I went into the dark woods today to look for mushrooms. Mycelial threads made visible. Golden chanterelles, lactarias, russulas, waxy caps, corals, spindly fingers burst out of rich moist earth. Not a ghost pipe in sight.
The fungi know who they are and who they are attached to. I feel like a stranger in this land where everyone is related. I feel those connections but cannot name them. This network so mysterious as to be incomprehensible, a living being that stretches across the earth. What branch of fungi evolved here?
And when did the First Peoples, the Ancestors of this land come to live and die under the Mountain Mother’s Stone, wild field grasses, needles, leaves, decaying trees, princess pines, and mosses.
What were the names of these Old Ones who first loved this land? Did I learn from them as well from the trees and animals what the word sacred really meant? Or that scarring did not remove Ancestral Powers?
Maybe what ‘s needed is for someone like me to ask the right question, bow her head in humility and prayer. I am part of a community that stretches across time, but I cannot feel or hear the voices of these human ancestors, the lovers of this land except through dreams and visions. Yet animals, plants, trees, butterflies, and birds often communicate with me beneath words.
The People, the first inhabitants, are a recent addition to stone – hills, fen, streams and forest millions of years strong. Fungi preceded them all – followed by mosses, plants and trees. And then the animals. The People built shelters, found food and medicines, had children, lived in genuine community, made friends with non – human relatives, honored all, listened and learned.
They were taught by the land how to live with one another, respecting difference. Like the fungi they too storied the land.
Oh, how I hunger for those stories of fungi and people to emerge, to teach me more about how to live. Only fragments of the latter survive.
Most of my ancestors came from across the ocean. They may have brought stories, but I did not learn them, perhaps because my relatives only knew how to conquer the land to survive. Power Over, not Love. They brought Guns, not Peace.
I am told that the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Peoples, “People of the Dawnland” also known as the Wabanaki Nation lived throughout the state of Maine and some still do, but who in particular once lived here? I want to say thank you.
I only met one Indigenous person, her name was Mollyockett, and she taught me how to teach the Circle Way as I stood on her grave.
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There is a mystic Pagan on here who uses Fungi as her familiar spirit. I forgot her name now. But this post reminded me of her. She’s a fascinating person.
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Interesting – Fungi, of course support all life on land – and Indigenous peoples across the globe have words to describe these underground powers that support us all
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Indeed, she also shared a scientific article once about how they are the messengers of the plant kingdom and what not. I found the whole blog fascinating. I really need to find her posts again so I can share it.
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Thanks for this beautiful post. I share your longing for connection and communion. And I know with your keen observation and intuition, you are fulfilling it.
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Dear Sara, thank-you so much for this beautifully woven reflection. I will save this prose poem to read and re-read. Wishing you joy of the day and mystery of the night, a.
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Thank you for this so perfect evocation of our yearning to be in connection with all the living world and the land we live on in particular, and the losses to realizing that connection we have suffered in the past. I do believe that, in time, we will learn to (once again) communicate beyond, above, and below words with non-human beings and the land itself. You have made such wonderful, inspiring steps in that direction!
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Comment from Iona Jenkins who had trouble posting under her own name: Sara, I love how you connect to the ancestors of the and you live on through its fungi. I feel sure that those ancestors have fostered you, because of your sensitivity and the way you nurture their space, thus making it sacred. I think in time, you may hear their stories and be able to tell them to others. Perhaps that may be what they might want you to do.
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hanks Janet
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You have put into words so beautifully the longing that we all feel for connection and communication between all beings. I think we are now living with an ongoing grief over the death and destruction all around us and yet we persevere. I am hopeful that a way to live in which all beings understand how we are all connected will arise, just maybe not in my lifetime.
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Oh thank you Judith and as you know i share your sentiment – we walk with our grief every single day – not in our lifetimes but life will go on and nature will recover
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