I grew up in a self-sustaining farming community. Seasonal foraging in the woods was part of our food cycle. I honestly don't remember who taught me how to identify mushrooms: which ones are great, which are average, and which I shouldn't touch. Everybody knew these things.

The more time I spent in the forest, the more I realized how essential mushrooms and mycelia are to the very existence of forests, and everything living on earth. They create a network that allows all life to communicate with each other in some way, either trading nutrients, signaling disease and disaster, or recycling dead material into life.