Meandering

I spent a good part of this weekend meandering up in the mountains looking for mushrooms.  Many hours, in fact.  It was so nice up there yesterday that I lingered longer than I normally would.  What a nice way to take a break from life as it usually is.

Normally when I hike, I am on a mission to go faster and further than the time before on a particular trail.  With mushroom hunting, that doesn’t work.  You have to walk slowly while keeping your eyes on the ground, as mushrooms like to hide. You also have to go off the trail and bushwhack around.  Meandering is the style.

I don’t mean aimless wandering about, either.  You must keep your eyes on the ground in a concentrated way while at the same time being aware of everything around you.  Like an impending mountain lion attack or maybe getting ready to fall off of a cliff.  Just kidding! 

Here is a great story about finding mushrooms.  Last year in early September, I decided to take one last trip into the mountains to see if I could find any late mushrooms.  I did get a few and had a delightful hike, too.  I was on the last stretch of trail heading for the road when a hippie-ish young man popped out of the woods next to me.  That was the first surprise, as there were no other people there on that day.  He was also carrying a silver bucket filled with what looked like black pine cones. 

He seamed unusually cheerful and full of energy.  We struck up a conversation and I asked him about what was in the bucket.  Not pine cones but black chanterelles.  Now, this kind of mushroom was totally new to me, as the chanterelles that I pick are orange.  No wonder he was excited.

He proceeded to tell me that he and his girlfriend had been camping out of his pickup truck and were specifically looking for the black chanterelles.  On more than one occasion while they were driving around in the woods, she would suddenly yell out “stop, they’re calling me.”  He would stop, she would jump out and come back a while later with some of the mushrooms.  It worked every time.  I guess you could call this shrooming by intuition. 

As we continued our conversation, I found out that this was also his method for finding them.  He tuned into their vibration and waited until they called to him. He then followed the call.  I offered to trade some of my boletes for his black chanterelles, but he just gave me a few to take home and try.  They were delicious but it was kind of strange eating mushrooms the color of black licorice. 

Now, why was this such a big deal?  After I got home, I looked them up.  Not only were the black chanterelles not in my Colorado mushroom book, but they were not listed in any book that I had.  I had to look them up on the Internet.  On top of all that, their common name is Trumpet of Death. I ate them anyway!!!   I do not know if I would call them rare over all, but certainly rare for Colorado.  

There is a way that we can apply this “listening” method to everyday life.  Suppose that you misplace your car keys somewhere in your house.  Instead of running around like a nut looking for them, try attuning to their energy and waiting until they call you to them.  It is also important to still your mind or else you may not hear the call.

I actually used this method yesterday to find some of the orange chanterelles. While standing on the trail near a likely habitat where they might be found, I attuned to their energy, and then waited in silence.  I did not “hear” the call so much with my inner hearing, but my physical eyes meandered around and settled on a spot.  “Look there!”  Sure enough, there they were. 

So I guess we could call all of this “meandering with a purpose.”  Eyes open, mind relaxed and consciousness expanded.  It just occurred to me that this would also put one into the “everywhere and everywhen” of the quantum field.  Unlimited access to all.  No more lost car keys!