Artist’s Conk

My friend, Travis Kriplean, organized a “mushroom learning pod” for his pre-school age son and friends up in Portland, and he’s been regularly sharing stories and photos from their adventures in my colearning group. I’ve not only been moved by what he’s been doing and why, I’ve been highly envious. Last month, Travis shared a writeup of what he’s been doing, and I thought, “Why does this just have to be for pre-schoolers?” I pinged Travis about starting up a San Francisco Bay Area pod, and I pinged the Bay Area constituents of my colearning group to see if they’d be interested in playing. To my surprise and delight, all of them said yes!

Unfortunately, I know nothing about mushrooms, other than that the edible kinds are delicious and that they play an important role in our ecology. I also already have plenty of things keeping me interested and occupied and didn’t need or want another big project. Fortunately, Travis explained that neither of these would be impediments, and he suggested keeping things simple. Go out, find mushrooms, and document them. Most importantly, enjoy some hot chocolate together afterward.

This framing appealed me for a lot of reasons. It reminded me of Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life, which has felt like my mantra for these pandemic times:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

So that’s what we did. I did a minimal amount of preparation. I found a place close by (Joaquin Miller Park), picked a date and time, and put some hot chocolate in a thermos.

When I arrived at the trailhead, I felt a little bit bad about not being more prepared. It was unseasonably warm, even for the Bay Area — about 80 degrees. The one thing I knew about mushrooms was that they like moisture, and the trail I had picked was bone dry. Still, I had been transparent about my lack of preparation, it was a beautiful afternoon, and my friends had great attitudes, so on we marched.

We found a grand total of one mushroom (pictured above), which felt like minimum success. I also learned some things about lichen (it’s both a fungus and an algae!), and we spotted some beautiful birds, including some Dark-eyed Juncos. I also had learned enough from this experience to start plotting a second trip, this time closer to my home in San Francisco, where it was foggier and hopefully more mushroom-friendly. Plus, drinking hot chocolate with friends as the sun began to wane, even on a warm evening, was pretty great. All in all, I was pretty happy about the afternoon.

But when I got home and tried to identify the mushroom, things got even more interesting. We found it on a Bay Laurel stump, so it’s probably a Ganoderma brownii, but it could also be a Ganoderma applanatum. Both mushrooms are known as “artist’s conk,” because the white underside turns brown more or less permanently when bruised, and artists have been known to do etchings on the bottoms of these mushrooms. They are hardy mushrooms, which is why we were able to find them under such dry conditions, and apparently are also used for medicinal teas.

When I uploaded my photo to iNaturalist (my very first contribution!), I was stunned and delighted to see that the app correctly guessed what it was.

I’m sure I’ve seen these before, but I’ve never stopped to pay attention and to figure out what I was looking at. Next time, I know to look even closer, so that I can more definitively identify it. I had felt self-imposed pressure to find more mushrooms, so rather than slow down to look more closely and carefully document it, I took a quick snapshot, and moved on. This was the very muscle I was hoping to develop, and this experience reminded me how much practice I still need.

Excited about this first foray! Let me know if you’d be interested in participating in the next one! I’m thinking early December at Land’s End.

“If—”, by Rudyard Kipling

In his excellent book, Coach Wooden and Me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar mentions one of John Wooden’s favorite poems, “If—,” by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Wooden recites the second stanza of the poem to Kareem, then explains:

“The lines I’m referring to, Lewis, are that Triumph and Disaster are the same. They’re both impostors because they are momentary. More important is becoming a man of convictions. Lasting joy comes from that.”

—p90

Sidenote: Wooden, Kareem, and a whole slew of legendary NBA centers filmed a series of commercials for Reebok in 1993, featuring then-rookie Shaquille O’Neal. In one of those commercials, they recite the poem to Shaq. I couldn’t find the one with Kareem on YouTube, but I did find this version, which is nice because the person reciting the last line is Shaq’s father.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZZfNapWauw

Once the World Was Perfect

Read this beautiful poem by Joy Harjo courtesy the good folks at Poetry Flash. It’s from her book, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, and it pretty much sums up where we seem to be in the world and why I do what I do:

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy
in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through —
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life —
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we
didn’t know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the
next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those
clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time —
To now, into this morning light to you.

A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Excerpts from Jose A. Alcantara’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, via Mark Leach:

If you have a compass, smash it.
Nothing can point you to true anything, let alone true north.
Besides — and never forget this — you are trying to get lost.
You may be gone for a long time
so be sure not to pack any food or water.
It is only the hungry who feed, only the thirsty who are quenched.

Before you leave, be sure to write a note
telling everyone exactly where you will not be.
The last thing you need is someone coming to your rescue.

Now, find the best map possible
and tear it up. You will be traveling on a scale
that no one has ever drawn.

Do not leave a string of crumbs behind you.
This would only attract predators.
On second thought, go ahead.

Write postcards telling everyone of your adventures.
Be sure to lie, like a fox leaving false tracks.
Someday they will thank you.

You will not know when you have arrived.
But if you think you have, you haven’t.
If you think haven’t, you probably have.

If you come to a fork in the road
stab yourself in the foot with it. You will
reach your destination much faster if you are limping.

Better yet, use it to pluck out your eyes.
There are many signposts along the way.
Maybe now you will learn to see.

One Art: On Loss and Detachment

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Thanks to Kate Wing for sharing.