The store had only a wooden table, some ergonomic rocking chairs, and an electric scale. Minna’s sister’s friend raised a hand in greeting, stepping out into the echoing room. Ellen was Black and extremely butch, in a red bomber jacket and worn-in work pants. I was surprised Minna used female pronouns with her, but I trusted that she got it right.

“Let’s sit,” Ellen said, and pulled three of the four rocking chairs to face one another.

“So, Pen, you’re just now starting the fungal plunge.”

“Yes. It’s been everything. I mean, coupled with an encounter with an L.A. witch.”

“Those two things often go hand in hand. We are all part of one great assemblage.”

“Are you . . . with the Rhiz?”

Ellen gave me a knowing wink. “Are you?”

“I mean, they’ve helped me out.”

Ellen shrugged and turned to Minna, as if turned off by my self-denigration.

They chatted about Minna’s time on a wheat farm, where she bathed every night in milky oats and swore that all the inflammation of her life had been soothed out of existence. I was a long way from the Midwest of my youth, where you either looked for the easiest balms or you shoved your problems all the way down into unsuspecting organs.

The doorbell rang and a young person in a sweatshirt and platforms walked in.

Ellen rose. “What can I do for you?”

“I need some product.”

“I see. And do you have membership in our org?”

“Your org? Huh?”

Ellen waited, the rocking chair still moving from her ejection.

“I guess not. My friend told me to come here.”

“I see. I will walk you through a few key points. We are not looking for new members, but we want you to know the context of this substance. Do you understand?”

“I guess so.”

“Psilocybin mushrooms have been used by indigenous folks in the Oaxaca region for centuries. With full attribution to the indigenous origins of the psilocybin mushroom, the Mazatec and Zapotec groups in particular, my group stands in awe of this fungus and the system it is a part of. We not only advocate for the integrative wonder of the psilocybin effect on a wide range of conditions—including PTSD, depression, anxiety, the enduring rage and exhaustion of being a Black person in this country, normative responses to capitalism, sundry disenchantment, et cetera—but also for the relational architecture of the fungal kingdom. Much of our society is structured around the arboreal: roots leading to a trunk and then to branches. Our systems of family, knowledge, and government are all organized in this way. Even radical folks who want to abolish these structures are often only thinking of tracing social ills down to the roots. But fungi live alongside the roots. They nourish the roots. They send messages. They negotiate. They thrive in paradox and complexity, and in the places where ruin meets renewal. We need to live more like them.”

The customer’s mouth was slightly open.