dudes, Mia and Toby from Kayo dot went mushroom hunting last fall, here's the blog entry
since i've been trying to update my journal on past happenings, here's something exciting (at least to me) that happened back in october: Toby and I found an entire fallen-pine-needle meadow of amanita mushrooms in Western Massachusetts! now i don't know what your stance on mushrooms is, but one of my favorite past times is mushroom-hunting and mushroom identification... it's an extremely adrenaline-releasing, hyperfocused, and visually/stellarly gorgeous sport. i recommend you try it! early autumn is the best time.
here's a little background on the amanita mushroom, better known as the red and white-speckled alice in the wonderland mushroom and also as fly agaric.
fly agaric grows mainly under birch, pine, fir, and spruce trees, living in symbiosis with the roots (i just mention this because i'm in love with symbiotic relationships in general, and also the word "symbiosis" is so fun to say out loud.) this beautiful mushroom has been associated for its shamanistic and magical qualities for over 2000 years. my favorite part about this mushroom is that its main psychoactive compound, muscimol, retains all its chemical properties even after passing through the human digestive system! that means that if you eat the mushroom and then take a piss in a jar, or tupperware, or coffee mug, and your friend then swigs that very piss, your friend will also begin experiencing all the psychoactive effects of fly agaric/muscimol via your muscimol-laced piss. and of course, then that person can pee in a jar/tupperware/coffee mug and pass it on to whomever. it could potentially be endless!
From Wikipedia:" "The active ingredient is excreted in the urine of those consuming the mushrooms, and it has sometimes been the practice for a shaman to consume the mushrooms, and the rest of the tribe to drink his urine: the shaman, in effect, partially detoxifying the drug (the sweat- and twitch-causing muscarine is absent in the urine). If a fly agaric is eaten, it is usually not fresh, but in its sun-dried form, where the hallucinogenic chemicals are more concentrated (ibotenic acid converted to the more stable muscimol)."
no, i don't know if its chemical properties are retained also in the poop, but i'm not going to try that out because poop tastes gaggingly gross. you're welcome to though, of course. please let me know if you plan to or have given that a shot.
p.s. - you're a poop-eating sicko.
anyway, here are some pictures i took of our find: the photographs came out absolutely beautiful. i'm so happy with them. this is the yellow-orange variety, amanita muscaria var. formosa.
i tried to dry out the mushrooms with the intent of consuming them for the first time ever, (don't get me wrong, i'm really no druggie, but i do feel strongly about trying anything once) but after having thought i dried them out completely, i accidently left them in the plastic bag too long and they ended up getting moldy. at least i enjoyed the concept of fungus getting fungus, i guess. no big loss though... i hear the yellow variety that we found actually contains more ibotenic acid (the toxic drool-causing and sweat-causing stuff they mention above in the excerpt) than the red variety and in any case, i think amanitas are readily available for order via the internet if i ever become curious about trying them out again.
as an added treat, we stumbled upon this FAIRY RING!
do you know about fairy rings?? i didn't either, but here's what they are: fairy rings are this mushroom phenomenon where one variety of mushroom all grow in a perfect circle. way back when, it was thought that fairy rings were meeting grounds for all sorts of freaky little people: elves, fairies, dwarves, gnomes, you get the point. it was also thought that if a human walked into the the middle of one and stood there, then eventually the person would start to dance uncontrollably! (this concept has always freaked the shit out of me since i was a child and read that horrific children's story about this selfish little girl that demands to own a certain red pair of shoes. the red shoes then make her dance uncontrollably for years. her feet get all bloodied and bruised and torn up and she's never allowed to rest. finally, she's forced to chop off her feet at the ankles and apologize for having been so selfish, etc.
AHHHHHHHHH!
i know i'm supposed to be terrified of being selfish, but nope, my idiot brain is now terrified of red shoes instead. red boots - okay, but red shoes - no.) anyway, i guess the only way to get the person to stop dancing in the fairy ring was to push them out of it using a large stick.
so despite my fear of uncontrollably dancing, i was curious, so i tried standing in the middle of the fairy ring, waiting for myself to start doing some sort of moonwalking in place a la michael jackson. it never happened though and i was a little bit disappointed, but i'm used to this sort of thing at this point - these things happen. (or don't, rather. or rarely happen.)
there's a picture of me standing in the middle of the fairy ring, but i'm self-conscious that i look like a down's syndromey antelope/gazelle with kneesocks in that particular picture, so instead, here's a picture of the fairy ring without me standing the middle:
mushrooms fucking rule, there's no arguing it.
