A riverside hike (with giant mushrooms!)

April 25, 2025August 20, 2025 Leave a comment

This past weekend, my Handsome Assistant and I packed a small picnic and went for a bit of a walk. This particular area is beside the northwest branch of the Anacostia River, near an abandoned mica mine. There are some really cool mineral specimens here — the usual bull quartz, but also tons of mica-bearing rocks and golden beryl.

That’s not all it has, though.

The trail is mostly shaded by trees, so it stays fairly cool even when the weather’s warm. Lesser celandine (lush, but invasive) covers the ground between the trees, creating a dense carpet that reflects the sunlight and further cools the ground. It’s poisonous to eat, though the tubers are said to be edible, and has a long history of use as a topical medicine for hemorrhoids and scrofula.

A brown haired, caucasian man in a dark blue and white tanktop reclines on a bed of lesser celandine. His eyes are closed and his expression is peaceful. — “That’s a really bad idea, you know.”
“I know, but it looks **so soft**.”
“There’s probably poison ivy in it.”
“Worth it.”
“You’re going to get eaten by snakes. Or ticks. Probably both.”
“It’s **so soft**, though!”

A close up of a small pink springbeauty flower. — *Springbeauty (Claytonia virginica)*

Fortunately, there was more to see than just lesser celandine. There were tiny pink blossoms of springbeauty, dense pillows of moss, fern fiddleheads, and some of the lushest skunk cabbage I’ve ever seen. We also spotted some mayapples, a few of which were even mature enough to flower. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to go back and see if there’s any fruit later this summer, but it was lovely to see regardless! (I snapped a few pics of the ones we saw, which you can find in my post on mayapple folklore and magical properties.)

Large skunk cabbage plants growing up out of a dense mat of lesser celandine. — *Seriously, just look at that skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus).*

We passed next to the water, eyes peeled for sparkly mica-bearing stones, when I heard a soft “bloop.” I turned my head just in time to see a startled common watersnake (Nerodia sipedon) slipping away across to the opposite bank, gracefully undulating and occasionally poking its head up like a snorkel to take a breath. I apologized for spooking it as I fumbled for my phone but wasn’t able to snap a picture before it had swum away and camouflaged itself in the mud and fallen leaves.

They’re one of the species of snakes that are often vilified for no reason. They’re perfectly harmless but can bear a passing resemblance to a venomous copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix). Admittedly, I made the same mistake myself at first glance — not that I would’ve behaved any differently, as both the snake and I seemed pretty chill about the whole situation. Like black racers and ratsnakes, they’re guys you actually want to have around if you don’t want to have to deal with pest animals. Also, they’re one of the few reptile species that gives birth to live young, and that’s really neat!

(Also, copperheads are pretty chill, too. They might be venomous, but they’re not aggressive. Their first defensive instinct is to freeze up and rely on their natural camouflage. Bites typically occur when that either fails, or people don’t see them, step too close, and the snake gets desperate.)

A pair of young fern fronds, still curled into a "fiddlehead" shape. — *Young ferns.*

A little further up the trail, we were navigating over a large fallen tree. Another tree lay across it, forming a kind of steep natural bridge. As I investigated it to see if it’d be safe to cross, I heard a silky rasping sound. There, nestled in the root ball of the fallen tree, I saw the shiny black coil and pointed tail of a black racer (Coluber constrictor priapus) vanishing deeper into the tangled roots.

My favorite part, however, was running into a colony of dryad’s saddle (Cerioporus squamosus) growing from a dead tree. These are edible, fairly easy to identify, and don’t really have poisonous lookalikes. They also smell exactly like watermelon rinds, which is honestly very weird. Kind of a green, watery, fruity smell, of decidedly not the type you’d expect from a scaly tan mushroom growing out of a dead tree. I wasn’t 100% positive that that’s what I was looking at, at first. Fortunately, a combination of a quick-and-dirty ID app and friends with much more foraging experience were able to reassure me.

Also?

Dryad’s saddles get enormous.

A fallen tree sporting several large dryad's saddle mushrooms.

A person's hand resting on top of a dryad's saddle mushroom. The mushroom displays the characteristic scaly brown and beige pattern and is very broad -- easily two hands long.

Like, far larger than I felt was reasonable for a mushroom. Much bigger than the reishi and armillaria that grow in my front yard, at any rate.

This area has another cool feature, labeled on the map as “prehistoric rock shelter.” I haven’t found any other information about it, but it’s a nice, cool, shaded spot to sit and rest for a bit. The area underneath is at a bit of a slope, but it’s still a comfortable place to take a break.

