Open mind. Open forest. Many mushrooms. Somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State.

As the sun crossed the equinox to autumn’s side, so did the cold air and clouds return to the Pacific Northwest. Some may decry this time of year, but it is a bountiful time especially for mushroom pickers.

I haven’t always been a mushroom picker or, necessarily, enthusiast, but I’ve always liked them and been fascinated by them. I remember picking amanita, fly agaricus, on a walk through campus so that I might photograph it later. It was a spectacle: bright red caps with white warts and tall, elegant stems. I didn’t eat them, but admired them a great deal.

My first taste of wild mushroom came early in the wooing period of my romance with E. I had to work all day, but he had the day off and went mushroom picking for chaterelles. When I entered his apartment that evening, the  smell of a sweet, meaty, forest duff mushroom overwhelmed me, and I began eating mushrooms directly from the pan while insisting that  I go out with him next time. We’ve rarely missed a season since then.

I do enjoy the hunt and an enormous sense of happiness when returning from an especially profitable picking. Yet, it is being in the woods and the forests amongst the tall stands of trees, animals readying for winter, berries ripened, and unusual weather conditions that calls to me most. As soon as I step off the path because a little, bright orange spot beckons me, I stop, breathe, feel all my muscles relax, and see the whole forest spread out in front of me as if my mind became the forest. At once, I can touch the sky and smell the forest duff full of fir needles, mosses, lichens, fungus. In fact, I begin to smell the mushrooms.

Picking on the peninsula has been especially profitable and enjoyable. When it is cold and cloudy in Western Washington, often there seems to be some weather inversion in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains. Warm drafts of air, blue skies, and moist enough earth seduce you through many miles and hours of mushroom hunting. It lends itself to contemplative sitting, occasional naps, time to appreciate rivers. What always strikes me most though, is that I lose most sense of anxiety and stress as I’m presented with this enormous wealth of life, this whole that is so much bigger than me.

Well, that and my five or so pounds of pristine chanterelles.