ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
People have asked how to track mushrooms. As far as I'm concerned there is no short-cut. You need to put in the ground work. Humans have been hunter-gatherers for a long time. We have inherent abilities to seek out fungal/plant life. A shark can detect a drop of blood tens of kilometers away, among a vast ocean of salt water and other species, etc. If a shark could speak, I'm not sure that it could explain in words how it does this. Some things are beyond words. We, as a species, have abilities that can be unlocked. In order to unlock them you just need to try. They are there, waiting. Using logic to find mushrooms is not neccessarily the best way to do it. I use a combination of logic and instinct, conscious and sub-conscious thought. I am not conciously aware of the sub-conscious aspect of my hunting technique. Therefore, I cannot explain to you how to taste the earth and track mushrooms. You already know how to do it. Use your senses. Don't try to think about it. Just do it. There is no short-cut to being a good hunter. However, if you live in Melbourne and you want some tips about where to look, send me a private message. I can point you in the right direction. The best way to learn how to hunt, is to hunt. Go out there and look. Don't rely on someone to tell you how to do it. The shroomery will identify anything you pick up. It is a fantastic resource for mushroom hunting. Every year there are state specific pages devoted to the identification of mushrooms. Go find some mushrooms that you think might be actives, verify them on shroomery. And repeat. Most people think I'm crazy when I talk about the instinct part of mushroom hunting/gathering. When I go on hunts, I gently brush leaves and twigs out of the way to expose mycelium. Mycelium is white. It looks sort of like spider webs. You will know it when you see it. You don't have to dig to find it. It is close to the surface. Just brush the surface canopy away and reveal the mike network. Then rub your fingers on the surrounding dirt and taste it. You don't have to eat dirt. Just touch your tongue against your fingers. You will taste the network. The problem is, you need to understand what nature tastes like in general. I chew on leaves of plants all the time. I have tasted all sorts of mushrooms including the poisonous ones. I do this intentionally, to familiarize my sub-conscious with nature's pallette. You don't have to do any of this to be proficient at finding mushrooms, but it helps. You can find shrooms quite easily by using logic. By looking. I also suggest consuming a small amount of psychedelic fungi in order to enhance your vision. This, again, people think is crazy. But hallucinations increase colour intensity. They increase contrast. I find it much easier to see mushrooms against the landscape of various shades of brown, once I am hallucinating slightly. Emphasis on slight.
