August Moon, 2015: Que Será, Será, Part 2: The Mushroom Moon Shrine

Mushroom Moon Shrine, 2015.
Que Será, Será

Que Será, Será

Whatever will be, will be.

Things do not always go as we wish. 
Things cannot always be explained. 
Things are often beyond our control.

The Esbat found our family very ill with the annual/inaugural first-of-the-schoolyear plague. This must be how we celebrate, or something. Somehow I missed that memo. 

Because I am the mother, I always go down last. It is the unspoken rule that we mothers will remain well until the rest of the brood is on the mend, then we will succumb. This makes me very leery of a zombie apocalypse as I do not relish being one of the last left standing. It also left me the one in the clutches of an achy, phlegmy disaster as the Esbat arrived. 

Flying in the face of ritual illness & bioregional changes, we managed to drag our sorry team into the forest to perform our annual procession through an equally sorry neighborhood of fungi. 

On this trip, my husband wandered astray to leave an offering of steel cut oats at the site of the Gyrfalcon's (Falco rusticolus) decay site. It is curious, the things that stay with us, move & motivate us as reflective critters. While I cannot bear to revisit that spot, he makes a point to return there with some regularity.

State of the shrine site upon our arrival. 

At the end of our procession, we arrived at the site of the Mushroom Moon Shrine & began our ceremonious assembly of this idiosyncratic offering of gratitude. Our basket contents looked like we had made a lackluster attempt to find assemblage supplies. A scant few withered fungi inadequately littered the bottoms of our compact wooden baskets. Yet, this was not for lack of effort, it was for lack of fungi. 

In my cold-suppressant haze, I left my purse behind at the house. This found me without my drinking water, pencil, poetic resources, or my consecrated mushroom knife adding to the general feeling of lacking that the circumstances already provided. At least I had found the presence of mind to bring supplementary offerings from home -- dried Amanita muscaria caps, fuchsia blossoms, rose petals & the Papaver pods from 2013's devotional garden. 

I stood for a moment resisting despondency. Then, in my mind came the voices of Takashi & Matsuko Yamada from Isao Takahata's "My Neighbors the Yamadas" singing Que Será, Será. In the film, the song follows a protracted wedding speech by Takashi which, to the momentary horror of the entire wedding reception, highlights the futility of human existence. Somehow he manages to turn it around at the end into a statement on the power of human relationships & from there he & his wife Matsuko launch into a not entirely talented rendition of the song. 

I decided to wander further while the rest of the family worked with what was in the baskets & in my sense of absurdity, I considered cuing up the Yamadas' performance. But, as is the way of the internet, my search bought me something very different. Doris Day. As if handed to me with a smirk by some ironic, virtual hipster, there it was. And I had to laugh at this terribly out of context music as I followed the path further, dodging into the brush from time to time in the hopes of... something. 

Less than halfway into the song, I heard what I thought at first was Ravens recoiling at Doris Day & her child-populated chorus's saccharine vibes. But turning down the sound, I realized that what I was hearing was something I had never heard before...

Who are these birds? Cranes? Herons? There's a message here (at least one): don't forget to look beyond where you spend most of your time. For me, this means get my face out of the duff & look up from time to time. It also means don't bring Doris Day into the forest, she doesn't belong there. Nor does the internet in general.

I reckon it also means that there are other treasures to be cherished, not just the ones you think you want.

But first you need to discover & know them.

I went back the family that I treasure -- all of whom were clucking over the large, long-necked flock of birds which had circled the area & then continued on their journey. The shrine looked pretty nice, despite the scant resources & general withered nature of everything. Perhaps it is really the heart, intention & Love put into a creation that engenders true beauty.

Shrine with Papaver pods from 2013's devotional garden
bound with a strand from my Summer Solstice belt. 

Message of gratitude
carved in a Birch Polypore (Piptoporus betulinus)

Message of gratitude carved in a
young Tinder Polypore (Fomes Fomentarius). 

Message of surrender on birch bark --
in purple sharpie. Because that's all we had.

Eyelash cups (Scutellinia scutellata)

Desiccated Rosy russula (Russula rosea)

 

 

Que Será, Será...

And yes, despite it all, we are most grateful.

Another Year, Another Mushroom Moon Shrine. (As all beneath the Moon decays...)

Mushroom Moon Shrine, 2014. This year's was in miniature.

A whirlwind of days have passed. Birthdays, guests, gatherings, travels & fungi, of course. But the Decay Moon's happenings shall not be left unmentioned:

We began our procession around the lakeside trail, baskets in hand as usual, not knowing how this project will manifest (also, as usual). Ours is an improvisational process driven by cues fed to us -- in the moment -- by the forest floor.

This is our tradition.

Miniature, in vivid colour was the theme we were assigned. 

A vibrant, bijou ornament collected for the shrine.

And we processed -- unfortunately with some sadness & disruption due to the loss of a familiar feathered face on this tour -- in time, completing our collections & arriving at our traditional site with baskets ready to begin arranging the assemblage. 

Baskets readied for the Mushroom Moon Shrine composition.

The boys worked together steadily & carefully -- a remarkable thing given their knack for disagreement -- as I wrote the words of this day on a piece of birch bark. 

"I know that all beneath the Moon decays..."

And when it was complete, we had three layers of teeny micro landscapes. An almost unremarkable view from afar,

But increasing nearness & changing angles,

Allowed for a peek into a variety of small, fanciful, fungal worlds...

