Presents

Great Brook Farm State Park, Massachusetts 

A visit to the woods at this time of year is a sleepy affair. 

The energy, mostly buried in the soil, has found the release
  through the twists and turns of frozen surfaces, and
    the cracking sounds,

   mushroom blooms, rippling reflections, and crisp breaths.
    
  For the eyes, the ears, and the soul... 

Early Delights

Charles W. Ward Reservation, Massachusetts

The woods are soaked, waiting for all those to be awakened...
  And then we stumble upon the colony of mushrooms, already up and running...
 
  ... so beautiful... Why? All they need for dispersal of their spores is wind...  

All This Rain

Great Brook Farm State Park, Massachusetts
 
Lots of rain lately... bright greens all over the woods.
 Countless mushrooms in different shapes and colors. The flowers of the masters of mycelium networks
   by which trees connect and form the living organism we name FOREST.
       The signatures of well being...

    ... and it is good to know that all is well here...  

After Rain

Fresh Pond, Cambridge, Massachusetts

It rained last night... the football field is sprinkled with mushrooms...
   ... I enjoy these hats poking through grasses...  flowers of the fungal underworld...
   ... or, as Stephan Harding calls IT,  the forgotten kingdom...

Fungi are all around us, they are everywhere. In some habitats, says Harding, such as forest soils, fungal biomass often reaches 90% of the combined biomass of microorganisms such as bacteria and other small animals. They are responsible for recycling, they deliver food to the weak, and maintain health of the forest.

Fungi have been HERE much longer than plants and animals. And, in partnership with bacteria, they have created conditions for this lavish and ornate world we call nature... thus,

... we must pay them due honour, for without their secret labours there would be no forests, no grasslands, no heathlands, no savannahs, nor any of the great animals that roam in those wild realms. Without fungi, the earth's land surfaces would be nothing more than exposed rocks...

STEPHAN HARDING, Animate Earth

... as I stand amongst them, I wonder if they can sense my footsteps... and my thoughts...

Mushrooming

Lusitania Woods, Fresh Pond, Cambridge, Massachusetts

... this tree has been dead for a few years... does not get to be seen until one steps closer... and a community of mushrooms shows up in full view... thriving on these cold winter days, while all others are sleeping...
   ... I can almost hear them: Hey, you Sleepers, what a marvelous time to be awake...
   ... and the tree comes alive...