The author and their Handsome Assistant sitting together under the rock shelter.

My Handsome Assistant, pretending to hold up the rock shelter. The "shelter" itself is a very large, flat boulder jutting up at an angle, creating a kind of natural awning over a bare patch of soil.

I also found a tree that was shaped kind of like a sad skull, and a very neat feather — most likely from a hawk.

The roots of a large tree. They seem to form a pair of eye holes on either side of a triangular nose hole.

A brown and white barred feather laying on some lesser celandine.

All told, it was an eventful walk and a lovely picnic. Everything was vibrant and green, and we saw (and heard!) a lot of cool wildlife.

Here’s hoping you’re also finding cool things wherever your adventures take you.

Just for fun · life · Plants and Herbs

Meteors and Mushroom Hunting in (checks notes) December.

January 7, 2025August 20, 2025 Leave a comment

My Handsome Assistant and I like to go cabin camping in winter. Rates are usually lower, things are less crowded, he’s got PTO to use up (or else lose), and there isn’t usually much else to do. A change of scenery does us both good, even if it’s only for a couple of days. It’s also nice to experience the time around the solstice like this.

(We half-jokingly say it’s glamping, because there’s a shower, sheets, heating, and a mini-fridge. Either way, it’s nice and I much prefer it to most of the hotels I’ve been to.)
(Even the fancy ones.)

However, while we anticipated a possibly-snowy getaway/creative retreat to work on music, fiction writing, and so on, what we got was… 60° F (15.5° C) and a meteor shower.

Did any of yas know there was a meteor shower? I didn’t. The only ones I usually pay attention to are the ones that occur over the summer here, like your Delta Aquarids and Perseids, and I have been Missing. Out.

I only realized when I was sitting in bed one night, drinking tea and looking out at the forest through the window, all cozy and idyllic and junk. An object, about as large and bright as the brightest star in the sky, flared to life, moved across the sky, and disappeared. I was, of course, surprised — a shooting star without a tail? A “drone” with an oddly predictable flight pattern and only one light? A hallucination?

As it turns out, it was most likely part of the Quaternid meteor shower. This one is, apparently, often overlooked. It has a short period of peak activity and happens in late December/early January, so most people miss it. Also, the Quaternid meteors usually don’t have long tails. They do, however, produce some very bright, striking fireballs. So that was neat.

The next day, we spent the late morning going for a walk. With the weather as strangely warm as it was, it turned out to be ideal conditions for finding some very interesting specimens of fungi and beautiful colonies of lichen and moss.

Unfortunately for me, most common culinary species of mushrooms and boletes make me very ill. (Oyster mushrooms, why won’t you let me love you?!) I also have only a passing interest in identifying them, since my interest is primarily visual.

A photo of a small brown bolete, with angry eyes and fang-y teeth clumsily drawn on. — It has been years, but I am still inordinately proud of this very, very silly picture.

I’m what you might call an amateur “catch and release” forager. I love looking at them. I love their folklore. I love finding them. I love taking pictures of them. Sometimes, I’m even able to identify them. I get really stoked when I find ones that a) I recognize, b) are useful, and c) won’t try to make me yakk everything I’ve eaten since fourth grade. But that’s neither here nor there.

Look! We found cool mushrooms and assorted other little forest buddies!

A starburst of lichen growing amid some fluffy green moss. Tiny raindrops cling to some of the strands of moss like pearls.

I don’t care how common moss, lichen, and little beige mushrooms are, I will be excited about them absolutely every time. Like a person calling their spouse over every time their cat does something adorable, I will never not be endlessly delighted by them whenever I see them.

Several small, round mushrooms on a rotting stump. — A cluster of what are most likely stump puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme).

A white polypore mushroom growing, like a dish, from the side of a fallen branch. — A cluster of what are most likely stump puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme).

I don’t even need to know what kind they are, I’m just happy to have them around.

Here’s hoping your days are similarly filled with interesting small things.

animals · life

We found a bunch of little guys in the woods.

November 4, 2024August 20, 2025 2 Comments

Saturday, part of the Druidry group took a walk in the woods. It was a silent, contemplative walking meditation, initially meant to observe and enjoy the first frost. However, since this area hasn’t really had a legit frost yet, it was mostly about observing the changes that autumn has brought.

It was a little disheartening to have such good weather. It should be cooler this time of year. I shouldn’t be comfortable in a tank top and a thin jacket in November. I found a woolly bear caterpillar the other day, and its stripes forecast a mild winter, too. Winter precipitation is so important for avoiding droughts later in the year, and I worry about it. There was a serious drought when I lived in California, and I don’t want to go through that again.

