“I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges.”
—Paul Stamets
Last week’s writing was about silence and stillness, and this week I would like to share a recent experience that happened while applying this practice in my own life.
Here in South Dakota where I live, Springtime means Morel Mushrooms start popping up within their limited grow window. Early this year I became interested in mushroom hunting so I began researching how to go about finding Morels, and when our cold Spring turned to early Summer in May, I was giddy to make my first ever attempt.
As a first season hunter, I did my homework for several months. I trained my eyes to see their prize by staring at photos of Morels in their natural environment. I scouted local spots where I saw dead Oak Trees that might offer a perfect environment for the Mycelium to fruit. I walked the local trails with my dog each morning, visualizing what it would look like to see their dimpled caps amongst the grounded leaves.
I even came up with a little song to sing in the woods each morning, as if to hope that my cooing would tempt the mushrooms to whisper back to me.
“Me and Juice are searching for the fruit
of the mycelium network, that’s true.
Morel Mushrooms where are you
Oh Morel Mushrooms we’ll find you.”
I sang that little ditty to myself, the dog, the woods, and the wind, and together we all laughed, invigorated by the Great Spirit of Life.
I wanted nothing more than to make a Morel Risotto recipe that I found online. It looked delicious and the recipe said it would require a half pound of the illustrious mushrooms.
I wondered over and over if I could do it. If I could find enough of them for my recipe, and if I could find enough to share with friends as well.
While researching, I found a time lapse video showing that the Morel Fruit has about a 15 day life cycle, growing to full size in around 10 days. Once the weather conditions outside aligned with what I was looking for, I knew the clock had begun ticking and that they had to be out there dutifully growing each day.
“This is it”, I assured myself. “This is what we are looking for, and it is almost time to hunt.”
After about a week of solid weather, and with an influx of several rainstorms, each evening warmed up little by little. By the second week of May I figured that the time had come to have an earnest hunt.
I also figured that other hunters would be out making their rounds and that I surely would not be the only person looking for what we all desired to harvest from the floor of the backwoods.
The queasy feeling of inexperience tickled my brain, and the “what if” type stories that emerge from anxiety were quickly silenced by my determined will.
I thought to myself, ”I know where to go first. And I am going to find some Morels today. Trust yourself, Sean. Trust your gut. You can do this.”
An hour before Sunset I set off into the County to the spot I was being pulled to and walked onto the main trail from the gravel parking lot. I eyed the ground of the thick woods on each side of the trail as we walked along until a man approached us.
“You looking for mushrooms, huh?”
“Yeah, ha, we are, my good man, and I’m looking for my first ever find”, I replied.
He lifted a plastic bag in his right hand, grinning with playful confidence, saying, “well, they are in there. Not the easiest things to find, but they are in there.”
“Oh man, THANK YOU”, I said to him. “You just inspired the heck out of me. I am going to find some right now.”
“Good luck partner”, he said, tipping his ball cap as he walked out toward the trailhead.
After that interaction I felt a new fiery confidence within me. “If that guy can do it, so can I”, I said out loud to myself.
Looking up to the still-budding canopy above, I spotted a big dead tree, and walked off into the thickly wooded section where it rooted into the ground.
Breathing rhythmically, I made my best effort to quiet my mind, focusing only on my breath. I wanted to be able to hear the earth breathing, and the mushrooms calling.
My catchy little morel song kept trying to assert itself within my brain to fill the empty space, but I stilled all waves of thought and found pure silence within my mind as my eyes scanned the ground.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Silence the mind.
There were scattered leaves, twigs, sticks, branches, logs, and Earthy nooks and crannies everywhere my eyes could see. But no mushrooms yet. Nothing. The birds sang in the background as I kept looking.
Juice pulled me all around as he sniffed wildly. He was excited to be out in the thick of it again, this time without the freezing temperatures icing over his pads like in previous months. The woods buzzed with natural electricity, and I was feeling confident.
After moving about 20 yards past where I first began looking, I felt a subtle tingle in my abdomen. It was so subtle that I should not refer to it as a feeling at all, because it was more than that, yet less sensational at the same time.
It was a knowing. My tranquilly expanded mind somehow knew that the mushrooms I sought were close by, but if I had been thinking at the time, the movement of those brainwaves would have distracted me, and I easily would have missed the quietly nonchalant reflection of an impulse that flirted gently with my consciousness.
With trust I scanned the floor in front of me once, and then twice. And then on the third scan, only three feet in front of me, my eyes finally beheld a small cluster of Morel Mushrooms.
“YES, there you are… YES”, I proclaimed with elation as I bent over to get a better look at the pitted caps that had pushed up through the leaves.
