Mushrooms Talk

Have you ever had a conversation with a mushroom?
No, not that kind. Not the kind when you eat them. Not the kind when you're tripping and you're not sure if its you or the mushroom talking...or if you even are the mushroom.
I'm talking about a different kind of conversation.
The silent kind. The conversations that happen in between all the talking.

I went walking yesterday through the wildlife sanctuary. A quiet place in New York.
No, not that New York. Not the city place with the buildings and the Times Square.
Not the New York everyone thinks about when you say New York.
I mean the other parts.
The parts that are still green and rocky and full of soil and
mushrooms.



Almost immediately upon the walk I fell in love.
It was a purpleish red and slightly tipping over. As if at any moment the next gust of wind would take it.
Take it and transport it's future generations all across the big green forest.
I wanted to touch it. Hold it. Feel in beneath my fingertips.
A part of me wanted to taste it too. I wanted to travel with it. I wanted to go where it was offering to take me.
Although I knew, it wasn't placed there on the forest floor beneath my feet for that reason.
So I just looked at it.
Snapped a photo.
Enamored.
And kept walking.

Before long another colored fungi popped up.
Pushing its way up beneath the fallen maple leaves.
Blanked in brown.
A cave of rusty colors surrounding it, as it made its way up towards the free air.
This one was orange. Bright orange.
A flat top.
A tiny sun amongst a canvas of different shades of darkness.
This one called to me, "Look at me!"
And I did.
Snapped another photo.
Stared at it, wondering, so many things.
Wanting to know more. To understand. To be a part of it's world.
And I kept walking.

As if you didn't know already, the mushrooms kept coming.
In all shapes and all colors and the conversation kept growing. The questions began multiplying and I found myself in a place I had never been before.
I wanted to know all there was about mushrooms.
I wanted to read books about them. I wanted to write poems about them.
I wanted to paint them.
I wanted to talk to mushroom experts. Mushroom lovers.
Mushrooms, themselves.

These days I have been spending outdoors. Mostly.
It is here that my curiousity grows. My inspiration thrives. My soul is happy.
My ambition to live life becomes hungry.
And the ego of my being becomes humble.
Because here I understand both my power as an individual and my collective place in the greater world.
This is what I need to feel more often.

It was the mushrooms' turn to communicate this to me.
Yesterday morning on our walk through the sanctuary.
The world has so much to tell you - if you listen.
There is so much out there to learn - if you follow what calls to you.
You can be happy - forever exploring the things that make you question, curious, and committed to understanding.
Understanding
Something we may never really know for sure
And that is why we have all of life to do it.

It can sometimes be called
Interest - induced learning.
I learned this yesterday.

No forcing you to digest textbooks.
No someone telling you wrong or right.
No schools bells to say 'times up'.
You go out there. You see what calls to you. And then you fully immerse yourself in that world.
Until your heart is content.
Guaranteed you will remember those moments
And that information forever.

That is what makes beautiful people.
Intelligent beings.
Caring souls.
The kind of people we need to take care of the future of our planet
The health of our own bodies
And the safety of our community.