Still, part of a walking meditation is about being present. Not to worry about next summer, but to appreciate this autumn as it is. There hasn’t been much rain, but the early evening sky is beautiful, and the bare, dark branches and golden leaves make it look like stained glass. There’s the sweet smell of decomposing leaves, and their satisfying rustle and crunch underfoot. The leaves aren’t all brown yet, so the entire trail is carpeted in gold, deep crimson, and salmon pink. Some of the leaves are multicolored, like they’ve been ice-dyed in shades of red and green.

Also, we found a bunch of little guys.

The first one, I found under a small pile of debris in a crevice of a fallen tree. (I always look in gaps and holes in trees — I found some really amazing eyelash mushrooms in one once, so now I check every time I see one.) It looked like a child’s discarded toy, covered in debris and with chipping paint. I felt bad about leaving him, so I picked him up.

A small gnome figuring with a yellow shirt, red pants, and blue hat, sitting in a crevice of a tree.

Then I found a broken bottle. I didn’t have gloves or a bag for trash picking, so I initially left it where it was… but I only made it about twenty feet before I felt too badly and had to go back for it. I piled the pieces into a sort of avant-garde trash sculpture and continued on, gnome in one hand and broken bottle pile in the other.

A little further onward, we found a red woodpecker with a sheriff’s badge. His placement was intentional and whimsical, so I left him where he was to be a surprise to another trail-goer. (And kept my eyes peeled for other little guys.)

A toy red woodpecker with a brown cap, blue bandanna, and yellow sheriff's badge., tucked into a hole in a felled tree.

Then there was a blue elephant. Since we were walking in silence, my Handsome Assistant and I have a series of hand gestures we use when we want to point out things to each other. Mushrooms, particularly interesting sticks, small blue elephants…

A goggle-eyed blue elephant keychain, tucked into a hole in a tree.

And then there was another gnome.

A toy gnome with a yellow shirt, green cap, and black watering can, sitting in a hole in the base of a tree stump.

Despite the lack of rain, there were also loads of mushrooms. Striped turkey tails, unfolding like flower petals. Round puffballs like dollops of meringue. Clusters of other fungi, nestled amid fallen leaves, ferns, and small groundcover plants.

A cluster of cream-colored mushrooms on the ground, mingled with fallen leaves and small plants.

As we said our goodbyes to each other and left, we also spotted a chubbly little squirrel absolutely gruffling some gourds. Occasionally, he’d dart away from the sidewalk as people passed, but he’d always go back and resume snacking — thoroughly engrossed, thoroughly enjoying himself, absolutely without a fuck to give.

I could say I want to be more like this squirrel, but I don’t really. I don’t think I really can stop worrying about the future. I like to think this makes me conscientious, but maybe I’m just more anxious than I need to be. Either way, I hope the snow comes soon. In the meantime, I also hope all of the squirrels get their fill of gourds.

Neodruidry · Plants and Herbs · Witchcraft

Mushroom Folklore and Magical Uses

July 10, 2024July 9, 2024 J.Leave a comment

I like mushrooms. Not so much culinarily, but aesthetically and conceptually.

There are thousands of identified mushroom species, but experts estimate that the number of actual species out there is anywhere from two to three times what we’ve managed to identify. Others say it could be in the millions.

Mushrooms have a long history of use in spiritual and magical practices around the world. Giving the folklore and uses of every known species is outside of the scope of this post, but I thought it’d be interesting to give an overview of some of the most unique, recognizable, and significant kinds.

Mushroom Magical Properties and Folklore

People typically consider mushrooms and toadstools two different things, but there isn’t really a hard line between them since these are folk names. According to various sources, mushrooms are edible, and toadstools are inedible. Or else mushrooms are edible and umbrella-shaped, while toadstools are inedible and have round caps. Or toadstools are inedible and large-capped, etc.
This can be particularly confusing because there are several species of variable edibility — some are considered edible only when cooked. Some need to be leached with water to be edible. Some are only poisonous if consumed with alcohol. Some aren’t considered edible, but aren’t really poisonous either.

Amanita muscaria, the iconic red- (or tan- or yellow-) capped, white-spotted mushroom, is also called “fly agaric.” This is because it was sprinkled in milk and used as a poisonous bait for flies and gnats.

