Leela

Foraging, Fungus, and Oneness

Contents and Excerpts

Are you sure you want to do this?

Mushroom hunting can kill you. It can kill who you think you are. It can kill what matters to you. You could be left with nothing: nothing to worry about, nothing to lose.

This book covers how to forage for wild mushrooms, and more importantly, why. Foraging is the key to enlightenment, the passport to peace on earth. And it’s a whole lotta fun.

Foraging makes life into an Easter egg hunt. You find that there is plenty for everyone. You feel safe enough to be openhearted. You are no longer ruled by fear.

Just off the eaten path, beneath the thin veneer of civilization, lies a benevolent universe. In the real world, we find the ultimate in home-land security. We see that the nightmare we’ve created is only a dream. We may have left The Garden, but The Garden has never left us.

Humanity has an Eden disorder, and nothing reveals it more than fungi. Wild mushrooms are no harder to tell apart than vegetables in the store. We’ve been eating them for five million years BC (Before Costco). And the only field guide we’ve ever needed is one with two legs.

With over 900 pages, 1000 illustrations, and countless anecdotes collected over thirty years, Leela brings find dining to a starving world. Foraging is a treasure hunt, for even if you come home empty-handed, you are still fed. That’s because the real takeaway is never in the basket. When you forage, it’s not just the food that’s wild and free.

To forage is to rediscover leela, “divine play.” Life ceases to be a struggle, a battle for control. Pleasure, leisure, joy, and compassion all come naturally when we cast off the competitive mindset of a domination-based culture. Going back to nature, we go back to our true nature as loving beings. We welcome the world with open arms, and we find that it has been waiting for us all this time: for us to come home.

 

Alan Muskat, stand-up alchemedian and fungal fugleman, is the founding director of No Taste Like Home, the largest foraging education organization in the world.

I can’t decide if this book is more packed with wisecracks or wisdom, but I’d recommend it for either one.

Dr. Andrew Weil

Alan has a wonderful personality, and he is a great mycologist!

Paul Stamets (Fantastic Fungi)

Alan Muskat takes us back to where we came from: to Nature, the world of earth and water and plants, and also to our own true nature.

As Muskat shows, we can be civilized human beings, living in a complex technological culture, and remain connected with our roots at the same time. Having lost that connection is the source of much illness; re-establishing it is a path to health.

Dr. Gabor Maté, author, The Myth of Normal

If you must limit yourself to only one foraging book this year, choose this one by Alan Muskat. He’s like family. I wouldn’t trust anyone else. After all, if you can’t trust family, how did you get this far?

Gary Lincoff, author, Audubon Guide to North American Mushrooms

innovative, innervating, and informative

Dr. James Duke, author, The Green Pharmacy

delightfully conveys the joy and enthusiasm of hunting wild mushrooms

Leon Shernoff, editor, Mushroom, The Journal

very readable, especially for newbies

Britt Bunyard, editor, FUNGI

very interesting… a great interpretation

Dr. Tom Volk, mycologist

incredibly well written… has everything a new forager needs to know

Aurelia Kennedy, founder, Nantahala Outdoor Center

well-written, clever, informative and entertaining; I laughed out loud…

Deborah Morgenthal, Editor in Chief, Lark Books

brings a quick, constant humor and accessibility to a fascinating subject.

Michael Metivier, editor, Chelsea Green Publishing

friendly, thorough and entertaining… so much more than a field guide. Written in such a charming manner… accessible to a large range of people with different backgrounds. I love everything, including the illustrations. The best I’ve read yet.

Kimberley Cameron, literary agent

wonderful material… very clever! I am mightily impressed.

Lisa Ekus, literary publicist

I cannot begin to express how phenomenal this book is. It’s nutritional, political, comical, spiritual… it’s more multi-faceted than a diamond.

Rosiland Whiteley, RN

This is the book I’ve been dreaming of since the moment Alan first plugged me into the “woods wide web.” Every page captures the mushroom guru Alan is, the Lorax who speaks for the fungi. One of my most delightful memories is of Alan reciting mushroom poetry in the pouring rain, and this book brings that moment to life.

Whitney Dane, Chef

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