Respect and Abundance

Well that time of year is starting to wind down—the woods were full of the hopeful, seeking the strangely elusive morel. And now it’s beginning to settle down.

Being a newbie to mushroom hunting there is a lot to learn, and I value the time in the woods, developing my skill set: tree recognition, observing and understanding the lay of the land, selective scanning of the woods for mushrooms (something I call, “developing my eyes”). This is all a lot of fun, but I have to say, what I value the most in the woods is the time of reflection—thinking about aspects of life through the metaphor of the mushroom hunt that’s taking place before me.

I want to share one of the stories and reflections from this year.

The First Seven

My beloved father in-law (Gumps, as he is called)—a man of the woods, a man of the garden, a man of cows, chicken, pigs, and wine—told me, “You should leave the first seven morels that you see each year. It’s like an offering to them.” I totally get this kind of thinking. It’s about respect—not just showing up and taking everything, but also understanding that there is a sort of gifting going on—the life form that is the morel comes up through the leaf-bedding and gifts itself. And I don’t know this to be true, but I believe that the morel chooses who gets to see it. Respect is something that is recognized universally as a good thing and I feel the morels can sense this in someway. 

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So I practiced leaving the first seven morels, but I have to say, something didn’t feel quite right to me. There was something that didn’t feel right about not receiving the gift of the morel once it was seen. Gumps, in his unique perspective on things told me this year, “Well when I see the first morel, I figure I’ve actually already seen seven of them…they just didn’t let me see them! Haha!” Any morel hunter understands this elusive quality of the mushroom—you can be looking directly at it and not see it. 

So my wife Katie, Gumps, and I were walking in the woods earlier in the season looking for morels. I began looking at the trees and noticed a large black cherry with a little bit of bark coming off the sides. I thought it was worth going for a look there. I walked towards it on my own and immediately I found 2 grey morels—these were the third and fourth morels I had seen for the season. I decided then to pick them with the intention not to keep them, but to give them to Gumps. I began to think about showing respect through receiving, rather than turning away a gift. I also began thinking about how sharing and giving what one has creates a flow of energy that creates abundance in ones life. In my life, Gumps is a unique example of this abundance. He often quotes Sun Bear, that “food should never be sold, always given away.” He truly embodies this, every year giving from his garden and the eggs from his chickens. To see his garden during summer in full swing—Abundance is the word.

There in the woods I called out to Katie and Gumps, “I have resolved a great conflict here today!” 

“What’s that?”

“I’ve decided…” I looked down and saw another morel (number 5), bent over and picked it. “Here’s one!

“I’ve decided that the first seven morels I find each year…” I looked down and saw another morel and then another (numbers 6 & 7), bent over and picked them. “Here’s some more! Ha ha!

“Anyway, I’ve decided that the first seven morels I find each year, I’m going to give away to someone. Seems to me the morels like this idea!” Finding the 7th morel as I was speaking these words to me was a sign, an affirmation from the morels that it was a good thing, what I had decided to do. And in my heart it felt like a good thing to. 

In this life there is so much abundance that can be easily clouded by a mindset of lack or not-enoughness. Whether a perspective of abundance actually brings me more morels or not is really laughable to think about, but the change that it makes within me is what I value. It feels right to share, it feels good to pay it forward, it feels right to know that not only is there enough, but more than enough, and that the give away is an old practice that brings people together.