September 20, 2017 - Oh, Honey!

The bounty continues . . . for now.  Sometimes dinner pops up unexpectedly.  These honey mushrooms weren’t here yesterday, and I know that for a fact because I stood on this very spot.  And yet here they are today.  How does something grow so quickly?  It’s a mystery to me.  The growth is far greater than that of a plant or an animal, but then we are not talking about a plant or an animal.  We are talking about a mushroom—a whole different kingdom altogether.

Honey Mushroom.

There’s a dark side, of course.  The honey mushroom is a tree killer.  It grows on wood of either dead trees or trees that are having a hard go of it and will soon be dead, thanks to a little push.  The honey mushroom is one of the many creatures that helps a tree to become an “un-tree.”  If there are honey mushrooms around, there are dead trees around.  You can be sure of that.  Really, it’s just their job.

This patch is destined for other things, though.  You win some; you lose some.  Today the honey mushrooms lost, and the tree becomes a part of me.  Tomorrow, it may be me who loses.  No one said the world was a safe place.

September 19, 2017 - The Harbingers

Mushrooms grow almost all year long, but they are especially prolific in the Fall.  In fact, that is how I often know that Fall is on its way:  I smell the mushrooms.  I smell them long before I see them.  It is a deep, earthly, intoxicating kind of scent, and once you inhale that aroma, you will never forget it.  Ever.  That is how you know they have come.

Amanita muscaria - Yellow Fly Agaric.

They are sort of between the worlds, are they not?  We cannot call them plants and we cannot call them animals.  They have their own kingdom, and rightly so.  For who does not get that otherworldly feeling when looking at a mushroom?  “You are in my territory now,” says the mushroom, “And you must follow my rules if you want to find your way out of the woods.”  And if the mushroom be pretty, all the more entrancing.  Unless it is too pretty.  That can be dangerous.  But they know that.

When the scent of mushrooms is everywhere in the air, I begin scanning the ground and fallen trees because I know that soon they will poke their heads up.  They can be delicious or deadly, an ally or a vicious foe.  Some are small and inconspicuous, and others are a foot in diameter, just daring you to walk by without stopping.  You cannot do it, though.  You have to stop and look.  But they know that, too.

They also know a lot about the Fall, much more than we do.  They know when the decay has begun, and that is why they come.  They might tease with bright colors or pretty textures, but they are the harbingers of the end.  They are the bringers of summer’s doom.

The drums are beating again in the woods.  He is on his way.

September 18, 2017 - Let the Good Earth Produce

It’s getting to be that time.  The farmers lay out their harvests and show the bounty of the Earth yet again.  I never cease to be amazed at how lavish Mother Nature is.  She’s never stingy.  She never hoards anything.  Instead, she always goes overboard and creates in such magnificent abundance.  There’s so much that it can’t possibly all be used.  Even rare specimens in the woods are still lavishly displayed and abundant in their health.

Pumpkin abundance.

We live in a society where the idea of “lack” is taught and, indeed, enforced to keep us all in line.  Everywhere we go and in everything we do, there is always the feeling that we must hurry to get our share because there isn’t enough to go around.  “First come, first serve!  Only while supplies last!”  If we get something, we’re told we should feel lucky and privileged.  Not everyone can get what we have because there’s not enough!  Only a select few can have this. 

But it’s all a lie.  All of it.  The Earth produces massively just about everywhere if given half a chance.  There’s work involved, yes—lots of it.  But the reaping is much more than many people who live in cities have been led to believe.  The abundance is overwhelming, in fact.  When you consider that you could grow a very good portion of your yearly need for food on one-quarter an acre of land, you begin to see how generous the Earth is and that you are not as beholden to someone else for your survival as you thought you were.  It opens up a whole new world of possibility.

Let the Good Earth produce.  De-program yourself from poverty consciousness and open up to the abundance all around you, just waiting to be plucked.  If you sow, you will reap.