Today on the Plant Cunning Podcast we welcome Madison Murphy Barney—doula, two-spirit Indigenous sister, public health storyteller, and author of Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms: Wisdom for Living in Balance with the Planet and Each Other. Madison shares how mushrooms offer blueprints for reconnecting with ourselves, community, and the planet through traits like connection, decomposition, adaptability, and humility, emphasizing moving forward with “original instructions” rather than trying to return to the past. They discuss relating to ecosystems anywhere (including cities) through curiosity and noticing, mushrooms’ role in composting and rebuilding systems, and how doula work applies beyond birth and death to divorce, career change, and other transitions by honoring grief, support networks, and cycles. Madison also mentions ceremony, favorite mushrooms, and where to find her work online.
01:19 Meet Madison and Book Launch
02:27 Plant Path Origins
04:05 Why Be Mushrooms
06:26 City Nature Connection
09:00 Why Mushrooms Matter
12:53 Doula Calling and Expansion
17:20 Guiding Change and Grief
22:38 Ancestral and More-than-Human Support
24:33 Living in Cycles28:51 Cycles and Comfort
29:27 Native Plants Debate
30:37 Love of Place
32:05 Mushrooms and Protection
33:33 Adaptability and Neighbors
37:18 Humility in Ecosystems
42:01 Fungi Favorites Today
44:13 What Comes Next
45:25 Who the Book Is For
47:25 Connecting and Closing
