Fungi, the Forest, and The Human Soul

There is a creature hidden in the woods. It hides itself in the rock clefts and clings delicately to decaying logs. It’s not an animal. Not a plant. It is in a different kingdom with its own rules and purposes, and without it, life on Earth would not be possible. 

It can be found inside plant cells and growing contentedly in leaf litter. Each day you step on it, causing it to send informational waves across miles. This hidden life is called fungi. 

Yes, the tiny mushrooms that seem to spring from nothing after a summer storm, their unassuming heads bent shyly towards the ground. Fungi are the silent cause of the ebb and flow of life. They are continually connecting, consuming, and renewing the ties between all other kingdoms in nature. 

The roles of fungi are varied, but one of their most fascinating jobs has to do with tree communication. A healthy forest is anything but silent. Even without their fungal messengers, trees are tremendous chatterboxes. They are known to send chemical signals through the air, usually as warnings of pestilence or danger, but even this pales in comparison to the capabilities fungi offer them. Species of mycorrhizal fungi penetrate the roots of trees and other plants, helping them to get water in exchange for nutrients. It was once thought that the benefits of this mutualistic relationship ended here, but recently scientists have discovered this isn't the case. The cream-colored caps and bright-eyed polypores we see are just the fruiting bodies of a much larger organism. They are nothing but what the acorn is to the oak. Their mycelium, a white web-like structure, branches out in filaments across vast distances, consuming and repurposing dead matter, connecting parts of the forest that would otherwise remain isolated. Where roots cannot physically intertwine the mycelium can whisper in the trees’ stead. It is estimated that 90% of all plants depend on relationships with mycorrhizal fungi (Brewer). But this symbiotic relationship is still only a part of what fungi do for nature. 

The other day, I was walking along the rocky shoreline of a lake. Half hidden behind the stalks of poverty weed was the rotting carcass of a deer. The stink was something awful. The deer must have fallen a few days before and already the vultures and flies had gotten to her. The next time I came to the lake, the deer was nothing but fur and bones. But it wasn’t just the birds and insects that helped in her decomposition. Fungi are hungry creatures by nature and have a voracious appetite. They help to decompose both dead plant and animal matter, turning the deceased back to the dust which they are made from. They play a crucial role in recycling nutrients back into the soil for other organisms to use. The species of fungi are just as varied as plants and animals, each filling an ecological niche. They quell unhealthy trees, connect the forest, break down dead matter, and renew the soil. If the spidery mycelium were to vanish from the forest (or the meadows, or the grasslands) the soil in that place would become inhospitable to life. Its nutrients would be exhausted and the earth would become dry and dusty. In a woodland, the trees would quickly fall silent, able only to mutter a chemical signal that the wind blows away. The forest cannot survive without its fungi. It is the hidden heartbeat of nature. 

In a way, fungi remind me a bit of the human soul. It sounds silly, I know. But to hear of another creature caught between two worlds reminds me of humanity's own strange niche in the pattern of creation. Fungi, you see, are made of a material called chitin. This is the same substance insects, arachnids, and crustaceans are made of. Fungi are also unable to photosynthesise– meaning they must consume dead and living in order to survive. They are a strange link between the animal and plant worlds. In matter and metabolism they are entirely animal, but they are not self moving in the way true animals are. They possess a vegetative soul– a plant soul. Fungi are trapped between two kingdoms of life, replenishing and balancing both but never quite fitting into either. It is an odd parallel, but I feel that mankind could be described the same way. In flesh we are animal, but in spirit we are decidedly not. We link together the world of spirit and matter in a way neither animals nor angels can. And this is not by coincidence. 

Did God not place Adam in the garden to be a link between Himself and His creation? Adam lived alongside the lower beasts but also in direct communion with God. Our Creator desired that man should tie heaven and earth together, and there is no better fulfillment of this reality than in the Incarnation. God Himself became a human as a way to permanently tie together Heaven and Earth. He came to wash away our sins. To make our broken humanity whole again. Jesus offered everything back to His Father, even His very flesh. 

The Mass, too, is a reminder of this. Bishop Robert Barren writes in his book This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival, that “To speak of bread is to speak, implicitly, of soil, seed, grain, and sunshine that crossed ninety million miles of space; to speak of wine is to speak, indirectly, of vine, earth, nutrients, storm clouds, and rainwater. To mention earth and sun is to allude to the solar system of which they are a part, and to invoke the solar system is to assume the galaxy of which it is a portion, and to refer to the galaxy is to hint at the unfathomable realities that condition the structure of the measurable universe. Therefore, when these gifts are brought forward, it is as though the whole of creation is placed on the altar before the Lord” (31). We offer God back His creation, and He gives to us lowly creatures Himself. 

Mankind is a riddle. We are one complete being and yet, our bodies and our souls seem to inhabit separate realms of existence. I have heard it said that if humans went extinct all other species would flourish. Perhaps they would in a natural sense, but to live in a world devoid of the link between God and nature would be spiritually destitute. Who would God bless with the gift of His creation, and who would offer that gift back unto Him?

Wherever you turn in nature, you can find evidence of the supreme interconnectedness of every living thing. The symbiosis between fungi and trees– along with the thousands of other interspecies relationships on Earth– sound like something out of a fairytale. Earth is not just a lonely rock hurling blindly through space. It is a world brimming with organisms living in communion. Every species has its own place in the hierarchy of creation. As mankind’s knowledge of ecology grows, so too will our understanding of often overlooked organisms. 

As for me, the forest will never be silent. Fungi will always be my reminder of the beauty of modest things. They are the hidden life of the forest, the quiet sustainers of the woods. 

For more information on mycorrhizal fungi watch this video.

To learn more about forest, check out The Secret Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. He makes some interesting observations about tree behavior, including their ability to communicate. 

Works Cited

Barron, Bishop Robert. This Is My Body, A Call to Eucharistic Revival. Word on Fire, 2023.

Brewer, Grace. "The Wonderful World of Fungi." Kew, 31 Oct. 2019,

www.kew.org/read-and-watch/the-wonderful-world-of-fungi. Accessed 19 March, 2025.