A Wishing Forest and Other Magic at Work

Mindful Wanderer #1

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With this post, I’m starting a new theme: the Mindful Wanderer.

The mindful wanderer walks the trails through forests, across pastures, along mountain streams, hopping over stones and tree roots furrowing the path — and takes something back home: a twig, a pebble stone, and sometimes an insight.

You will find nature in these posts, sometimes a highlight on a particular trail, and always a reflection that the trail brought home. The posts will be very visual, with a bit of luck sometimes auditory, too.

Did I tell you the Black Forest is magic?

The forest itself, that is.

I’d read about mushroom gathering, and seen pictures of mushrooms, vivid and inviting. Hiking through the mossy forest, I wondered, will I be seeing any?

As a child, I spent summer holidays in the countryside. My grandma’s house was propped up against a steep hillside, all bushy and wooded. The wilderness started in our back garden.

Mother took me sometimes, “let’s see if we find any mushrooms for a stew.”

The excitement was great, but the disappointment almost equally so. “It hasn’t rained enough,” or “the villagers must have been here first,” it went. We got back with five skinny mushrooms, the caps often chipped off at the edge, each a different sort. Grandma would chuckle, then laugh: “what do you want me to do with these?”

Mushrooms were, therefore, a precious, rare find.

So my expectations were very low when I wondered if I’d be lucky enough to come across any pretty mushrooms on my hike. It wasn’t as if I was going to do any search, as my mum and I had done back then. Walking down your path, without straying into the thicket, and hoping to see mushrooms conveniently growing on the side?

And then, I saw a pale flicker down the path, just off the trail, sunken in the green moss. I hurried towards it, bent and smiled. I took a photo¹. Lovely.

But it was a solitary one. Nothing else that I could see around.

I knew, mushrooms were a rare find; I’d already got lucky to come across this pretty little thing. A bit squashed on the side, its cap a fading red.

“Please, let me see more of them, vigorous, unchipped, and a full red. Let me see their beauty,” a voice whispered inside, me asking the woods.

There were not so many words, just the gist. I trusted the forest would get it.

I walked away. At least I had that one photo.

A short while later, they started to crop up.

You’d think, a beaten trail like the one I was on, premium and five-star ratings – how could fragile things like mushrooms grow along the path? No boots squashing them, no dogs scooping them with the paws, no picking to examine and dump to rot back into soil?

And yet, here they were, flanking my path like little red lamp posts.

And then some more. Clusters. Families with baby red-caps.

The forest was responding. It was granting me the wish.

I took dozens of photos. I bent over them, camera aside, and watched them amazed. I’m not a kid anymore, I’ve walked on this earth for over five decades, but I’d never seen this wonder.

Not sure if the mushrooms are part of the forest’s magic in the Black Forest; maybe they are plain to see elsewhere on this lovely planet. But that was a magical moment for me.

Another time, I’d been walking for over three hours, up and down and across, hopping over stones on the bottom of mountain creeks, stepping over tree roots crossing the path.

I was tired. I still a full hour ahead, and then the long drive back home, another hour and a half at least. I was getting hungry, and lunch was still so far ahead.

“Well,” I thought, “I’m not going to die from a little hunger.”

Coming out of the forest into a glade, stray farmhouses just a short way off, I saw a wooden barrel: a drinks hut, for sure. For tired hikers like me.  I still had water in my flask, but a fruit soda might do my hunger some good.

(I wrote here about the drinks stations in the Black Forest and the funny names and sizes they come in.)

I went up to the hut, opened the door, and – there it was: homemade marble cake and blueberry muffins, laid out between the bottles of soda and beer.

You might say I’m rambling, but it was as if a tiny voice whispered, “this is for you, until you get home.”

No, no voice, actually. A sense. That I was being meant. Chance, too, but a meaningful one. The forest responded.

I grabbed a slice of cake and a muffin, dropped the coins in the tin box, and looked up towards the farmhouse nearby: “god bless you, and have a peaceful Sunday,” I thought aloud.

One gets drinks from a drinks hut. That’s why the name.

I never came, on other hikes, across a hut that offered food. Handmade, too.

Non-expert tips and tricks to get your wishes come true

Does the universe align to our wishes, as populists of self-reflection claim? If only we wish with all our heart, they say.

Not exactly, I believe.

Here go the endless misconceptions of what it is we expect the universe may grant: obsessing, chasing shadows, feverish mantra repetition, dismissing all else that doesn’t fit in our tunnel vision.

Still, a little magic can work, I think. But we’ve got to be in a forest to wish for mushrooms, and it’s got to be autumn.

I think it’s also got to do with the nature of the wish. Forget about

oh, let the lights be green by the time I get to the junction,

or

let it be sunny for the trip I’m going on,

or even

make him read that text and understand the truth.

You’ve got to be wandering in the space beneath the this-and-that, and see if a wish disentangles itself from the bushes. The wish must be nature’s to give. You need to be within that space if you are asking it for a wish; it’s a fabric you need to be woven in for the fabric to ripple in response.

If you haven’t got a forest nearby (I know, I’m so lucky!), make that wish in a forest of your own. A place, an inner place, where you can have that deep, if just momentary, encounter.

Engage with it, make the moment be about the two of you, and it may work.

Also, do it with honesty. Make a real wish, not a test to say gotcha at the end. Not to get some proof.

Don’t use many words. Those wishes come on a whisper in your heart. Don’t explain. Don’t expand. Don’t seek for synonyms. Don’t repeat it in the hope to persuade.

Acknowledge it when it happens. Say thank you.

Afterwards, don’t speechify on it. Don’t preach, or explain how it works. Don’t brag about it. Keep it between the two of you.

It’s your secret find.

The others must get their own.

And don’t abuse it. Do it again only when the time is right, and the need is there.

I know, others may tell you this is nonsense. Sheer coincidences. You’re being mystical, superstitious, esoteric. Dabbling in the occult and rubbish.

But shhh, nobody’s watching nor listening in. It’s your magic forest.

1. All photos made by Zoe.