After months of studying and planning, all of the effort that I put in to set myself up for success proved its worth as I thanked the mushrooms for revealing themselves to me, slicing them from their earthy perch and holding them up to the sunlight in my hand. I beamed a toothy smile and said “THANK YOU” to the woods all around me.
I noted the bark pattern of the dead tree near where I had found them, and made sure to remember what it looked like. That would be my indicator of where to look, moving forward.
Placing the loot into the mesh bag that hung from my hip, I immediately scanned the area all around to see if any others were in the vicinity. Even for a hunter with intense hawk-eyed focus, Morels blend in well on the forest floor, and you can still miss them even when they are right in front of you.
I hooked Juice’s leash to a tree limb and he sat around chomping on sticks as I moved in an outward spiraling motion through the area, finding a few more solo-growing mushrooms coyly displaying themselves as I scanned every log, leaf, and stump I could find.
“Bingo!” Thank you.
“Jackpot!” Thank you.
“OH YISSSSS!” Thank you.
The Sun traveled further over the river to the West and after finding a handful of 9 total mushrooms I was losing light quickly. I was not finding any more around the other trees and I figured that I would make my way back out of the woods so as not get caught up in a real life version of a scary situation that we imagined back in this article.
When I got home I weighed what I had found, totaling 59 grams. “Not bad for my first ever successful hunt”, I thought to myself. But in order to make the risotto I craved, I would need another 167 grams. I was not done hunting yet, but I was done for the night at least.
The next morning I got up, took the dog for his walk, did my workout, and completed my morning work session.
When it was time to take a break, I saddled up on my bicycle and rode 10 miles out to a different wooded spot that I felt very confident that I would find more mushrooms at. I even wore my old Nomad Cyclery Jersey with pockets in the back so I would have extra capacity if needed.
Pedaling along the fire road trail set alongside the Missouri River where hunters openly shoot during their respective seasons, I moved toward an area that Juice and I had scouted the month before.
The thickly wooded land along the west side of the trail ran deeper than I could see, and I guessed that those woods, full of dead trees, would be full of the mushrooms I was after. They had to be.
The area was big enough that I questioned where I should start, but before I should overthink it, I decided to continue on to the specific area where my instincts were pushing me.
I found my first spot, parked my bike, and set off on foot into the trees. I climbed over countless fallen logs while pushing the thorny bush away so I could continue forward towards another dead Oak Tree. Branches snagged at my hat, and I pulled broken twigs out of my hair.
Green viney plants grew upward from the Earth all around me, but I could at least identify that they were not Poison Ivy, so I kept moving, thankful that the “no no plant” did not appear to grow in the area.
Still diligently looking, I had not found anything quite yet when I a heard a rustle in the bush. When I looked up I saw a dog intensely staring straight at me. I said, “hello doggie”, and she then let out a shrill bark in response.
Her owner was only a few steps behind and greeted me with friendly words. “Hey there fellow fungi fan. Find anything yet?”
“Not yet, today, but I did find a few yesterday”, I replied.
The young man held up a small orange mesh bag and said, “I should have come yesterday, it looks like someone has already been out through here. But I did find a few right off the side of the trail right up there, I couldn’t believe it.”
“Oh great, thank you so much for the tip. I am going to keep looking, and I am feeling lucky today”, I told him. “I hope you find a ton more, brother.”
“Alright man, well, happy hunting to you too. I gotta go to work, but I hope you score”, he told me before slipping away with his dog.
Alone again, stories began to emerge within my mind. “What if the other hunters got them all already?” “What if that guy just found the last ones out here?” And so forth.
But I leaned back into the confidence that I had felt earlier in the day and simply decided that I would find exactly what I was looking for if I remained trustful enough in my intuition to spend the time searching near the right trees.
“There is no way that the others could find them all. There has to be some here, just waiting for me to come and find them”, I thought to myself. “If that guy can find some that others missed, then I can find the ones he missed.”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Silence the mind.
My eyes darted to the right and my head followed them as if it was being pulled by an invisible line. Right where my eyes stopped, shyly relaxing beneath a light cover of foliage, there was a Morel Mushroom. I wondered how I would have spotted that one if my eyes hadn’t been pulled directly to it, like magnets.
Again I elated and thanked the Earth and the Mycelium for providing the fruit of my search. I thanked the Oak for the life it once lived, and for providing the habitat the mushrooms needed in its death. And then I sliced that mushroom from its fungal perch, leaving behind a hollow stump full of living gratitude.
“Two days in a row. I guess yesterday was not a fluke after all”, I giggled to myself.
