The dark red sticky caps, red pores, and network-like pattern of Boletus frostii aka Frost's bolete or the Apple bolete.
Well, the Mushroom Mogul did not disappoint, leading our Mid-Summer Hunt and Nature Walk on a beautiful, tepid July evening. We started with a prayerful song and the Wendell Berry poem mentioned below, rolled into the front then out to the back woods and ended up in the retreat house kitchen. A post-text from Anthony alerted me to the fact that Hen of The Woods Jerky was in the house, which I unfortunately missed. But the pickled Chanterelles and ramps, Black Trumpet/Shiitake Goat Cheese and Candy Cap Mushroom Cookies with pecans and dried cranberries were delectable. And several interesting forage finds made for a collectively mellow experience of the Universe through The Higher Haven’s forest wilderness.
We started with collecting Indian Ghost Pipe, which always excites me but isn’t anything incredibly new, having written previously of my first encounter with the parasitic plant two summer herb walks back. Looking fungus like, this plant feeds on mushrooms, holding an interestingly parasitic symbiotic relationship with only two species — Lactarius and Russula. Ghost Pipe needs a very specific environment to grow and thrive and can be made into a tincture that’s an amazing nerve disrupting pain medicine, effectively used in treating severe mental and emotional pain due to PTSD and other traumatic injury, as well as the severe nerve pain of Lyme disease. Purple Tooth was found nearby, a mushrooms that, like the inky cap, oyster and shiitake, have a voracious appetite for wood. We also learned of the mushroom-tree connection, as mushrooms don’t have roots but rather mycelium for an under system, the mushroom being the flower. Cool. Mycelium strands link up with tree roots and communicate, trading information, and, accoring to Anthony, “exchange gifts, like borrowing from a neighbor”, all done underground, with some mushrooms even sending trees growth hormones. If only we could be so connected.
We found common old edible, delicious mushrooms that grow on hard and soft wood like Platterfulls (Megacollybia Rodmanii) and learned of mushroom’s spore-based reproduction system. You can do an actual spore print by putting a mushroom down on a piece of paper with a cup on top, the spore print being like the perfect and unique thumb print of the mushroom, with each mushroom having its beautiful, interesting mark, not unlike like us. Mushrooms are made of Chitin, which is what crustaceans and insect exoskeletons are made of, thus wild species should always be cleaned and cooked for better health and digestion, as they are overly hard on the gut, “unless you come from a long line of bug eaters,” per Anthony.
Now the people may point to the highlight being when we bridged the river and first saw the blood-red eyes of Boletus frostii, inspiring a group gasp. With its dark red sticky caps and bluing reaction to tissue injury, our specimen even offered up a golden rose comb mutation, along with its lemony, citrus taste that lends itself to being candied. But for me, a major highlight was when Anthony segued from discussing bruising and actually being able to write in mushroom flesh to declaring them “a sensorial experience.” “Give them a smell… taste, touch, feel… identifying mushrooms is all about the senses. Feel them break them apart, taste them - that’s how you get to know them.” Spiritual practice, too, is a sensorial experience. And actually everything is, but it’s attuning oneself to the senses in a very special way.
Consider learning more about that at our Summer Noble Silence Meditation Retreat, but since we begin in twelve hours, come out for the Fall Noble Silence Meditation Retreat the weekend of October 3rd, soon available for registration at the start of August. Or join us for a daylong workshop with Anthony on Saturday September 19th. Many thanks to the unassuming dude who puts the fun back in fungus and all the folks who made it out. Hope you make it out soon, too. Until then, Peace, like a River.