Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms: Wisdom for Living in Balance with the Planet and Each Other

Mushrooms have within their networks the answers to our biggest questions.

The more we start to live like mushrooms, author Madison Murphy Barney argues, the more healthy, just, and abundant our lives will be. Unlike other mushroom-focused books, Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms weaves the guiding attributes of mushrooms and ancestral wisdom into an inspiring metaphor that calls us back into the right relationship with each other and with our planet.

The book is cleverly divided into eight traits of mushrooms from which humans can seek guidance:

1. Humility
2. Beauty and delight
3. Creativity and unique gifts
4. Living in cycles and decomposition
5. Protection
6. Healing and nourishment
7. Flexibility and adaptability
8. Mystery and room for magic

Barney draws on her Indigenous roots and guides the reader on a journey to become more human through acting like mushrooms. Written with warmth, spirit, and whimsy, Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms enchants the reader into a more engaged life with the world and themselves by embodying the innate qualities of the wondrous mycelial world.

Madison Murphy Barney is a Two Spirit, Indigenous sister, doula, author, and public-health storyteller. She authors the popular weekly newsletter Our Medicine, an exploration of our individual, collective, and ancestral gifts, which can serve as the medicine to heal and build our world into a more just, balanced, and communal ecosystem.

Madison is frequently called upon as a thought leader in storytelling, health, equity, and community care. She was featured on the 2022 Indigenous People's Day conversation on the BBC Global News podcast. She was also a guest at Aspen Ideas: Health in 2023, where she--alongside the StoryCorps CEO--shared her expertise in using storytelling as a tool for equity. Madison received her master's degree in public health at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

For the past few years, Madison has been exploring personal and collective practices of rematriation. She moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Middlesex, Vermont, where she stewards two acres of land and is a part of an intergenerational community of Indigenous baddies.