since i've been trying to update my journal on past happenings, here's something exciting (at least to me) that happened back in october: Toby and I found an entire fallen-pine-needle meadow of amanita mushrooms in Western Massachusetts! now i don't know what your stance on mushrooms is, but one of my favorite past times is mushroom-hunting and mushroom identification... it's an extremely adrenaline-releasing, hyperfocused, and visually/stellarly gorgeous sport. i recommend you try it! early autumn is the best time.
here's a little background on the amanita mushroom, better known as the red and white-speckled alice in the wonderland mushroom and also as fly agaric.
fly agaric grows mainly under birch, pine, fir, and spruce trees, living in symbiosis with the roots (i just mention this because i'm in love with symbiotic relationships in general, and also the word "symbiosis" is so fun to say out loud.) this beautiful mushroom has been associated for its shamanistic and magical qualities for over 2000 years. my favorite part about this mushroom is that its main psychoactive compound, muscimol, retains all its chemical properties even after passing through the human digestive system! that means that if you eat the mushroom and then take a piss in a jar, or tupperware, or coffee mug, and your friend then swigs that very piss, your friend will also begin experiencing all the psychoactive effects of fly agaric/muscimol via your muscimol-laced piss. and of course, then that person can pee in a jar/tupperware/coffee mug and pass it on to whomever. it could potentially be endless!
From Wikipedia:" "The active ingredient is excreted in the urine of those consuming the mushrooms, and it has sometimes been the practice for a shaman to consume the mushrooms, and the rest of the tribe to drink his urine: the shaman, in effect, partially detoxifying the drug (the sweat- and twitch-causing muscarine is absent in the urine). If a fly agaric is eaten, it is usually not fresh, but in its sun-dried form, where the hallucinogenic chemicals are more concentrated (ibotenic acid converted to the more stable muscimol)."
no, i don't know if its chemical properties are retained also in the poop, but i'm not going to try that out because poop tastes gaggingly gross. you're welcome to though, of course. please let me know if you plan to or have given that a shot.
p.s. - you're a poop-eating sicko.
anyway, here are some pictures i took of our find: the photographs came out absolutely beautiful. i'm so happy with them. this is the yellow-orange variety, amanita muscaria var. formosa.
i tried to dry out the mushrooms with the intent of consuming them for the first time ever, (don't get me wrong, i'm really no druggie, but i do feel strongly about trying anything once) but after having thought i dried them out completely, i accidently left them in the plastic bag too long and they ended up getting moldy. at least i enjoyed the concept of fungus getting fungus, i guess. no big loss though... i hear the yellow variety that we found actually contains more ibotenic acid (the toxic drool-causing and sweat-causing stuff they mention above in the excerpt) than the red variety and in any case, i think amanitas are readily available for order via the internet if i ever become curious about trying them out again.
as an added treat, we stumbled upon this FAIRY RING!
do you know about fairy rings?? i didn't either, but here's what they are: fairy rings are this mushroom phenomenon where one variety of mushroom all grow in a perfect circle. way back when, it was thought that fairy rings were meeting grounds for all sorts of freaky little people: elves, fairies, dwarves, gnomes, you get the point. it was also thought that if a human walked into the the middle of one and stood there, then eventually the person would start to dance uncontrollably! (this concept has always freaked the shit out of me since i was a child and read that horrific children's story about this selfish little girl that demands to own a certain red pair of shoes. the red shoes then make her dance uncontrollably for years. her feet get all bloodied and bruised and torn up and she's never allowed to rest. finally, she's forced to chop off her feet at the ankles and apologize for having been so selfish, etc.
AHHHHHHHHH!
i know i'm supposed to be terrified of being selfish, but nope, my idiot brain is now terrified of red shoes instead. red boots - okay, but red shoes - no.) anyway, i guess the only way to get the person to stop dancing in the fairy ring was to push them out of it using a large stick.
so despite my fear of uncontrollably dancing, i was curious, so i tried standing in the middle of the fairy ring, waiting for myself to start doing some sort of moonwalking in place a la michael jackson. it never happened though and i was a little bit disappointed, but i'm used to this sort of thing at this point - these things happen. (or don't, rather. or rarely happen.)
there's a picture of me standing in the middle of the fairy ring, but i'm self-conscious that i look like a down's syndromey antelope/gazelle with kneesocks in that particular picture, so instead, here's a picture of the fairy ring without me standing the middle:
mushrooms fucking rule, there's no arguing it.
