Mushrooms

Jan 11

Just outside our kitchen, under the mango tree.

A bit more about mushrooms. Both of the films I watched just recently, Dirt and 2012: Time for Change, mention the work of mycelium, the network of fine white filaments that permeate the earth we walk upon and farm and pave over or coat 

with lawn. This vegetative part of fungus and mushrooms helps to form the 

soil by decomposing the organic remains of trees and other matter as it 

falls and returns to the earth.

Mushrooms have fascinated me for decades. I first became aware of their beauty and diversity on a damp fall afternoon as I wandered through a bit of woods in the Catskills. Everywhere I saw mushrooms and fungi of amazing shapes and colors, and I couldn’t restrain myself from collecting the finest specimens. I took them back to the cabin I was visiting and spread them out on the floor, becoming an amateur mycologist then and there. I’ve hunted and picked mushrooms in the Lehigh Valley and elsewhere, occasionally enjoying a gourmet omelet or stirfry with chanterelles, boletus or the humble puffball.

On a more controversial note, the narrating journalist of 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck, mentions the importance of mind altering experiences, often brought about by nature’s substances – eg. iboga in Africa and ayahuasca in South America – in bringing about the new consciousness necessary for deep cultural change. In this part of Brazil, similar in some ways to the highlands of Mexico, the sacred mushroom grows on cow dung. The local people don’t ingest it and as far as I know they don’t even talk about it. Once, about 33 years ago, I shared some here with a few city friends and would consider doing it again under the right circumstances. (I’ve started reading Simon G Powell’s book, The Psilocybin Solution: The Role of Sacred Mushrooms in the Quest for Meaning, to gain insight into his claims that the sacred mushroom should play a role in reconnecting our civilization to the Earth.)

But there are many other mushrooms popping up here and there – shelf mushrooms on logs and dying trees, little brown mushrooms in the fields and woods, and others like the beautiful yellow specimens that I am reposting from a couple of months ago. I have found no resources yet for learning about them and discovering if any of them are edible, but I do know that they are all performing the essential function of transforming organic matter into soil.

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