A small Amanita muscaria growing in some leaf litter. — Photo by Guy Dwelly on Pexels.com

Sami shamans traditionally have a unique way of processing A. muscaria. The mushrooms are fed to reindeer, and the psychoactive components are passed in their urine. Instead of the potentially dangerous mushrooms, the shamans use the urine to access fly agaric’s powerful qualities.

While it’s natural to associate psychoactive fungi with the spirit world, they aren’t the only mushrooms said to serve as a gateway. The famous fairy rings of Western European stories are circles or arcs of fungi (with or without visible mushrooms) that, were you to enter one, could bring you either good luck or incredible danger.

In Egypt, mushrooms were associated with immortality. In Japan and China, they have similar connotations due to their use as medicinal foods for increasing strength and longevity.

In Slavic mythology, the guardian deity of forests, Leshy, can appear as a fully vegetation-based entity. He may appear as anything from a sacred tree to a mushroom. Mushrooms are also associated with the earth, water, cattle, and underworld deity, Veles.

In Lithuania, mushrooms were said to be the fingers of Velnias, a deity of the dead. He would reach up from the underworld, beneath the soil, to feed the poor.

This isn’t the only association of mushrooms with charity, either. In one Christian myth, God and Saint Peter walk in a rye field. Peter takes a handful of rye and begins to eat it, but God scolds him for taking food that isn’t meant for him. Peter spits the chewed rye out, and God says that a mushroom will grow there as food for the poor.

Interestingly, the dead and the underworld seem to have the strongest connection to mushrooms around the world. The Sidhe of the Celts and the Alfar of the Germanic people were both associated with burial sites, and the beliefs surrounding them may be the last vestiges of ancient, indigenous ancestor worship. This would immediately associate fungal phenomena like fairy rings with the dead.

A trio of small brown mushrooms growing from a tuft of moss. — Photo by Johannes Havn on Pexels.com

So, on one hand, edible mushrooms are gifts from the dead to feed the living. On the other, the inedible ones will allow you to meet the dead!

This connection continues with the crane bag of Manannán mac Lir. In addition to being a God of the Sea, Manannán is also a guardian of the underworld. The crane bag is a bag he fashioned from a crane skin that contains several magical tools. According to many Ogham readers, these tools are indicated in the forfeda — the four additional letters at the end of the Ogham alphabet. Iphin (ᚘ) is the crossed “bones of Assail’s swine.” These were pigs that could be slaughtered and eaten and would regenerate again.
Robert Graves theorized that these swine were metaphorical, and the bones were not bones at all — they were the stems of mushrooms, discarded once the caps had been eaten or used in ritual. Since mushrooms are just fungal fruiting bodies, and picking them doesn’t harm the actual organism in the soil, it made perfect sense that they would “regenerate” so they could be consumed again.

Because mushrooms seem to spring up out of nowhere after a rain, they’re also thought to represent fertility.

Mushrooms in general are associated with the element of Earth. Planetarily, they’re associated with the Moon. The fly agaric, specifically, is associated with the element of Air and the planet Mercury.

Using Mushrooms

First, I want to say that “there are old mushroom foragers, and there are bold mushroom foragers, but there are no old, bold mushroom foragers.”

If you aren’t an experienced mushroom hunter yourself, and don’t have access to one willing to take you in the field and help you positively ID mushrooms, do not attempt to harvest them yourself. There are way too many poisonous lookalikes out there, some of which can only be differentiated by spore prints or tiny, easily missed differences in appearance.

A cluster of small, thin, white mushrooms of uncertain type. — Photo by Chris G on Pexels.com

That said, simply touching a poisonous mushroom is unlikely to elicit a toxic response. However, it can still give you an allergic reaction, so you should still probably not do that.

Now, with that out of the way…

Unless you have access to a reindeer or a shaman, you should probably stick to the non-entheogenic varieties. I would also avoid commercially produced edibles intended for microdosing muscimol (a psychoactive compound). While not all brands are suspect, it seems some haven’t quite got the science figured out yet and several people have become extremely ill (and possibly even died) from using them. I wouldn’t use them myself and I don’t want bad things to happen to people, so I can’t recommend you do, either.

Also, if you drink alcohol, be careful which mushroom species you work with. Some are considered edible — delicious, even — but contain a compound that reacts with alcohol to cause some very unpleasant symptoms.

Otherwise, mushrooms are a suitable offering for deities of the dead and of forests. They’re also a good ritual food for workings relating to these deities or concepts.

You can place dried mushrooms in objects like charm bags, sachets, or spell jars, but with a bit of caution — they’re basically like sponges and will pretty readily absorb moisture and get gross if you aren’t careful to keep them dry. Other than that, go to town.

