change, through the process of this. And as you mentioned, you know, wanting to show that in fact, a lot of things are not yet certain, are not yet sure. I’m curious if you could just take us a little bit just behind the curtain of what was different in the two endings?

Yousef Kadoura 34:18
Yeah. So the first time I wrote the ending, I felt a bit stuck. And I had…what was it?… 30 days to write the story. So I treated it, in some ways like, I don’t know. I’m having trouble envisioning what’s going to happen. So I just need to make a choice. And I went with kind of a high fantasy choice. I believe it was something along the lines of, Balhis still destroys the Ears at the end. And the mushroom gives her a spore still, to take to the cities and the mushrooms would like grow within the settlements and, you know, be this big magical cooperation. And there was something else, which was fine. But it felt untrue to me. There was this sense of, as I said, I don’t know what the future holds. I just know that I want to live as well as I can within the world that we have. I want to care for land, I want to care for people within as much capacity as is possible. And I don’t want to disturb, I don’t want to cause harm, right?

So the question became clear for me when I approached you, and I was like, I might want to change this ending a little bit. And that’s why I wanted to change it to the unknown, to the let things be: work within cooperation. And live in community with us. So still very similar endings in some ways. But I didn’t want to create this sense of: we saved the day. Because I think there are other stories where that can happen. I think Balhis is going to continue her journey and discover more, as I hope that our readers, our listeners continue their journeys and discover more about themselves. That’s what I love about literature. This is why I read, I feel like I discover more about my own beliefs. And I discover more about what my dreams are for the future, for the past, for the now. And I didn’t want to be prescriptive about that, or give a false sense of: we did it guys, we saved the world. Because the world is going to live, the world will continue with or without us. And we need to make a choice within that. And I also want people to be able to envision how they do that on their own.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 37:55
I love that, I love that. And I think that sort of picking up on that, I’m curious what you’re hoping people will do with this story or leave with after hearing the story or reading the story? What are you hoping kind of propels people forward into some sort of action? Or what are you hoping people leave with?

Yousef Kadoura 38:18
So to start off to me, art, storytelling, I create art to create beautiful things. I create art to hold up a mirror to the world so people can look and go: “Yes! That’s what I’ve been trying to express”. I don’t make art to change people’s opinions. I don’t make art to change people’s minds. I make art because it’s necessary and because if you are open to it, and you’re looking for understanding, you’re looking for change, it can help you along those paths. I hope that with this story, people think about their relation to land, the relation to place. I hope that this story makes you want to go out into the woods or go out into a park and sit in the circle of mushrooms and spend some time with the precious things all around us. I hope that’s what this story might inspire in some people, I hope in some other people it might inspire them to increase their advocacy for the planet for future generations. And for some other people, maybe it’ll inspire them to, you know, envision what the next part of Balhis’ journey is and create their own story. I hope people get from this, whatever they are looking for from it.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 39:58
Thank you so much. I love that and I think that, I hope that people will listen again, listen to the story again, now that we’ve had this conversation, and just really take in, maybe go as Yousef has prompted us, maybe go lie in a field and listen to the story and feel the earth supporting you and holding you while you hear the story of Balhis and all of the things that she is about to consider. And I don’t want to say explore because you’re right, that’s such a colonial process it’s such a settler process. So to move away from that, just to think about this relationship that she’s building with the living beings around her. So thank you so much, Yousef, for the chance to talk about your story, for the chance to read the story, for the chance to engage in this content. I’m so thankful. If there’s one thing that you hope people leave with today about the future, what is it?

Yousef Kadoura 40:57
I hope that people leave here with comfort in that the future is uncertain.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 41:06
There’s a peace in that, there’s a joy in that because that means that anything that you’re worrying about might not happen. And it means that the road ahead is undefined, and that there’s a lot of possibility for the mushrooms, for the plants, for the waters, for all of us. So thank you so much. This is Yousef Kadoura talking to us about the incredible story, The Oracle and Her Mushroom. I love this idea that we get to connect to our ancestors, that we get to connect to the land, that we get to connect to each other. And thank you, Yousef, for giving us so much to think about in terms of our futures and where we might be headed. So thank you.

Yousef Kadoura 41:55
Thank you so much for the opportunity to create and tell the story, Syrus and thank you all for listening.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware 42:05
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to like, follow, subscribe, and of course share. No Future No Cry is a collaborative production of Visitor Media and 221A, a nonprofit organization that works with artists and designers to research and develop cultural, ecological and social infrastructure based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Original Music and Sound Design by Dominic Bonelli, Podcast Production by Krish Dineshkumar, Production Management by Afua Mfodwo, Editorial and Creative Production by aeryka jourdaine hollis o’neil and a special thank you to New Sound Production Music Studio for their recording services, to Sean O’Neill and Anni Spadafora from Visitor Media and to Tao Fei from 221A.