Brigid's Caoineadh (30 min.)
Session VI – Friday, 4:30 pm
The Grail

Brigid’s Caoineadh is a performance written by Ayla in Gaelic that includes intricately woven harmonies to convey the grief of loss and the dramatic shifts we face. This theatrical performance tells of our current task- honoring succession, with a song of the Fertility Goddess Brigid as the fungi Amanita muscaria. Starting with the ancient wisdom that reflects nature from our past, to grieving the losses of great change in the present, it ends in healing toward a hopeful future.

The story begins with Brigid her singing to the oak tree, this symbol of ancient wisdom called on to strengthen and build herself with symbiotically. Her sacred reflections of mycelium, other beings that are more of herself, are soon revealed to her, as well as with her ominous form, the Cailleach. She sings of the fire it takes to protect her fertility wielding her fire made sword, as she creates her sacred white egg, the beginning of the fruiting body. The story and song progresses into the wailing grief of her great loss. It is only through the emotion of grief that she can get to the other side: hope.

Written and Directed by Ayla Réalta
Featuring:
Alessandra Stellina
Anna Wilson
Chakaara Bliss and
Koko Urban

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Hello Fungi Friends! I’m Chris, a local tea enthusiast and lover of mycology. What I've learned from studying Chinese tea is that its complexity rivals wine and coffee, and has a history and influence in Asia over thousands of years. The tea service that I offer is called "GongFuCha," a style that explores fine tea with multiple steepings. My tea collection is comprised of many types of fermented tea (puer and hei cha,) that I hope to share with you all.

I'm a Hawai'i born martial artist that teaches Historical Chinese Lineaged Kung Fu as an Instructor at Flying Tortoise Academy. My Instagram Live Podcast called Tea Talks has been a wild journey of interviewing. I've talked to Astrophysicists, Rappers, Orchestra Conductors, Tea company owners, and everyday Tea drinkers like me. Our subjects are vast; ranging to Mycology, LGBTQ+ rights, Gun Violence, to Psychedelics, Indigenous sovereignty, Buddhist philosophy, Restorative Agriculture, and Mutual Aide. Check out my Instagram interviews @ckylum

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Collage Riot is a collaborative community art experience. CR provides materials including books, magazines, paper, paint, glue, scissors, etc and multiple collage themes. We then open the space for the community to co-create one or multiple collages focused on the central theme, Honoring Succession. We facilitate the community to unlock latent creativity, cultivate connection, and think about Honoring Succession in a visionary way.

The space will be arranged with tables full of ecology related books and collage materials, there will be a central area with large poster board for the collaborative collage. Participants will approach the table, visually see the theme of the collage/the collage itself. They will then be invited to interact with the work in whatever way feels appropriate to them. Often small groups will work together on different areas of the collage, talking out different visions and ideas while finding images and pasting them to the collective work, some people prefer to draw their own images and incorporate those to the collective work, some people prefer to cut a single image out at leave it for another mind to integrate.

The end product is then displayed for participants to engage with throughout the duration of the Convergence.

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Music Performance (45 min.)
Friday, 9:00 pm
The Rhize

A patient, but frustrated meditation on what it is to be human. Songs about being tired, songs about home and love lost, songs about panic attacks on the NYC subway, songs about waiting, songs about wanting another way.

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Dragon Puppetry (120 min.)
Thursday, 10:30 pm
The Rhize

Fooble the dragon is a multidimensional dragon from the land of dreams. He brings an interactive improvisational trip through altered states of comedy. Beatboxing, laughter yoga, and entheogenic puppetry guaranteed.

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Symbiosonification: A More-Than-Human Collaboration (45 min.)
Friday, 10:00 pm
The Rhize

Fungi have offered me the possibility of practicing care, nourishment, and tending. The collaboration with the medium, and in this case with the mycelium and its fructification elements, engages all of my senses. My level of awareness is raw and susceptible, and for the first time it is as if I feel like I’m part of something rather than the creator of that something.

Bio-sonification is the translation of the bio-rhythms of organic subjects into sounds that we can hear. The data produced by the biodata sonification system is not inherently “musical” in itself: the biodata readings do not occur “on beat”; instead, a note is generated when a change is detected within the substrate with a pitch corresponding to an amount of change. The technique requires the placement of electrodes that pick up subtle fluctuation of conductance on the mycelium’s surface and feed it into a controller. The electrodes act as the messengers of the biodata that, once entered/translated to MIDI, can play the information back in real-time through analog and digital synthesizers. The fluctuations translated to MIDI allow me to hear fungi.

In my work, the MIDI cable becomes an active part of the symbiotic process. It becomes the medium by which the fungi and I will de-compose frequencies and metabolize meanings. The bio-sonification process thus becomes a symbio-sonification experience that draws from ancestral twines.

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