Whether you enjoy eating fungi or not, they’re fascinating organisms that form the foundation of life on Earth. Without them, other plants couldn’t grow. They’re a gift to the living from dead and decayed things, and, as such, are deserving of reverence.

Blog · life · Plants and Herbs

Skyline Drive

July 26, 2021October 30, 2023 J.Leave a comment

I didn’t think much when I posted a picture of a cool rock. (It was columnar basalt, which always reminds me of some surreal, alien landscape out of Kenshi.)

“Hey,” a friend replied in not-those-exact words, “There’s a neat example of that not too far from us.”

“Oh sweet,” I approximately replied, “Where?”

And so that was how my partner and I ended up loaded with snacks and music, navigating our way down a gorgeous scenic drive through Shenandoah National Park. When I say scenic, I’m not messing around, either — it was gorgeous, the kind of beauty that pictures can’t really do justice.

You know how when the landscape is uninterrupted for far enough, you can see the way the hills fade to blue in the distance, and the shadows of the clouds moving over them? I live for that.

We even stopped for a bit of a hike at Compton Gap, where the columnar basalt was. The entrance to the trail showed a picture of it, but we weren’t able to find the specimen itself — the trail branched, and I think we ended up taking the wrong fork. Not that I minded at all. The air was fresh and sweet, the trail was quiet save for the song of birds and bugs, and everything was a fresh, deep green so intense, it almost didn’t seem real.

There was a small mushroom friend (a Russula, I think), bright orange trumpet creeper, and some very busy insect buddies — including a spicebush swallowtail and an American bumble bee!

The drive was long enough that we were in the midst of golden hour on our way back. The sun painted the clouds shades of pink and lavender, and the light took on that warm, comforting, well… golden tone. We paused at all of the overlooks to soak it up, relishing the warmth radiating from the granite rocks, and the cool, fresh breezes all around.

We’re planning on going back in the autumn, when the leaves start to change. It should be amazing!

Environment · life · Plants and Herbs

Sharks’ Eyes and Poison Orange

October 19, 2020October 17, 2020 J.Leave a comment

Some parts of DC are weird.

I mean, some parts of everywhere are weird, don’t get me wrong. Where I grew up, our favorite activity was spelunking in the sewers (I found a stray femur and was almost eaten by geese). When I lived in Delaware, it took me a bit to get used to the way the landscape was broken up — apartment complex, forest, strip mall, pasture, wetlands, wetlands, wetlands, city. In California, the neighborhood was a very tiny island in the middle of fields and pastures. Sometimes, you’d wake up and see all of the puddles shimmering strangely with whatever the crop dusters were spraying the day before. At night, even without seeing any cows for miles, you’d hear their eldritch moos as if they were right in the yard. The songs of coyotes carried for untold distances. Uncanny-valley strangers would come and knock on your door, ask to borrow things, and disappear. It had a very Southern Gothic atmosphere, especially for a place that was emphatically neither.

DC is weird in its own way. I love it here, and there are some extremely cool places and people. The architecture is gorgeous, and you can find some very lovely Victorian-style houses and unexpected details. Still, there are plenty of other areas here that I try to avoid if there’s any way to help it.

This was one of those.

My partner and I were picking up food at this place we found at the beginning of COVID — a little pricey, but they’ve got the best damned catfish po’boy and blackberry shortcake I’ve ever had. (I’d drop the name, but the location is called four different things depending on whether you go there on foot, find it via Google Maps, read their bags, or try to order through a delivery app. Like I said, weird.)

It’s situated in an area that, not unlike the rest of the city, combines historical architecture with modern touches. The thing is, where other areas of DC seem to give the impression that this is done out of necessity, or to fulfill actual human needs, this seems almost malicious. Concrete angel faces stare mutely out over doorways to imposing office and municipal buildings, expressions framed in equally-stony olive branches. At street level, there are stores — jewelers, Nordstrom Rack, a seemingly impossible number of Starbucks cafés — with large, thoroughly modern plate glass windows with the dead, flat gleam of sharks’ eyes.

There’s something about it that strikes me as very calculated. There’s a cultivated air of diversity here, but the kind of diversity that wouldn’t welcome anything that wasn’t a high-end department store, a Starbucks, or an eatery capable of suiting a very narrowly defined sensibility. Some of it is very pretty, but stifling, almost.

On the sidewalks, people sit too close together at outdoor tables. A maskless couple walk by, pushing a leather-clad baby carriage that mommyblogs say could pay a month of my neighbors’ rent.

