You told me that there was a ritual that you perform when you first start to mushroom. Describe it to me.
I like to do is to stop for a moment when I enter an area and recognize the spirits who are present and honor them. When I get to a specific area to gather, sometimes I like to call on the 6 directions: east, south, west, north, above and below. I like to recognize the particular direction.
This is my own personal choice. It really doesn’t have a lot to do with American Indians specifically. It has more to do with earth based religions throughout the world which recognize nature and the spirit within nature, confirming that we are all a part of nature. My ceremony recognizes and honors that place and what I am about to gather. I give a thank you and give Native American tobacco. I sprinkle it on the ground. I follow my own instant on where to put it. A lot of times it’s around the bigger or the mother of the group. That type of thing. The larger one. I only gather parts or pieces of an area. I don’t ever deplete an area.
Sometimes when I go for a hike I will perform the tobacco ceremony. Or, maybe at the end of the hike I’ll take the tobacco and sprinkle around the base of a particularly large tree, thanking the spirits for providing this opportunity. It’s just part of a gratitude thing.
Where do you purchase this Native American tobacco?
Mostly I find it in smoke shops. It’s called American Spirit.
How did you get started doing this?
My brother follows the Native American tradition. He uses tobacco in a variety of ways. He’s been to Sun Dance and read about different traditions. He also has a woman friend who is a Native American and did the tobacco sharing with me. That’s how I got started.
I’m interested in spirituality and nature and the connection between nature and spirituality. Even though my background is Catholic/Christian, I believe that all religions are valid and have very basic, honest, clear tenants. Whatever you label it, Great Spirit or God, it’s all the same. It really doesn’t matter what we name it. It’s all the same.
Looks like everyone
is in the woods today!
Do you only do this ritual with edible mushrooms?
Any kind of plant that I am gathering, whether it’s from a cedar tree or whatever. For example, there is this one favorite cedar tree that is on my friend’s property. After I gather cedar boughs for Christmas, I sprinkle a little tobacco.
I gather the pollen from cat tails the end of June or beginning of July. It’s a yellow powder that the Native Americans have used for young women in their becoming-a-woman ceremony. Also, warriors have used it when they were out on the trail and it was a long journey home. When they were challenged, they would put some under their tongue, which would help them to have the strength to overcome the challenge.
In my own experiences, I have had times when I’ve taken a little of the pollen. It’s not a psychedelic. It’s not a real impact – it’s real subtle. You just feel more connected to the Spirit. It’s a real pleasant experience, feeling more connected to the Spirit. It helps me with challenges in my life. I just put a little on the tip of my finger. It helps me remember the other times when I’ve been out in nature.
How long have you been doing this tobacco ceremony?
Gosh, it’s so much a part of what I do, naturally, for so many years, probably at least 15 years.
What kind of a difference does performing this ceremony make for you?
I just feel more OK with taking.
I think that we all live in a circle of life. We need to give and take. We need to regenerate, to give back. I feel more comfortable harvesting when I’ve thanked the Spirits.
I also believe that everything out there in nature, to some degree, was meant to be harvested. It’s part of the circle of life. I think that we are a part of it and therefore we are a part of the harvesting and sharing. It’s just recognizing the cycle and being a part of the cycle.
There’s a Native American story that I really adore. The story is that one year the salmon couldn’t get up the rivers because there wasn’t enough rain. The people were going hungry. They had to eat skunk cabbage. The next year when the salmon came up the river they thanked the skunk cabbage for feeding the people when they couldn’t. Then, in gratitude, the salmon gave the skunk cabbage the golden mantle. This story suggests to me that we’re all in the closed circle of life.
Where did you learn and hear about these things that we’ve talked about?
I don’t know. I can’t quote references and sources. They’re just things that I’ve read about and put together over the years and incorporated into my way of living. I can’t tell you what tribe or what area. I haven’t really studied the local tribes specifically.
I know that a lot of work is being done and things are still being discovered about the local Native Americans especially right now. I’m not aware of the local Indians eating mushrooms. Unfortunately, so much knowledge about them has been lost of the years.
What kind of mushrooms do you usually pick?
Chanterelles. I feel the safest with them. Everything else is kind of iffy for me. I don’t trust my memory of the distinctions between mushrooms. I have a friend who is more knowledgeable. I reply on her when I need identification. I just collect casually.
What other kinds of foods do you harvest from the woods?
Sorrel. I know it’s not great food, and you wouldn’t make a salad out of it, but I like the taste of sorrel. We used to always have a taste of “sour grass” when I was growing up in Tillamook so I always like to taste it now when I’m out and about in the woods.
Salal berries are another thing that I’ll eat in the woods, even though I wouldn’t take them home and make a jelly out of them.
Blackberries. One of the reasons that my dad moved out West from Minnesota is because there was so much free food in the forest and the rivers and the ocean. He knew whatever circumstances came that he’d be able to survive on the Oregon coast. He wouldn’t freeze to death like he would in the winter time in Minnesota. He loved the moderate temperatures and the blackberries. When I was growing up, we lived on blackberries: blackberry cobblers, blackberry jam, blackberry jelly, blackberry everything. When you are walking around and you see acres of blackberries, there is so much abundance, so much bounty to harvest. We did a lot of harvesting of blackberries. And salmon: we had salmon all year. We’d freeze it. Also, clams.
Also, when I was growing up there is a fern that grows on trees and has a licorice taste in its root. When I’m in the woods, I eat it or the berries or sorrel to make that physical connection. Again, it occurs with an appreciation for nature and knowing that it’s available.
Distributing tobacco and consuming these wild edibles are some of the ways that I become a part of the circle of life.
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