THE MYCOLOGY OF DESIRE -- REPOSER

If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there--
     Lewis Carroll

The Road Home

Futures

Back home in the Charente, I'm "scribbling futures on oak leaves", like the Cumaean sibyl, Amalthaea, who as legend has it, "lurked about in a cave on the Phlegraean Fields".  How one lurks about in a cave is another mystery! " The Fields are part of a caldera of a volcano that is the twin of Mount Vesuvias, the destroyer of Pompeii. The volcano last erupted in 1538 and is still active, though most of the crater is now under water.  The land portion that is still accessible is a barren, rubble-strewn plateau with fire bursting from rocks, and clouds of sulphurous gas snaking out of vents that lead up from deep underground."

Baiae and the Bay of Naples, painted by J.M.W. Turner in 1823

Amalthaea, once young and beautiful caught the eye of Apollo, who offered her one wish in exchange for her virginity.  Amalthaea didn't know that old genie in the bottle gag and she got tricked-- asking for a year of life for each particle in a pile of dust, but forgetting the all important "ageless youth" clause; thus she aged, but could not die. "Virgil depicts her  scribbling the future on oak leaves that lay scattered about the entrance to her cave and states that the cave itself concealed an entrance to the underworld."* (Thanks to Janet Berres, HP, from the Italy Tarot Tour, who told us about the wonderful Smithsonian magazine article which goes into great detail around the mystery of the Tunnels at Baiae). 

I've always been intrigued by the reading of tea leaves, though I've never seen any visions in the bottom of my teacup.  Oak leaves on the other hand offer a unique challenge which I'm working on.  But in Paris I did my readings with cards and since I've been back, I've been musing over whether there is much difference in the questions and concerns of urban dwellers and country folk.  The  answer is a resounding "NO".  It's all about belonging and desire.  Where do I belong?  Who do I belong to? What do I desire?  What does the future hold?  Where is my true home?

Home

Paris seems so far away now, though it's only a jot over two hours on that fast fast train. Les nouvelles on the street is that by 2016, it will be faster still: an hour+change.  That's TOO fast, not even enough time to read a third of The New Yorker!  Made it home before the turning of the season--in time to collect apples, walnuts, Coing (Quince)-- now lusting after the Kaki (persmmons) in the orchard, which may not ripen till late in December.  It will be a race to beat the birds, squirrels and every other critter with a sweet tooth, to the precious orbs.

Kaki - Persimmons

Back Forty

Cepes we gathered in the Forest

Amanita Muscaria - Magic Mushrooms

It was a bonus Cepe fall;  I used them in omelets, barley soup, souffles and simply sauteed. The dishes were fragrant & intoxicating, with the deep scent of earthly goods.  On our last foray into the forest, one rainy afternoon, we stumbled upon the red spotted Amanita Muscaria.  There were dozens and dozens everywhere, a fairyland.  I felt as if I had stepped "Through the Looking Glass" and was being chased by the Mad Hatter, yet again!  Only later did I learn that Lewis Carroll had written "Alice in Wonderland" after experimenting with the Amanitas.

"Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table:  she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words "EAT ME" were beautifully marked in currents, 'Well, I'll eat it, said Alice, and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key, and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door:  so either way I'll get into the garden and I don't care what happens!"
 "Which Way, Which Way?" Alice cried...

YES, I was tempted to try those magic mushrooms, after all, WHO doesn't want to change their size and fool around with the tyranny of time?!  Ahhh, but then I read about "Alice in Wonderland" syndrome, also known as Todds's symdrome or Lillipuitian Hallucinations--a disorienting neurological disorder that affects perception, distorts size and other sensory modalities.  One sufferer said people appeared to be no bigger than his index finger. I think Jonathan Swift may have been hitting on those mushrooms too. "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid Sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see."  "I don't see, " said the Caterpillar.  

The 13th c. fresco on the left is from Plaincourault Abbey in France and depicts Adam and Eve with a stylized Tree of Life, interpreted by some as Amanita Muscaria.

I will confine myself to using them as an insecticide which is what the Europeans learned in the Middle Ages. Anamita Muscaria's common name is "Fly Agaric". You crush the mushrooms in a saucer of milk, attracting the flies--they become stupefied and drown. What a way to go!

In Paris, I  missed the way the sky kisses the earth here.

Charras

Fortified 12th c. Eglise

I missed the cows, sheep, goats and my mean donkey friend on the way to Rauzet.  They all seem to be in a state of "repose"-- from the Old French, "Reposer", Late Latin, "repausare", to cause to rest--I like that--as though inside the animals, the onset of winter is causing them to lose their natural vigilance, relaxing & resting between the beats of fall and winter.  There is a hush across the landscape that reminds me of the french phrase "un ange passe"- an angel passes, which is what the french say when there is a sudden silence.

Eventide

Misty morning walk near Marthon, gauzy spider zip lines all over the fields, delightful smell of gum resin from the Black Spruce trees. The Native Americans turned the resin into chewing gum--natural, unsweetened--which is probably why Tonto had such great teeth.  Kevin told me he had a guitar once with a Spruce soundboard...a tree with a lot of res-onance. 

Cow Poem - Kim Mott, Idaho artist, poet, dreamer

Forest Cow

Doumerac Sheep

Mad because I ran out of apples!

No choice but to rest

Where I belong

A Queen in her Garden

THE HOUSE OF BELONGING
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.

               David Whyte



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