People live here, too, but everything feels aggressively tailored to those who work here instead. I don’t think they’re the same population. Thinking about it too much makes my teeth itch.

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” I whisper-hiss to my partner, “Because I’ve got maybe ten minutes before this place turns me into an anprim.”

I wonder if this is how fireflies feel when you put them in a mason jar with a stick and a leaf.

Fortunately, getting elsewhere only takes about ten minutes. It might be a strange byproduct of this one self-hypnosis program I sort-of-kind-of-maybe did wrong a few years ago, but the sight of the color green makes my nerves finally start to unknot themselves.

We park and walk a ways. I know my food’s getting cold, but I don’t really care. I take big breaths — there’s smoke coming from somewhere, and it tinges the smell of soil, gently decaying leaves, and damp wood with an earthy sweetness.

We find a picnic table. I always eat fast, but today I manage to finish before my partner’s done unpacking.

“Okay! Gonna go climb on that tree and look for friends!”

He’s grown used to this. I think you kind of have to, after awhile — it’s something that seems pretty firmly baked-in to me. I’m told that when I was very little, maybe four, we had some kind of family function at a beach. My dad says he heard me walking around making tiny proclamations: “Anyone who wants to go find bentures, follow me!” (Then I disappeared into some trees for awhile and he had to peel me off of a sheer clay cliff face, but that’s another story.)

When I was dating one ex-partner, it was a near-constant bone of contention that he never wanted to go exploring with me. I ended up having a lot of adventures with my dog, including finding a broken wooden footbridge that led to nowhere, covered in graffiti that dated back to the ’40s. (I’m almost positive it was Extremely Haunted.)

After that, another ex-partner used to give me survival equipment for every holiday. They figured the odds were pretty good that I’d end up disappearing into the woods some day, and they wanted to hedge their bets on me coming back alive eventually.

In short, I think most of my loved ones throughout history have adapted to the idea of probably seeing me show up on the internet after being mistaken for some kind of pygmy sasquatch.

There’s so much moss. Damp and feathery, sporophytes reaching up on stalks like delicate red threads. I could probably photograph it all day, to be honest — the structures are so beautifully complex when you get close enough.

My partner comes to join me, so we can look for mushy boys.

Some type of Mycena builds a tiny cathedral in a fallen tree. I find another type growing from a separate tree, its cap an almost ghostly translucent white. It’s the only one there, and I don’t have the heart to touch it, see what color it bruises, or try to take a specimen for a spore print.

“Oh, hey,” my partner points to a dead stump. I make a kind of excited pterodactyl noise and get on my stomach for pictures. I haven’t seen jack-o-lantern mushrooms before, but their intense “fuck off” orange and fine, deeply-ridged gills are weirdly, poisonously beautiful.

I can see why they’re often mistaken for chanterelles, though it makes me wonder what came first. Did the chanterelle grow to resemble the false chanterelle and jack-o-lantern mushrooms because it kept it from being eaten, or was it a case of convergent evolution?

It strikes me with some irony that I feel better about poisonous mushrooms than I do about the “Welcome” sign in a shop. Warning orange is easier to look at than shark-eyed windows, I guess.

life

SHROOMWATCH 2020

October 5, 2020October 5, 2020 J.Leave a comment

October marks the best timing for one of my favorite hobbies: mushroom spotting.

(Not the fun ones. The regular ones.)

I usually have far more luck finding them in autumn than I do in spring or summer, so I was pretty excited when my partner and I drove out to Jug Bay to hike the trails around the wetlands. AND RIGHTLY SO.

Last time we went, I couldn’t walk as far as I’d’ve liked. This time, I was able to go a full 2.25 miles from the visitor’s center to… well, the visitor’s center, but the long way. (I’m also starting to get actual triceps, so all the recreational sledgehammer-swinging is paying off!)

The weather was absolutely perfect — sunny, breezy, and cool, with nary a cloud in the sky. We rarely saw another soul on the trails, but we had our masks so we could pull them on by the ear loopies any time we passed near anyone. Most of the trees were still green, though there were a few splashes of scarlet, saffron, and gold. Winterberries were abundant, lining the boardwalk beside the marsh with bright yellow-green leaves and shining red fruit. Asters, their white faces like miniature daisies, looked up from the side of the trail. Long, hanging stalks of goldenrod, bent under the weight of their blooms, and tall sunchokes seemed to catch and hold the light in their yellow flowers.

