Foraging mushrooms in Lithuania

The late morning sun was gently falling on vibrant green moss, softening the rough bark of birch trees and the fragrant leaves of wild blueberries. The moss was something akin to a maternal figure, a goddess of sorts, covering the ground with care and confidence, enfolding fallen pinecones, berries shrivelled in a drought, and entire families of mushrooms.

Our mission of the day was finding mushrooms in these secret, sacred forest spots. Centuries ago, forests here used to be spiritual spaces, and it was not about a holy tree or a bush, but the whole being of a forest, the unity of nature. It is said that the Baltic tribes did not build many forest temples, as forest in itself was a temple. Centuries later, when paganism was pushed out by catholicism, when occupations and repressions made life difficult, forest still provided solace to the heart, haven to the resistance forces, and food for families, looking for wild strawberries and raspberries, porcini and chanterelles, and fresh water straight from the underground streams. Even in the times of peace, like now - as fragile as this peace is - I ventured out into a forest and looked up to the pine tops swaying in the wind, and touched an oak tree that, judging from its size, may been there for a thousand years. That tree has seen it all, and still has courage to stand. Which is reassuring for our short, volatile, beautifully messy lives.

So off we went, stepping over the spongy moss, looking down for the bright orange of chanterelles. Chanterelles love to hide in the moss, or in between of bright yellow birch leaves, tricking you into bending to pick up a mushroom, only to find a rotting leaf, with one hell of a convincing performance. But even if you've been tricked, once you're already close to the ground - or even on your knees, confirming the sacredness of the space - you start seeing more and more mushrooms, lifting their heads from the moss. The shift of the angle helps, the shift in perspective helps. Once you found a chanterelle, you want you take it slowly, ideally with a tiny knife, cutting close to the ground - if you pull it out, the mushrooms may not regrow at this spot in the future, but if you cut too close to the mushroom cap, the abundance of mushroom left in the ground will rot, rotting away its future potential to regrow as well. So, we would twist it out - or cut it - with care. Chanterelles are some of the rare mushrooms that don't attract that many worms, so no checking is usually needed. For most other mushrooms, including porcini, we would cut the bottom of the mushroom stem, to check for dots showing the wormy inhabitants, and we would keep cutting until the dots are no longer visible. Sometimes worms turn out to throw a party in every part of the mushroom, in which case we return the mushroom right back to its sacred home grounds.

My grandparents had this tiny book, so used up, that the official cover was no longer there, but there was a hand-drawn one, saying "Mushrooms", showing a mushroom (a porcini, mushroom, of course - there's a mushroom hierarchy in Lithuania and porcini mushrooms top it, no questions asked). They kept it in the house, rarely picking it up when going to forage mushrooms. There wasn't much need, as they knew most of the mushrooms that grew in local forests, and as they only picked the ones they knew really well, and had no doubts about. We were cautioned about the safety of mushroom foraging from the early age, and everyone had different ways to ensure safety and to combat mushroom anxiety. My grandfather, for instance, preferred to boil mushrooms until they were safe to eat - in other words, until not much was left out of them. After removing the dirt and pine needles, he would wash them for a few times until the sand no longer came out, then boiled them, poured out the water, poured the clean water in, boiled them again. Rinse, repeat. This caution was understandable, given how many people would venture into the woods, pick up mushrooms excitedly, and would end up in a hospital. This is why we were taught how to recognise poisonous mushrooms early on. The most dangerous mushrooms in Lithuanian forests were fly agaric and they were also the most beautiful ones, easily. Their bright red caps with playful white dots would shine from afar. We also knew they can kill you, so we admired them from afar. There are some easy signs for recognising them, like white dots on the caps, a little skirt around the stem, and a bulb-shape bottom of the mushroom. Now, of course, it's just one poisonous mushroom of many, and, if I may add a public service announcement, please never pick mushrooms that you can't recognise with certainty. As the saying goes, all mushrooms are edible, but some - only once.

Even if you're not too interested in taking mushrooms home, you can look around and observe the fascinating process of symbiosis. Chanterelles tend to grow close to birch trees. Porcini have alliances made with pine trees. They grow in different seasons, chanterelles being some of the first mushrooms to show up in July, once the wild strawberries are over, with porcini following them in August, starting to pop out from moss once the wild blueberries disappear. And even then, when the season is right, when the weather is right - and the weather has to be right, warm enough, without too much sun, wet enough, without too many storms - even then, you have to know the right spots, the places were mushrooms tend to grow. My parents know big chunks of forest and go on highly focused missions. A meadow in between of two birch trees, a leaning pine tree crossing it - that's how specific it gets.

And so it goes, the mushrooms keep growing year after year, the people keep picking them, with care, with respect, for the mushrooms and forests themselves. We did not stop at mushrooms, we left the forest and ventured into the water realm, just as sacred. As we approached a lake and started kicking off our sandals to get ready for a swim, we saw a swift movement in the water, and, lo-and-behold there was a snake making its way through the surface of the water, away from us, likely disturbed by our careless laughter. I am terrified of snakes. But I went into the water just right after it. I knew this lake, I had been swimming here for decades, I knew it would not harm me. And it was not just knowledge of the environment itself, it felt safe, maybe because lakes have been sacred spaces as well, maybe because the Baltic tribes used to keep grass snakes as pets, leaving bowls of milk out for them, so that they would keep visiting their homes. Snakes, as well, were sacred.

And off we went, disturbing the perfect reflection of the clouds with our uneven hand strokes, swimming towards the water lilies, away from the snake (sacredness aside, I am still terrified by them), flipping on the back for a moment just to take it all in. The hay stacks on the other shore of the lake, the blue dragonflies buzzing around my shoulders, the rays of the evening sun hitting my eyelashes and flooding them with warm light, feeling protected even with my eyes closed, by sun, by water, and by the dragonfly army.

Later our trip came to the city, and we experienced the wonders of gothic architecture, Michelin star dining and an art museum telling the story of soviet sexual repression. It was fascinating. It was not sacred. The height of humanity's achievements, the art, the intellect, the sensations, cannot replicate the perfection of a mossy hill with crooked oak trees, of a dark-watered lake with a grass snake wiggling through it. Perfection cannot be created, just observed.

And yet nature finds ways in, mushrooms landing on our plates when my mom cooks them with fresh potatoes and dill from the garden, flowers tangled in my hair, the smoke of dried sage filling the yard at dusk, my body covered by a linen dress, the linen woven from a flax plant, the flax plant that has been grown in these lands for centuries.

In the end, we are parts of the very same nature, wobbling around in fragile meaty bodies, not consciously designed, and hence perfect, and hence sacred, forgetting that sacredness in our wobbles, and rediscovering it occasionally, as the clouds clear up, as we start to not only read about sacredness in nature, but to feel it in the forests and lakes, and when we move one step beyond - understanding that nothing much separates us from forests and lakes, and, one more step further, that the sacredness of humanity lies in its collective being.

Allan Watts once said that:

"If a flower had a God it would not be a transcendental flower but a field - moreover, a field as discussed in physics, an integrated pattern of energy, a field which would not only be flowering, but also earthing, raining, shining, birding, worming and being. A sensitive flower would, through its roots and membranes, feel out into this entire pattern and so discover itself as a particular exultation of the whole field."

So it's not even about the objective reality, but just our ability, or rather, our willingness to sense the connection, to sense the sacredness, and actively choose to treat our environment this way.

So I sow sunflower seeds in a giant pot in my tiny home.

So I sprinkle dried mushrooms into the dinner pot.

So I drop the I, albeit for a moment.