Though the Equinox has not yet arrived, the land has already turned toward Autumn. The torrential downpour last night, which continued through today, feels like a definitive marker. I won’t be surprised to see fungal and bryophyte flushes while out exploring in the next couple of days. I’ll be in the Peninsula all of next week, a part of Victoria I’ve yet to discover, so I’m eager to see how the region responds to the watering.
There will be hot days ahead, of course. That’s the beauty of the mushroom and moss world: they react and retract so quickly to the fluctuating commands of the weather gods.
It has been dry since last Spring. Many times over the past six months, I’ve found myself in the woods, paralysed and close to tears while foraging for bryophytes for Koda Moss. Not because I couldn’t find specimens for the market, but because the forest itself was visibly suffering. I’ve never seen so many yellowed, shed leaves scattered across the floor in all my fifteen years of trekking the pine forests of Southwest Victoria and the wet sclerophyll edges where mosses thrive.
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been counting down the days to the Autumn Equinox, as if I were little Emrah again, waiting for Santa. What excites me most are the first flushes of Amanita muscaria. Its red and white form against pine bark is striking, steeped in lore. Some believe the story of Santa originates from Amanita, from its colours to the rituals of the Winter Solstice where it was said to induce visions. Maybe that is where the magic comes from. I picture a plump bushman lying among pine needles after a strong Amanita tea, hallucinating a sleigh drawn by flying deer, while in reality he is rolling about under the trees as real deer watch in bewilderment.
It feels like a lifetime since weather like this has graced us. I don’t mind if the forest takes its time to recover. I know it will. Until then I’ll be out there cheering it on, hugging coniferous totems, spreading the good word of the forest gods. Nature’s missionary. I’m welcoming a shift in the seasons this year, if not the next.
I had promised myself I’d chase the Sun in 2025, to escape the city’s Winter gloom. Yet something calls me to stay and truly experience a wild Winter. Cold hands wrapped around hot mugs. The scent of eucalyptus smoke. Hours by the fire journaling. Rain hammering on the Hilux roof as I sit inside, peering through the windscreen at Christmas trees swaying while the wind bellows deep in the woods.
I’ll be out there, foraging or not, because I owe it to myself to be present this year. Too often I’ve set out with Koda Moss in mind, only to be overwhelmed by demand, close to tears, wishing others could be here with me. Wishing they could experience what it truly means to stumble upon the forest’s whimsical offerings.
I’ll admit this is of my own making. In the age of social media marketing, where story is product and product is just a token of what people yearn to be, I’ve let observers down. Worse still, I have yearned to be the same thing. And though I’m living it, I still get caught in imposter syndrome.
So I won’t make promises I cannot keep. Not to myself, not to the market. The demand for these pioneering Carbon Killers is only growing, but I will not pillage the forests to feed other people’s hunger. I’ll keep going at my own pace, as I have for five years. Sharing what I can, when I can. Always placing myself first, so I can simply exist in nature as I had always intended.
I don’t need to chase the Sun this year.
Let the rains return. Let the earth swell with orange, green, and red. Let the forest breathe without my imposition.
And let me breathe without imposing on myself.
Let me step aside and allow the truth to move without friction. Through me, not because of me.
In the woods I’ll be. Socks damp, fingers combing moss, the scent of eucalyptus smoke clinging to my clothes. Learning again what it means to belong to a place rather than take from it.
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