As we were walking along the trail, a butterfly fluttered up to say hello, made a loop around my legs, and passed back into the trees. It moved too fast to get a good look or a photo — judging by the color, I think it was either a red-spotted purple or a type of swallowtail. (And a late one, in either case!) I also spotted the most perfect spiderweb, threads intact and shimmering iridescently in the sunlight.

(Two crows hopped up on a parking sign in front of the car earlier that day, too, so this afternoon was just full of good omens!)

Turtles sunned themselves on logs, sleek heads occasionally poking up like curious periscopes. All around, you could hear the chorus of insects in the trees.

It was idyllic as fuck.

It wasn’t until we were close to the visitor’s center again that we spotted some mushy boys. Forest cryptid that I am, I got down on my knees and elbows on the trail, in the leaf litter, said a silent prayer to whatever deity’s in charge of urushiol, and crept as close as I could to get a few pictures. Identifying mushrooms is always dicey if you can’t check them for bruising, spore prints, and other signs that require more than a cursory examination, but they’re beautiful nonetheless!

(I believe the first is a kind of brittlegill, and the one at the top right is some type of gilled polypore. I’m not sure about the other two, but I really love the cream-and-brown one’s mossy home.)

I saw one mushroom that had been snapped off where it grew, so you could see its round butt and the little divot where it once sat nestled in the ground. Inside, the soil was lined with a silvery, cottony web of mycelium — the stuff that actually makes up the bulk of the fungus. I didn’t get a picture of it, but it was fascinating to see past the eye-catching fruiting bodies and into the “heart” of the mushroom.

We rounded the day off with crêpes from Coffy Café (I went with the Bootsy instead of my usual Mr. Steed — I think I might have a new favorite!), and a long, hot bath.

#nomakeup #justtheghostlypallorofmysunscreen

Idyllic.

crystals · life · Plants and Herbs · Witchcraft

Cleaning House, and Don’t Try the Brown Mushrooms

April 27, 2020April 26, 2020 J.1 Comment

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This weekend, my partner and I decided it’d be a good time to give everything a nice, solid deep-clean. Everything. The windows, the stove, the weird, hard-to-reach area behind the toilet, everything.

Cleaning house is a great opportunity to refresh the energy in a place. While there are small, day-to-day things you can do to keep the flow from going stagnant on you, nothing really beats a solid top-to-bottom scrubbing and airing out.

Due to a combination of frugality and scent-sensitivity headaches, I make pretty much all of our cleaning products. (What I save in glass cleaner and counter spray, however, I more than spend on ethanol, vinegar, baking soda, and castile soap.) I keep a canister of homemade cleaning wipes in the bathroom, and another in the kitchen. I’ve got pretty cobalt glass bottles of spray cleaner on my kitchen counter, and another of tub and tile cleaner under my bathroom sink.

Frugality and lack of synthetic scents aside, the nicest thing about these DIY cleaners is that the ingredients easily pull double-duty; the same things that keep stains from my counters and rings out of my tub also have a history of use as spiritual cleansing agents. Make them on the right day, in the right moon phase, during the best planetary hour for whatever you’re trying to do, speak your intentions as you add each ingredient, and charge them by whatever method is preferable for you. (I would, however, advise against using sunlight — depending on what ingredients you use, heat and UV light might denature them, leaving you with a concoction that’s mostly water.)

We opened up the curtains and all of the windows. We played upbeat music. We scrubbed everything.

When the physical cleaning was done and my partner was figuring out lunch, I worked on the other side.

I love tarot cards. Not only are they useful divination tools, they’re useful aids for focusing magic. Whatever you’re trying to draw in or push away, there’s a card for that. In each room, I set up a small altar with a candle or incense, a clear quartz,and three cards: The Sun, The World, and the Ten of Cups.

94225825_253429959348725_986577567261655040_n — Cards from the Tarot de Maria-Celia. Massive Herkimer diamond from TheElusiveHerkShop. Lavender and lemongrass candle from SweetgrassApothecary.

These three cards are among the most positive omens in the deck. The Sun speaks of radiant positivity, abundance, and optimism. The World speaks of auspicious beginnings and infinite possibility. The Ten of Cups speaks of ultimate fulfillment. Good stuff to bring into your life and home, right?

I treated them the way you might treat a crystal grid — placing them, charging them, and releasing the energy. It was a small ritual, moving room-by-room, setting up each grid, and putting them to work, but it felt more uplifting and powerful than I can say.

I definitely needed it after the day before that. Friday, I had ambitious (well, relatively ambitious) dinner plans. I made penne, a quasi-homemade mushroom risotto, and grilled vegetables marinated in balsamic vinegar and herbs. Everything came out tasty, and all was well.