Searching around the area, I found two more mushrooms and then moved down the trail line toward another dead tree once I felt the area was clear.
I was excited to have found my first Morels of the day, but I kept my mind quiet, releasing scarcity-based thoughts into the wind as they arose.
Then, after a few minutes of quiet breathing, I started to feel a gentle presence yet again. A soft knowing quietly wafted just beyond the depth of my senses, whispering, “we are here, do you see us, mister hue-man?”
I felt the presence of the mushrooms in a way my tangible mind could not yet understand, and they were calling out to me. Standing straight up I cocked my head in observance of the pattern of experience that had emerged.
“This is weird”, I told myself, “I swear they are talking to me right now. They have to be close.”
As I looked all around me I sighed because I was not seeing the mushrooms anywhere. Then, as I went to take one step forward, I looked down, and there was a decent sized Morel right between my feet. I laughed to myself and decided that I would watch my foot placement more carefully so as not to step on any in the future.
“Amazing”, I thought to myself with a beaming smile. “You are so cool looking, wow. And that was a close call. I am glad I did not step on you”. Bringing the mushroom up to my nose, it smelled woody yet distinct from other mushrooms that I had tried in the past.
I filled my small mesh bag to about 3/4 of its capacity as I scurried around the woods following the buzzing impulses that gently touched the insides of my ribs. After a while though, I felt the buzz die down and I began to feel as if I had collected my fill for the day. It was as if the call of the mushrooms had evaporated into the wind, and I was alone again.
Knowing it was time to get home to the dog and back to work for the rest of the day, I saddled back up on my bicycle and hit the fire road back toward the windy countryside highway.
Almost immediately though, I spotted a massive dead Oak Tree not far off the trail only about 50 yards away, so I decided that would be the last place I would check for the day.
“Why not, you never know. Maybe I will get lucky”, I grinned inwardly.
I laid my bike down and walked through the bush and almost immediately found a perfect specimen a few feet from the tree. Then only a few more feet away, on the opposite side of a log that laid on the floor, I found a large cluster of 6 beautiful mushrooms and I yelped out with glee.
Slicing that cluster with a resounding, “THANK YOU”, I scanned the area, not seeing any more, and decided that it was officially time to go home. My bag was completely full and all I could think of was the Morel Risotto I was going to make. “I will definitely have enough now”, I mused as I rode home.
That night I made the Risotto with some left over juices from smoking a pork butt the weekend before, and it turned out magnificently. The only thing I would have changed would have been to use less cheese at the end.
I plated the Risotto with leftover smoked pork, and it was one of the richest meals that I had tasted in a long time. The morels added their own uniquely earthy flavor, but I realized that I would have to try them on their own to understand why people seemed to be so obsessed with finding them.
I shared a bowl of Risotto with my next door neighbor who gave it a high mark, and planned to go out one more time the following day.
The next day, Juice and I jumped in the car together and set off bright and early, back to the woods where I had found a full bag the day before. “We are going to find some mushrooms to give to people, and we’ll find some more for us too. How does that sound, Juiceman?”
His almond brown eyes locked intensely into mine, his ears furled up, and he jumped up towards my face as if to say, “what the heck are we waiting for? LET’S GOOOO.”
We dove right into the trees, straight out of the parking lot this time, and after only being in the woods for about 5 minutes, we found our first mushroom, and then two more near by. Juice sat contently as I scoured the area, but I did not see any others anywhere.
We pushed our way far deeper out into the woods and did not see another mushroom for about thirty minutes. Then, as I was looking intently, I heard a stick break and looked up to see a flash of color pass between the trees in the distance.
“That has to be a person”, I quietly said to Juice who stood focused in the direction where the sound had come from.
Moments later an older man came fully into view and he wordlessly stared at me, holding two plastic grocery shopping bags. One was full to the top, and the other was about half full. He had to be carrying over 5 to 6 pounds of mushrooms that he had found.
“Hello sir, it looks like you are having a good morning out here”, I said to him in a friendly tone.
The man was quiet and his eyes cut right through me with suspicion before he responded. “Yeah, I’ve been out here about an hour this morning finding them. Where are you from, son?”
“I live in a town close by”, I replied.
“But what I am asking is where you are originally from. What do you do for a living that allows you to be out here right now?”
“Well, where I am from does not really matter since I live here now, and I work for myself as a writer which allows me the freedom to appreciate the woods during my breaks. What about you, sir? Do you farm?”
“No I ain’t no farmer”, was all he said in reply.
“How do you store those anyway, if you don’t mind me asking”, I said. “Do you dehydrate them to eat all year long?”
“No, I ain’t got no dehydrator”, was his response.
