i was thinking about shadows and fungus, about how a vast underground mycelium grows underfoot, and it pops up from the ground as honey mushrooms. thinking how shadows grow in the second body, body of the world. 
they study the reactions of pathogens on fungus because fungus is so similar to us, which makes it hard to treat fungal diseases. their bodies are like ours. they fit right in with us. i think i may have a fungus in my personal underground. my my mycelium. a few times in my higher education i ingested magic mushrooms and i felt like i could see microscopically, every tiny hand reaching, every tongue, each member waving, every tiny flowering spore. i saw infinity that way.
so if humans are a vast mycelium covering the planet? no. we differ quite remarkably in our pathogens. we are taking over the planet, while they are bringing it together, working the soil, while we are cutting them down, they are making trees, communicating light, sequestering carbon, breathing underground, expanding on the light from above through the leaves and roots of trees.