False turkey tails.

Welcome to my world of mushrooms!

I regularly hunt, gather, and process the mushrooms covered in this course. My focus is on medicinal mushrooms and common edible mushrooms that are easy to identify with warnings about look alike. However, safety is vital. Proper identification is critical when foraging. The best way to learn identification is in-person with an experienced forager. So watch for foraging workshops with me in the spring, or look for someone in your area. I don't recommend learning on your own or relying on apps or social media. I've seen too many people ready to eat plants or mushrooms that weren't correctly identified. Don't make yourself sick. Don't die.

This course is designed to give you the most important information: safety, how to find mushrooms whether outdoors or in the marketplace, and thoughts on sustainability from the wider community of foragers.

At the same time I'm obsessed with folklore and folk medicine so everything I talk about will be punctuated with thoughts and quotes about magic, fairies, and the quest for visionary experiences. Although most people think there are only a few mushrooms and plants that elicit visions, I find that all plants and mushrooms are psychoactive. It's a matter of learning to listen to your body and to the ways in which the plants and mushrooms shift the spirit-mind-body.

Podia

The platform used for this course is called Podia. To login into the course, you just need to go to www.trilliumcenter.org (if you leave out the www, you might be directed to my old blog) and look for the login button in the top right corner. If you have an account, just click on login to sign in with your password; otherwise, follow the prompts to create your account.

Once you are signed in, the login button will be replaced with a round icon that probably has your initials or the first letter of the email you used to sign in. Click on this to adjust settings such as adding a photo, changing how your name appears, and how often you want to receive notifications. Then just click on the course title to access the course materials.

Dryad's saddle.

Getting Started

The first week of the course, you'll get lessons on strategies for learning how to safely forage wild mushrooms and tips on sourcing mushrooms from reputable businesses.

Every other week meet a new mushroom with a description of the mushroom's appearance, favorite places to grow, beneficial qualities, chemical constituents, warnings on identification and use. Each mushroom profile will include photos, specific uses, and the medicinal actions and energetics along with some tidbits from the latest research into their benefits. Plus, my favorite part, learn about the mystical associations and my fairy speculations. More than anything I want you to enjoy the magic, the lore, and the possibilities of creating new stories about mushrooms.

With each mushroom comes a technique for using mushrooms in the kitchen and the apothecary. I'll be sharing cooking techniques with my favorite recipes and techniques for creating medicinal preparations. As much as possible, I will provide detailed instructions.

Make this course interactive by using the COMMENTS section at the bottom of each section. You can post questions, observations, photos of mushrooms, and photos of your experiments. To post a photo, insert a link or video, or change the formatting of your comments, just click the slash key / and a menu will pop up. Speaking of photos, all of the photos in this course are mine, unless there is a caption indicating otherwise. I generally borrow photos from Wikimedia Commons (click the photo to see the origin) where I often upload and share my own photos. If you want to use one of my photos, please give me credit.

You will have access to this course for a whole year! So stay in touch, post photos of your finds, and use that time to learn more by asking questions.

Happy hunting!

Leah Wolfe