I went into the dark woods today to look for mushrooms. Mycelial threads made visible. Golden chanterelles, lactarias, russulas, waxy caps, corals, spindly fingers burst out of rich moist earth. Not a ghost pipe in sight.
The fungi know who they are and who they are attached to. I feel like a stranger in this land where everyone is related. I feel those connections but cannot name them. This network so mysterious as to be incomprehensible, a living being that stretches across the earth. What branch of fungi evolved here?
And when did the First Peoples, the Ancestors of this land come to live and die under the Mountain Mother’s Stone, wild field grasses, needles, leaves, decaying trees, princess pines, and mosses.
What were the names of these Old Ones who first loved this land? Did I learn from them as well from the trees and animals what the word sacred really meant? Or that scarring did not remove Ancestral Powers?
Maybe what ‘s needed is for someone like me to ask the right question, bow her head in humility and prayer. I am part of a community that stretches across time, but I cannot feel or hear the voices of these human ancestors, the lovers of this land except through dreams and visions. Yet animals, plants, trees, butterflies, and birds often communicate with me beneath words.
The People, the first inhabitants, are a recent addition to stone – hills, fen, streams and forest millions of years strong. Fungi preceded them all – followed by mosses, plants and trees. And then the animals. The People built shelters, found food and medicines, had children, lived in genuine community, made friends with non – human relatives, honored all, listened and learned.
They were taught by the land how to live with one another, respecting difference. Like the fungi they too storied the land.
Oh, how I hunger for those stories of fungi and people to emerge, to teach me more about how to live. Only fragments of the latter survive.
Most of my ancestors came from across the ocean. They may have brought stories, but I did not learn them, perhaps because my relatives only knew how to conquer the land to survive. Power Over, not Love. They brought Guns, not Peace.
I am told that the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Peoples, “People of the Dawnland” also known as the Wabanaki Nation lived throughout the state of Maine and some still do, but who in particular once lived here? I want to say thank you.I only met one Indigenous person, her name was Mollyockett, and she taught me how to teach the Circle Way as I stood on her grave.
