Perhaps not a particularly useful comment here, but I remember when I first walked into the PNW forest here I couldn’t identify any plants. I certainly wouldn’t try to eat anything. It all just seemed like “plants”. Some plants had pokey leaves. Some had round leaves. Some were toxic. Some were edible, but they all looked like plants to me.
After spending hours and hours and years and years hiking, sitting, drawing, and observing, I now can identify most plants found in the PNW forest. I know what’s edible and not. I don’t remember really studying exactly to figure them out, just observing mostly, and eventually beginning to recognize similarities and differences.
I’m also learning mushrooms, and I’m realizing that if I get hung up on identification, too cerebral, I get overwhelmed and terrified of their potentially toxic nature. What if I make a mistake! Mushrooms are highly complex beings, and they are calling to me as important at this time. I have to remember my Druidic roots, if you will, to listen to them in the same way that the plants talk.
It’s kind of like walking into a room full of strangers and seeing a bunch of faces vs. walking into a group of friends or family members. You certainly wouldn’t mistake your Aunt Betty for Uncle Tim, but in a room full of strangers, perhaps you might mistake or misremember.
Anyway, as I’m learning mycology, I feel better realizing that there was a time I didn’t know a huckleberry from a salal. LOL. This lets me just observe, be at peace, and listen with that Awen spirit that Druids are so famous for. In the meantime, I found a great site yesterday called Cascadia mushrooms and I’m gonna experiment with the more edible and known varieties that way. For now, I’m only on an observation basis in the wild world.