And as I looked upon another year's shrine, I reflected on the variations from year to year; the changing availability of various fungi, the tasks & roles assumed by various family members, the different outcomes... I also wondered how we will adapt when the time comes to find a new location for this shrine. It will not last forever. Like everything else under the Moon, it too shall decay.

Remember-Who-You-Are-Moon: Another Mushroom Moon Shrine. Cultivating Tradition.

"The Moon now rises..."

True traditions take time to develop.
We cannot get them from someone else's book.
They are organic & take on a life of their own...


The Wheel still turns. How do we know? Traditions. Once again we found ourselves constructing a Mushroom Moon Shrine. How quickly the helix that is Time winds & unwinds.

Traditions.
We breathe life into them from our spirits, with our hearts.

All the signs were auspicious. All the signs were just right. We entered the dripping forest, rubber-clad to find one welcome after another. Old friends, new friends. Just right.


"Welcome to the forest," they whispered...

Artillery, or Cannonball Fungi with Moose dung & the loyal dime.

"...the rich, fertile, viscosity of fruit & decay awaits..."

Fungi & slime. Auspicious indeed.

Something new, long anticipated emerges from the duff. Auspicious.

Hydnum umbilicatum, the Sweet Tooth or,
perhaps Hydnum repandum, the Hedgehog Mushroom.
Hooray, either way.

Old friends arise...

Amanita muscaria. One among thousands.

...& rise to epic proportions. Playfully auspicious.

A. muscaria tabletops.
Befuddlingly large & abundant this year.
(The camera is a healthy SLR size.)

We arrive at our shrine site. As before, it is just right...

& still with remains of last year's shrine,

Last year's Aritst's conk (Ganoderma applanatum).

& again with the fruit of the Wolf's Milk. So auspicious.

Wolf's Milk Slime.
Keeping with Tradition.

We get to our work & this time, this time no mess, no fuss. Hubby is with us & the Changeling nods off & the result makes my heart sing & I gasp & squeal like a suckling pig. We are all smiles in the drip, drip, drip of the weeping treetops. 

This is all for Her...

...& all of them 
& Them 
& ourselves 
& you.

This is the bud of Tradition.

The Wheel has turned, Tradition tells us. "The Moon now rises to Her absolute rule..." (H. D. Thoreau)

Mushroom (Blue) Moon Shrine Mess

The best laid plans of mycophiles & Moma...

Well I had big dreams for a Blue Moon Mushroom shrine, or "Art for the Blue Moon!" as I referred to it to the children. But mushroom handling becomes a complex & frenetic process when chaos muppets are participating... in the rain. Collecting fungi for art is not the same as collecting fungi for food. Most of the food fungi are tough, robust beasties. The pretties, not so much. We kept the bears away with shouts; "Ack! Drop that!" "No, don't crush it!" "Aw, look... poor thing." "It's a stalk, where's the cap?" "Oh, no, no, no... I really wanted that one!" & the eternal, "Gah! That's disgusting! Did you put that in your mouth?!?"

The plan was to gather a foundational collection as we searched for the perfect "altar." This went rather well, so my hopes were very high... inflated, perhaps. I figured that after setting up the initial array, we could fan out & gather more & more mushrooms to create what I described as a grand "mushroom bouquet for the Moon." 

The altar was perfect. Completely. We found a South-facing "table-top" created by a split tree -- visible from Lady Moon's arc across the sky. Perfect. It even had an overhang to protect from the constant drizzle. Perfect. Confirmation of this altar's meant-to-be-ness was given by the presence of a positively perfect Porcini (Boletus edulis) -- a member of my familiar's clan -- manifesting itself there near the foot of the altar. If that wasn't enough, Little Lad spied a single orb of Wolf's Milk Slime (Lycogala epidendrum) in the moss on the altar base. More than perfect? My head exploded.

A Mycophile's Moon Shrine.

But.

Then the rain began falling in earnest & soon it came down in sheets (see photo) & there I was, arranging fungi & herding cats, soaking wet in the forest. Well, not me, but the children = wet. I would have worked much longer, much, much longer, cozy in my Alaskan fisherman's gear, but the wee folk were ill-prepared. Very ill-prepared. Thoroughly saturated, cold & crazed they ran around in the sphagnum pulling up fungi, slipping & tripping on the way to the altar. Shattered gills & stalks everywhere.

Finally, tragedy struck when Little Lad slipped on the moss at the base of the shrine & fell on the Wolf's Milk. The slime was utterly devastated. The Changeling, now wrapped in other people's semi-dry clothing was turning that peculiar red-blue hue that babes get when they are cold. Little Lad was utterly unconsolable, choking down sobs, he hopelessly searched for I don't know what, more slime? So I called it. 

Completing the shrine & accepting our limitations, I placed my Moon-doodled (with a plastic fork) Artist's Conk (Ganoderma applantum) & the Blue Moon egg on the altar. We muttered something -- or not -- packed up the baskets, wet clothing & snapped a photo or two. I paused for a moment & lamented not photographing the Wolf's Milk earlier. Then I remembered that it's not about me. It's not about perfection. It's about us, it's about honouring the often imperfect beauty of us All, the Whole. Sometimes, oftentimes, it's the thought that counts. 

Mycophile Moon Shrine with plastic-fork-doodled Artist Conk. 

I think She probably liked it, foibles & all.