Gabriela D'Elia
Educator, writer, mushroom person
Gabriela D’Elia grew up in the arms of the Rocky Mountains, fell in love with fungi in the Pacific Northwest, and since 2022 has made home in the hills of the sky – the “Catskills”. Gabriela writes, teaches, and creates threads intended to connect us with ecological soulfulness, with a particular devotion to the wisdom of fungi. She has considered the earth family since a young age and has been a "mushroom person" since 2012.
Gabriela served as Executive Director for Fungal Diversity Survey (FUNDIS), North America’s nonprofit for fungal conservation, for over 3 years, for which she is now a board member. Through her fungal advocacy work she has built the first state-wide government funded fungal diversity project (“CA FUNDIS”) and initiated the successful campaign to designate Porcini (Boletus edulis) as Utah’s state mushroom. She is former vice president for Mushroom Society of Utah, created the Northern Utah Funga biodiversity project, and has been featured in publications like Yes! Magazine, Mushroom People, Atmos, and podcasts like Mushroom Revival and Mushroom Hour. She guides activities like Deep Imagination Mushroom Walks and Circles, “regular” mushroom walks, mycodiversity surveys, and weekend mushroom retreats with Catskill Fungi.
Gabriela wrote MycoAstrology for each new and full moon for a few years. She now shares her writing through her substack, Fungi Talk. She has received training at Seattle Sound Temple and Shamanic Reiki Worldwide. She received a B.A. in environmental studies with a focus in fungal ecology and minored in philosophy.
Contact Gabriela if you’d like to myceliate.
Photo by Diana Richards
Spark Shroom Project
Spark Shroom is an oral-history and storytelling project that honors the moment, fungus, or single mushroom that sparked wonder, a shift in perception, and a deep, lasting, often obsessive interest in fungi and mycology.
These stories from prominent mycologists and mushroom people are not about expertise or identification, but about encounter, relationship, and transformation. What was it that made their heart flutter and drew them closer to this mysterious world?
Sign up for my Fungi Talk Substack or IG to follow along as these stories are released.
'Spark Shroom' builds from the term 'Spark Bird', originating in the birding community, as a parallel term for fungi: the catalyst that transforms birds or mushrooms from simply being a part of the scenery into a focused passion.
Fungi
Talk
Fungi talk. They guide, teach, and orient.
“Fungi Talk” isn’t just about mushrooms. It’s about listening to what the world speaks through darkness, embededness, and the unseen.
Fungal exudate, cosmic ecology, sacred roundedness, relational accountability.
What wisdom do fungi share and what kind of power, insight, and perspective becomes available if we have these exchanges with them?
Fungi teach us about the initiatory powers of death, birth, and the mosaic of our continual emergence. Fungi show us that much happens in the underworld, or places unseen. This is a feminine myth. The place of undoing, the creative ground within is where we access the depth of the deep psyche. Fungi are guides for crises and transformations, both ecologically and imaginally. To disregard the sacredness of fungi, and nature, means we fall out of connection.
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Fungal
Diversity Survey
Fungal Diversity Survey (FUNDIS) is the first nonprofit that focuses on North American fungal biodiversity and conservation.
As a board member and previous Executive Director, Gabriela envisions a world in which fungi are better understood, appreciated, and protected. There are many ways to get involved.