I could tell by his curt replies that I had not earned his trust. He wanted to ask the questions, and it seemed that in his mind I was out of place.
Our conversation went back and forth for about 10 minutes, and it was clear that the man was curious as to how I had found his secret spot. And he was intent to find his mushrooms before I could.
He asked me who told me about the woods where we stood, and I told him that I scouted them myself, noticing the dead Oaks towering above the tree line.
That was when I felt his intense energy ease, and his guard drop. He nodded in his first display of acceptance, and I believed I had earned his respect as he warmed up to me a bit.
He asked me if I was worried about the dog getting ticks and I told him we diligently pick them off after each trip into the bush. He looked down and said, “look, he’s got one on his head right now”, and then he quickly snatched it off, crushing it with a twist of his thick tree stump fingers.
“I hate them buggers with a passion, I tell you. Send them all back to hell where they came from”, he said as he wiped his hands on his pants.
“Thanks for doing that, sir. I’m glad you spotted that one, you’ve got a good eye.”
Then he told me of another spot where I might have better luck finding mushrooms, but I sensed that I was exactly where I wanted to be already. If he was there, why should I not be?
With a, “thanks for the tips”, Juice and I moved further into the woods and within 5 minutes we found a big Morel right on the line we were walking. Then several more around it.
“Ah ha, it looks like we found some that guy missed, Mr. Juiceman”, I told the pup. “And these ones look good.”
For the rest of the day, I followed the call of the mushrooms from my quiet mind and Juice followed me wherever I went. I found many more beautiful Morels as I sought out dead Oak after dead Oak, and some of them hid better than others.
In the process of searching I also found many other different types of fungi on the ground, and on fallen trees. Since I did not know which ones might be edible, I refrained from picking them, choosing to appreciate their natural beauty as an observer instead.
Not only did we find a plethora of mushrooms though, but we also found many hollow Morel stumps left behind by the other man who was quicker on his hunt than I was. He had methodically swept the area, and we found many of the places where it looked like he had just pulled big Morels from.
“Interesting. I can still feel them call when I find the right area, but they have already been cut here. Next season we will hit it even earlier, Juice. That guy wins today, but we sure did get a nice bag full, didn’t we!”
As we searched around more, we found several aging Morels with what looked like mold or worms, so we left them behind. I took their presence to be a signal that the short hunting season was quickly coming to an end, and leaving them behind felt good.
I felt the abundance of a full sack tugging at my hip, and I did not want to harvest more than what I felt was fair from the area.
After about two and a half total hours of intense searching I started to feel like the time had come for us to go home with what we had, and to be thankful for the bounteous lot we had pulled. “OK Juice, I think that does it for us, buddy. Let’s head on home, dude.”
On the way out of the woods, I resisted the urge to dive back in several times before we reached the car. A feeling within me nudged again that I had taken my fill for the year, and I was pleased to shift my brain back out of “Morel Mode”, so I could go back to enjoying leisurely dog walks again without the intense desire to search consuming all of my available mental bandwidth.
I collected enough mushrooms to share with two groups of friends who were excited to receive them, and I saved the last handful for myself to enjoy.
Using Kerrygold Irish Butter, I sautéed my cleaned and sliced morels until they had browned just right. I tossed in some minced up onion and garlic, and served them with scrambled eggs and the last of the leftover smoked pork.
The mushrooms were truly delicious when cooked in the perfect butter, and I let out a soft, “oooooohhhhh” sound as I took my first bite. Munching on the woody, smokey morsels I thought to myself, “I get it now. I get why people do this. These are positively delicious, and finding them is such a joy. WOW.”
With a full belly, and a satisfied mind, I noted to myself that I had successfully done exactly what I aimed to do, and even found bonus mushrooms along the way.
From a grateful palate I chortled to myself, “I am definitely doing this again next year.”
My dear readers and listeners, that was a long story. Thank you for sticking around until the end, and I hope you enjoyed this.
Recounting and recording this journey has allowed me a new perspective on the whole experience, and all the subtle occurrences that happened along the way. I thank you for giving me a reason to learn more about myself and the way I do things.
Normally we end each week’s writing with a prompt of something to work on during the week, but this week we are ending with a question.
What is something that you are incredibly passionate about? Are you giving enough intentional energy to your passions to be rewarded with the confidence that comes from success in your endeavors?
We are not necessarily talking about big picture stuff here either. We can work on little things too. The little things are the big things, after all.
Until next week. Stay well, and keep going, my friends.
🌟🌟🌟
If you are asking yourself, “Who the f&#@ is this guy and why am I sitting here reading what he has to say”, then start back at #1.
Tuning in to hear the call of the the mushrooms