A Collectively Mellow Experience of the Universe Through Our Forest Wilderness

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.

On Queen Ann's Lovely Lace and Today's Mushroom Hunt

We’re nature walking tonight with the Mushroom Mogul Anthony Blowers of Facebook’s I Love Wild Mushrooms. I’m excited because Anthony is a very knowledgable, humble dude who I’m honored to have in the house, and has also indicated a desire to offer a more extensive foraging workshop this Fall, most likely Saturday, September 20th. We’ll have our full Fall schedule up the first week in August so look for other offerings as well. Speaking of looking, I’ve been pounding the property and found a nice caché of Indian Ghost Pipe. Anthony’s response: “Awesome! Ghost Pipe is a parasitic plant that feeds on the decaying remains of mushrooms such as Russula and Lactarius. Definitely worth talking about on my walk.” I love it.

I also came across little fields of the Queen Anne’s lace plant, also known as wild carrot, a wildflower herb naturalized in the States but native from Europe. Queen Anne’s lace is said to have been named after Queen Anne of England, who was an expert lace maker. Legend has it that when pricked with a needle, a single drop of blood fell from her finger onto the lace, leaving the dark purple floret found in the flower’s center. The name wild carrot derived from the plant’s past history of use as a substitute for carrots. The fruit of this plant is spiky and curls inward, reminiscent of a bird’s nest, which is another of its common names. It’s also a wonderful cure for Gout, as you can simply freeze bag it as I’ve done above, pour hot water over the a flattened cluster of tiny white flowers for instant Gout Away.

If you’re not joining us tonight, hopefully we’ll see you in September, and look for a post here on our findings. I also wanted to open tonight with a prayer as well as a poem, and thought the following by Scottish poet, environmentalist and farmer Wendell Berry was apropos. Hope to see you soon, and until then may you rest in the grace of this world.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am Free.

Crisis: When What’s Bad For You Is Good For You.

A dramatic wooden Mask of The False Face Society best known of the medicinal societies among the Iroquois People

I knew I was good and cursed when, a few years back, life saw fit to make me the student of a teacher who was a true Lakota Heyoka. I say it in that way because I was actually quite fortunate to have had the experience, but the way of the traditional Lakota contrary is to talk, walk and live life backwards. You might be familiar with an artistic portrayal of these colorful characters, like the Cheyenne Heyoka Young Bear from the 1970 film Little Big Man, the warrior who bathed himself with dirt and rode his horse backwards. In traditional societies, the Heyoka offered more than just comic relief. Otherwise known as the trickster, the contrarian or the sacred clown, they were oddities, outliers on the edge of society who asked difficult questions, spoke of subjects others were afraid to, and held up mirrors to people’s actions, helping set boundaries of tribal behavior. Working a web of what may appear to be tangled opposites, Heyokas brought balance to their own lives as well as others, and by donning Ceremonial Masks possessed the ability to heal deep emotional pain. 

Wicasa Itancan Tatanka Weitgo (also known as Chief Philip Aaron Crazybull also known as Phil) embodied the traits of the traditional satirist. He caused laughter in distressing situations and roused complacency by evoking chaos and controversy. Smack dab in the centre of contradiction is where he was often found, put there by his own hand or that of one greater perhaps he couldn’t even answer. A Thunder Dreamer is a medicine man who, like the Wakinyan or Thunder beings to whom he was connected, is both feared and revered for his power. Dancing underneath an impeccably blue, brilliant sky, he brought on the shadowy dark of cloud cover, the gray where black becomes white and white black. “What’s good for you can be bad for you,” he’d growl, one of the principles of his central teachings. “And what at first appears bad for you can be good.” 

In light of the COVID-19’s devastating impact worldwide and our own Mask Up Michigan Executive Order, I got to thinking about crisis in life. Although the word crisis itself holds a certain frantic flavor, its actual definition is decidedly more neutral – “A crucial turning point in a series of events; a decisive change that is either favorable or unfavorable.” Crisis from this vantage point can be viewed as the spiritual device it is, a phenomena used by nature to effect needed change, breaking down resistance and breaking up stagnant energy patterns in the lives of human beings, known to the Lakotas as “The Five Fingered People.”

“What’s bad for you can be good for you.” Crisis starts early for everyone, from the breast to the bottle, through potty training and up into the early school years. Early crises are (hopefully) negotiated with the help of the gentle but firm guidance of one’s psychologically healthy parental figures. Later, where rock-solid, negative states of fear and ingrained resistance to change persist, crises can shatter walls of mechanical behavior, altering behaviors that cut adults off from progress, growth and freedom.

Remembering my Heyoka teacher’s admonition, it’s not so much the content of a crisis itself, but more one’s reaction to it. The nature of calamity is that it’s initially daunting and completely unexpected, but in time, its silver lining is its power to release the infinite potentials of the soul. Of course, the more open and accepting one is of the life changes a crisis demands, the less severe the pain and discomfort. Ask anyone about the unfolding of their spiritual life and a nice little crisis or two will often be found preceding significant changes or surges of growth. Residing in a material universe of constant flux and change, at times we forgetful spiritual beings can require the world-shaking discharge of a good crisis. For help and healing turning things around during this widespread time of transformation, check out our Monthly Ceremonial Overnight and our upcoming Mid-Summer Noble Silence Meditation Weekend Retreat July 24th-26th with late summer and Fall offerings coming soon.

“When a vision comes from the Thunder Beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunderstorm; but when the vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm… you have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping… as lightning illuminates the dark, for it is the power of lightning that Heyokas have.” – Black Elk