Awareness, movement, marks in the earth - all require different skills than research on the Internet.
I started out thinking I could create a balanced life in both domains. I realize now why I cannot. It has to do with how I move, what parts of my body move and how my brain processes the incoming information.
Sitting quietly for a long time in the woods is not the same as sitting at my computer, no matter how engrossing the information on the screen. There’s something about the feel of the earth, the sight of a browsing deer oblivious to my presence, the song of the wood thrush and the feel of the breeze that stimulates my creative juices.
It’s a busy season and an early one. Gary Lincoff says that he has never seen so many chanterelles and boletes this early in the season.
I’m always thrilled to find black trumpets, but June 30 is really early. I don’t know why people still try to pretend that radical climate change is not taking place.
This is the delicious scaber stalk (Leccinum scabrum), a bolete family member.
Since the cultivated and wild edibles began ripening, I have not been at the computer. I’ve been too busy weeding, watering, harvesting and preserving to write in my notebook.
My need to spend time in nature has an added urgency, rooted in my concern for species at risk of disappearing. I simply don’t want to be in a world without wood thrushes and maple syrup. I hear fewer birds with each passing season. I cringe when a friend remarks that they no longer see certain plants. I got a huge fright when I saw NO evidence of mushrooms on a hike through moist woods that usually display fungi.
It may cost me professionally, but I have to turn the computer off again and get back out in the natural world, while I can.