Jane Magazine Issue 12
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
T he small grains make room.
Invisible threads that bind.
When I read the above lines from Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mushrooms’ just a few weeks ago, I knew of the widely held belief that the poet’s metaphor was her vivid analogy of the women of her era pushing forward, separately and together, against the societal constraints that held them captive. But for me, the lines took on a different meaning, probably because of what I was preoccupied with at the time: guest-editing this issue of JANE.
Having not edited a whole magazine before, I was extremely wide-eyed and conscious of the process by which this publication is produced. And the feeling that overtook me each day was one of awe. It wasn’t just the traditional definition of awe, that of reverential respect and wonder, though of course there were moments I felt that too: for the writers who transmitted their fertile thoughts into just the right combinations of words to unlock poetry, or for the stylists and photographers who created magical wonderlands, dressing up characters and shooting them in far-flung corners of the world, their images like souvenir snapshots of their wild imaginations.
What I was experiencing is what is known as “the awe effect,” where this sense of wonder highlights feelings of being diminutive and humbled—all of which I did feel as stories and images to the magazine poured in and the talent of each was evidenced. But at the same time, the awe effect produces the profound feeling of being connected to others, each of us vibrating together towards something bigger. And with every piece that arrived from these incredible creators, there came, too, gushes of feelings and rushes of emotion as I recognised my own life experience through the musings, images, and art that expressed and reflected theirs.
Scientists believe that the awe affect—the combination of feeling like Plath’s ‘small grains,’ together with a sense of being part of and taking hold ‘on the loam’—is the reason why, throughout our human narrative, we’ve congregated and formed groups and societies and lived collectively. And that is exactly what this issue is about: a celebration of our joined forces and of the visible and invisible ties that bind us. It’s about the joyousness, messiness, fear, and wonder inherent in movements, sects, tribes, gangs, and squads, the families we are born into and the families we choose to belong to, and how in the end, as hard as it may be, we need each other not only to live but to thrive.
And that’s what Plath’s opening lines remind me of: the awe over each individual quiet mushroom burgeoning forward with others, taking time to push on with their distinct vision, slowly and discreetly, but ultimately doing so as part of a group with a singular goal. It reminds me how when each creative embarks on their contribution to JANE, it always begins with a soft nudge. With their ideas spread on their gills like spores, they begin to move upwards with their toes and noses, separately but together, to let these ideas acquire the air they need to flourish.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Fertile ground is the song of life.
But where do our ideas come from, these invisible, powdery, and amorphous follicles that are both part of us and born from us? In order for ideas to dot our gills, they need to be fed, and this cannot be done by us alone. For mycorrhizal mushrooms, feeding occurs through fine, cobweb-like roots that attach themselves to plant and tree roots. The hair-like root fungus, a seemingly tangled mess, is a meticulous mutual feeding network, with the mushrooms providing nitrogen and phosphorous to flowering plants, sending these nutrients to their roots as gifts. In return, the plants pour life-giving sugars into the roots that the fungi feed upon, enabling them to grow and, if the conditions are right, to make spores.
This reciprocal exchange between fungi and trees reminds me of how our ideas coalesce. Through the rhizomic networks of our communities, and among the co-conspirators and co-inhabitants of the places we live in or the spaces we trawl, scroll, and comment within, we exchange vital infor mation. For those who create, these nuggets of experiences, memories, and knowledge are transmuted and grow into poems, essays, photographs, and paintings before they are disseminated back out again to feed those who need it most. Each voice, even if transmitting the same idea as another, perfects its message with idiosyncrasies unique to its tone. When one voice might not reach certain notes, another joins in and does so.
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
You are an expression of your ancestors and descendents.
There are other members of the ecosystem, too, who help make our spores grow. In order for these spores to be released, a sudden gust of wind is needed to detach them from the gills and carry them. This invisible wind reminds me of the intangible communities that always surround us, the ones that guide us and provoke us, sometimes even unconsciously. There’s the now ‘Perfectly voiceless’ generations of ancestors whose lived experience travels through our veins, affecting how we act and show up with ‘Our hammers, our rams’ to interact with those around us. And there’s our creative forbears, the people we read, watch, and listen to, whom we venerate and emulate, whose ideas we inherit and whose words we embrace as our own. With their help, we might ‘Widen the crannies’ and ‘Shoulder through holes’ to let our ideas be spread. It is through their inspiration gusting before us that we are encouraged to release our own ideas onto the world.
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
Together we’re better.
When it comes to this magazine, there are invisible people behind the scenes who help bring it to fruition: the creative directors who inspire the initial vision, corralling contributors to see and respond to it; the art director and designer, who chooses the layout and sequences of the images and their layered meanings; and the punctilious copyeditor, who verifies the right for each word to be on the page. There really are so many of us. And so, each issue of JANE is built on the toil of every person, all the ‘Nudgers and shovers’ who contribute to it and the communities and ecosystems that surround and support each of them, in widening concentric circles.
There’s the visionary photographers, the ingenious stylists, the innovative make-up artists, the erudite writers, and the provoking publishers. It’s a community whose webs and threads span countries and cultures, language barriers and time zones, schedules and mediums. But at each end of the creative cycle, through individual efforts and the cross-pollination of ideas that rebound and hatch off each other, a tangible, viable magazine is birthed into the world, punched out by the soft fists of all the makers who have insisted on honouring their vision.
A vision that connects them to each other—and to you, the reader.