I was surprised by the cold when I got out of my car at De Hoge Venen in Belgium, the place to see a Wolfe looking for mushrooms and wild herbs. I only heard the day before it would be a five hour long walk. I had a bottle of hot green smoothie with me (with nettles and lots of cayenne to keep me warm!), a thermos of hot ginger and black pepper tea and some chocolates I made with lots of maca to stay energized. Five sweaters and a thick raincoat, a pair of cotton stockings and a pair of ski socks, under a warm jeans, two scarves and a pair of rubber boots. I felt like a moon walker but wouldn’t be cold!
We walked in a cloud of fog and misty rain. But it was beautiful. I didn’t see deer and hoped for a lynx, but a Wolfe made it all up. He didn’t stop talking one moment. How could he, with all these people around who wanted to know something about everything. He was barefoot, only wearing flip flops and I bet he was having a hard time walking through ice cold mud and water.
It took a while before we found our first mushrooms. But once we got to the woods we discovered real medicinal beauties on dead trees and birches, where they love settling and growing. I am trying to remember their names all week, still a very annoying leftover of what I went through. But… I now have what I need to feed my brains thoroughly, to activate my neurotransmitters and get just as smart as when before I became ill! I picked enough of them to get an IQ of 160 and make 700 liters of strong, healing tea. It will all come back to me then!
What I do remember is that these species contain neurotransmitters. This would mean that they can communicate to… you and me on a telepathic level. By preparing tea of them they will enter your brain. A lot of mushrooms have the ability to provide you these extremely high medicinal values. You only have to know what you can pick.
I am looking for a good mushroom guide now, because once you get intrigued by them you simply have to know. I know that these examples are all edible but it is just nice to know all about them. Reishi mushrooms for instance will enhance your immunity system and Natural Killers which fight cancers. They deliver improved adrenocortical function, have an anti-allergic activity, prevent you from getting bronchitis, lower high blood pressure, contain many antioxidants and have anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties. The right mushrooms are your free superherbs!
I have been picking a lot of these little Boletus mushrooms and eating them. They taste wonderful. I have been extremely attracted to eating white mushrooms lately. I eat a whole box a day and can’t get enough. When I was looking into a solution to raise my ridiculous low levels of lymphocytes I discovered that you can raise these low levels by… eating white mushrooms! This is how our body is communicating with us; by giving signals of what you need. I thought this was a most amazing observation and I am so glad I followed these signs! My next blood test will have to tell me if they did raise!
Another very important observation is also required if you are picking mushrooms. They tell us everything if we can ‘read’ their language. It is written in their color and substance, their ‘belly’, the little ‘guests’ growing on them. Always be very careful when you get out there. Have a good guide with you, learn from others who know what they are doing, read, study and practice in the wild. Let me show you something.
When you turn a mushroom upside down it will mostly tell you if it is poisoned or not. When they are shaped like this one, they are edible. When they have these little ‘ribs’ underneath, leave them be.
One piece like this will make 10 liters or 340 oz of super tea! Put a piece in cold spring water on the stove and heat it up slowly until 80 °C or 176°F during 45 minutes. You can repeat this ten times with that same piece of dried mushroom before it has released all its nutrients. Dried mushrooms stay good for years if you keep them in a dry place.
Coral mushrooms are the real deal. They are medicinal and true brain food! I was amazed by their beauty and wonderful shapes. Without a guide I would have considered them as extremely poisoned. Now we were told to pick, dry, and consume them to fuel the brain.
I wish I could remember the exact explanation of why trees are always cold… but all I could think off during that story was how his feet could not be!