What happened on the 1/28 Mushroom Hunt?

Dhr. Seven, Jen Bradford (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

It was a crisp Los Angeles morning in Tongavaar (Arroyo Seco) as we gathered for the mushroom hunt, nature walk, and Buddhist meditation. Stragglers showed up, lost in the large Hahamong'na watershed as frisbee golf enthusiasts played through.

First we defined "mushrooms," shared experiences of their many culinary and spiritual uses, then set off on the hunt. A mushroom is the fruiting body of mycelium, the root-like network under our feet that makes forests possible, distributing nutrients and water with a degree of intelligence modern computing networks would envy.

We did not find the fly agaric (A. muscaria)

With that knowledge in hand, we took a Native American approach to tracking the truffles we would learn from and prepare in an experimental lunch. Waste nothing and take nothing for granted. Everything is here to teach us something -- indicating the fundamental Buddhist principle of Dependent Origination: Everything that arises does so depending on supporting conditions and not without them.

Fire's existence is dependent on conditions

Fire is unreal in the sense that it is dependent.

Fire, or what we call the epiphenomenon of fire, depends on five factors and does not exist apart from them (fuel, wick or medium, oxygen, heat, and the mysterious process of combustion). When these are present, we call it "fire." When one or more is absent, there is no fire to be found. When this arises, that comes to be. In the absence of that, this ceases.

And so it is with a living being. We are composed of the Five Aggregates clung to as self -- form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. (There is no self, no personality, no ego -- in an ultimate sense -- for all things are impersonal). 

And so it is with mushrooms. What are the factors for the arising of mushrooms? There has to be food (e.g., cellulose to break down), mycelium, moisture, and so on. Find these, and you'll soon be finding a trove of mushrooms.

Do not get to get high and call it a good thing.

The fruit on the ground, like Easter "egg" being hunted, is meant to send spores out for the mycelium to continue running. It prefers disturbed ground.

The City of Pasadena had laid down truckloads of mulch and woodchips it is no longer allowed to dispose of at the municipal dump, and the recent atmospheric rivers had soaked it. Traveling over bright green stinging nettle, chickweed, horehound, splurge, and grasses, there they were: purple blewits blooming. We examined them by stem, gills, caul, and the all-important base for proper identification. The bright and distinct color gave them away. Soon there were inkcaps, russula, polypores like chicken of the woods and turkey's tail, witches' butter, and LBMs all around us.

What's a good field guide to study?

Mushrooms Demystified (Arora)

This is simply the best and most complete mushroom field guide and reference book. Mushrooms Demystified includes descriptions and keys to more than 2,000 species of mushrooms, with more than 950 photographs. Mushroom authority David Arora provides a beginner's checklist of the 70 most distinctive and common mushrooms, plus detailed chapters on terminology, classification, habitats, mushroom cookery, mushroom toxins, and the meanings of scientific mushroom names. Beginning and experienced mushroom hunters everywhere will find Mushrooms Demystified a delightful, informative, and indispensable companion. Recommended by Christopher Nyerges. Fungi Fanatics

“Tongva” is not the tribe name

There are now many tribes in Los Angeles.

(Oscarwildeboy 2021) Fun fact: “Tongva” comes from a misunderstanding that one journalist made when he asked a woman what her tribes name was.

The “Tongva” people didn’t have a name for themselves as a whole, as they were unfamiliar with the concept of having a name to represent their entire people. They identified with their villages rather than as a society as a whole. The generally accepted name was Kizh (pronounced \keech\). Every historical document refers to them as Kizh until this ONE journalist misinterpreted a woman identifying as “Tongavaar,” which was a village [in what is now the Pasadena or Pasadeg'na area].