You know how some people have genetic quirks that keep them from enjoying certain foods? I don’t even necessarily mean allergies. Some people are lactose intolerant, some think cilantro tastes like soap, and so on.
As it turns out, some people can’t handle boletes.
Like, really can’t handle them.

I am apparently one of them.

mushroom-1281733_640 — More like “bol-eat-your-insides-apart,” amirite?

I know the mushrooms weren’t actually toxic, because they came in a prepared blend and I really hope Trader Joe’s knows better. I was lucky, though. Some pretty intense gastric pain and dehydration was the most I had to deal with, though I was legitimately concerned that I was going to need some kind of intervention if things didn’t improve quickly enough. I definitely didn’t want to need a spinal tap because my intracranial and blood pressure decided to shoot way up on me. I definitely definitely didn’t want to go to the hospital and have to explain that I was there because my dumb ass decided now was the time to try eating unfamiliar fungi.

Lesson learned. If you’re trying to avoid using ER resources, maybe stick with things you’re absolutely certain you can tolerate. Save the risotto experiments for the future.

Here’s hoping you’re safe, staying sane, and not eating anything weird.

Environment · life · Neodruidry · Witchcraft

A Daily Earth-Healing Meditation

April 22, 2020April 21, 2020 J.Leave a comment

Since today is Earth Day, I figured it’d be a good time to post about a small, simple daily meditation that I use to start my day.

It’s a combination of a grounding exercise and a planet-healing. You don’t need anything to do it, other than a comfortable, quiet place to sit (or even lie down) and five or ten minutes to spare. It’s based around the incredibly important role that fungi play in every ecosystem.

eyelash-fungi-4593804_640 — Tiny eyelash fungi on mossy wood.

The Fungi

Though we often picture mushrooms when we imagine fungi, fungal fruiting bodies make up a tiny portion of the whole organism. Beneath them, spread out in a web, is a vast network of mycelium. The hyphae spread out like thin threads, transporting nutrients, secreting enzymes to break down organic matter, and supplying nutrients to the plants that depend on them. Everything in the world relies on fungi for survival, in one form or another. They secrete carbon dioxide as part of the carbon cycle, and can break down almost anything that isn’t actively toxic to them — even plastic, petroleum, or pesticides. Some fungi turn carbon into melanin, a very stable carbon-containing compound, while others help soil retain moisture. Certain fungi increase soil aggregation, potentially increasing soil carbon storage.

Still, fungi respond to a very careful natural balance. While the soil is a carbon sink, soil fungi also return carbon dioxide to the air — especially in situations where elevated levels of carbon dioxide encourage plant growth, increasing nitrogen demand and upsetting the delicate balance of carbon and nitrogen. Fungi can be vital environmental allies, but the balance needs to be preserved.

white-mushrooms-2582319_640 — A pair of boletes.

Soil fungi don’t just comprise one or two species, either. Every patch of soil could be a host to a thousand distinct species. Just like the natural microflora of the body shift and change in response to illness, stress, diet, and medication, different stressors affect how these fungi grow, compete with each other, and evolve.

It’s never been more clear that protecting the planet means preserving all of the microscopic activity below the soil, not just the plants and animals above.

The Meditation

To begin, position yourself comfortably. Let your shoulders drop. Relax your jaw and the muscles around your eyes. Unclench your hands, and let them rest softly in your lap.

Inhale deeply, using your diaphragm and pushing out your belly to take in as much air as you can. Breathe in for a count of four, gently hold your breath for a count of three, and exhale for a count of seven. Repeat this three to five times.

Visualize your energy reaching from the base of your spine, through your seat, the floor, and into the soil. You don’t have to go far below the grass here — once your energy reaches the ground, let it spread out like the roots of a tree. Picture the filaments of your energy reaching through the soil, touching the filaments of mycelium that connect everything. Let your roots engage with the hyphae, gently befriending. When you have spread your energy as far as you can, begin sending a stream of loving light down through your roots.

Don’t worry if you don’t know all of the ins and outs of your local soil’s chemistry. Visualize your energy stimulating where it is needed, calming where it is needed, and balancing where it is needed. Visualize the soil fungi doing their microscopic jobs to break down what is no longer needed, and return it to the earth in a usable, nourishing form. Let your contact with the living soil recalibrate your energy, grounding you.

Continue this visualization for as long as is comfortable for you. When you are ready, gently withdraw your energetic roots from the soil. Open your eyes, stretch your limbs, and go about your day with a renewed awareness of how our actions affect everyone — and everything — around us.