A Real Life Tale of Battle With Unseen Forces

[Guest guest]

A Real Life Tale of Battle With Unseen Forces

4-515 Adelaide St,

Berhampore, New Zealand

http://www.helladelicious.com/articles/methods-of-mycelia/

They are all around, in the air I breathe, colonizing my mucous

membranes and forming mycelia through my brain and nervous system. My

skin crawls with their prick, first on my temple, then my cheek, now

my forehead. A tick has developed beneath my right eye, my heart

races one moment and slows the next. Loki sits across the room

sneezing in furious bouts every few minutes. His eyes are red and

running, his breathing harsh and labored. We are both lethargic and

uninspired, our brains foggy, unable to focus or to make decisions.

As we twitch and gasp, the night deepens and the air seems to close

in–oppressive; full of unseen spores and myco-toxins.

Loki and I had recently moved into an old neglected apartment, with a

strange smell, gently reminding us of cat's piss. We soon discovered

that underneath the carpet the floor was completely digested by mold.

There was no ventilation other than a few small windows, which were

constantly dripping with condensation. Even the ancient fridge was

harboring a variety of fungi. The air was close and the smell of

musty cat's urine oozed out through the air.

During the winter we noticed we were constantly lacking in energy.

Loki's asthma, which he hadn't had since he was young, returned and

steadily grew worse. When the temperature suddenly warmed up with the

coming of spring, our symptoms became more acute. I experienced

intense sinus headaches, fevers, nausea and vomiting for a couple

days, during this time all I could do was toss and turn, moaning, as

I tried to find a position that eased the pain. Half asleep and half

awake I had strange lucid dreams of conversations with large wolves

and little people alternating with sharp pains in my uterus and

chest. I had started getting my period every two weeks.

Our concern that our health was being effected by these damp moldy

conditions was confirmed after finding mushrooms popping their slimy

heads from an especially damp corner of the room. I remember how I

found them. I was pushing aside one of the long curtains in the

living room when I noticed some strange cords poking out from the

edge of the carpet. I looked closer and suddenly realized I was

looking at mushrooms, not cords. Stunned, I yelled for Loki, he came

over and grumpily stared at what I was pointing at. " Yeah, so? " he

started to mutter, " why are you looking at those cables? " I said " No.

Look! "

The mushroom heads were shining and slimy, dripping slightly, it was

a very unfriendly-looking mushroom. We looked at each other,

disbelieving. Loki got a glass bottle and carefully put them in it

for proof. And we both started trying to figure out how we could get

out of this health hazard of a building. The various New Zealand

Authorities we turned to gave little help or no help.

After finding those mushrooms, I dragged myself outside to go for a

walk and get some fresh air. I forced myself out into the cheerfully

blinding sunlight and headed towards the sparkling blue ocean at the

end of the road. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, but I was so

lethargic all I wanted was to go back and lie down in our

contaminated home.

We were starting to feel as if several varieties of fungi were

competing for complete dominion over our nervous systems. We were

becoming increasingly irritable and paranoid, irrationally snapping

at each other, I usually ended up having a crying fit. So I continued

on, determined to stay out of the apartment for as long as possible,

and tried to regain my sense of reality through the foggy, nagging

feeling that my body and senses were being controlled by a parasitic

life form from another world.

Thinking about all these things I barely noticed my surroundings and

soon discovered I was walking up some low hills overlooking the great

wild ocean. Tall fennel forests grew on either side of the small

path. Their dried out fractal branches reaching up and out into the

cosmos, as the bright fresh green ostrich plumes of their new growth

spurted out around their feet. The lovely sweet aroma of anise wafted

through the air, insisting that I enjoy the moment. I shook my head

and looked around, forgetting the insidious fungal spores that still

clung to me, flavoring every breath from where they lurked in my

nasal passages. I was nearing the top of a hill that overlooked a

long black beach with waves rushing up and back again along the sand.

An old cement structure poked out from the hillside just ahead. I

clambered up the last of the slope and found it was an old bunker for

defending the coastline in days gone by, now crumbling and decaying.

The flat concrete roof provided an excellent surface to stretch out

on, relax and enjoy the fresh air, sunlight and lovely view.

As I lay there soaking up the wholesome atmosphere there was a

rustling below me. Leaning over the edge of the roof I looked down

into the bunker and saw a small old woman fooling about with a pile

of decaying leaves. She smiled up at me and laughed.

" Just looking for my favorite mushroom, this is the perfect time of

year for them and they don't last very long so I have to be quick! "

Mushroom hunting! The air seemed to shiver slightly. I had always

thought that would be great fun.

" Are there any there? " I asked, jumping down from the roof and trying

to squeeze in through the narrow window of the bunker.

" Yes, I have found some lovely specimens actually. " She brought her

small basket over to me and held them up. Brown capped mushrooms of a

variety of sizes were jumbled together, a faint musty, nutty odor

coming up from them.

" Can I help? " I managed to wriggle through the narrow space and

jumped down into the bunker. Glancing around I wondered where the

usual adornment of broken bottles and graffiti were. The old lady had

on an apron, her hair was pulled back into a bun and had basket on

her arm. I felt as if I had somehow dropped back through time.

" Sure, always happy to have a bit of company, " she replied. " Everyone

calls me Ma Tilde. I just have one more bunker to check, lets go. "

We set off around the hillside and down through tangled tree

branches. She ducked down beneath some low branches and forced her

way into a large damp bunker.

" This one usually has the best mushrooms, so I always save it for

last, " she explained to me. She was right. As we approached the piles

of leaves I could see little brown mushroom heads popping up all over

them. She laughed in delight and showed me the best way to pick them

and which ones exactly we were looking for. Soon her basket was full.

" Why don't you come over to my place and we can have a little

mushroom snack?'

" I'd love to. "

Walking over the hills towards her home I told her my story about the

molds that ruled in our apartment and of all the problems they were

causing. She listened carefully and then said quietly " I have

something that will help you. Enjoy our walk now and I will show you

when we get to my house. "

We were soon climbing a steep narrow path towards a small house on

the outcrop of a cliff. Around the back of the house was a small

garden and a couple of small wooden structures. " I have a drying room

and a smoke house, " she explained as we drew near. " Welcome to my

home. " Opening the door to her small cottage confirmed my feeling

that I had stepped back in time or into a fairy tale. Here indeed was

the fairy godmother's happy abode. The air seemed to glow, and the

kitchen and living room were all a happy welcoming symphony of

smells, vibrations, colors and textures. The wooden stove was cooling

and fresh bread was sitting on the counter. A lanky black kitten

unraveled itself from the knitting basket and came purring around her

legs. " Meister Eckhart " she told me as she tickled him under the chin—

" a very mystic cat this. "

She quickly had the kettle on and was sorting the mushrooms from the

basket. I sat down at the kitchen table and marveled at the freedom

of a home without millions of mycotoxins and spores filling the air,

settling on every exposed surface. And then realized that actually

there were a whole pile of myco-spores on the table in front of me,

and started to wonder what made some so-offensive to our bodies,

while others were so helpful.

" Years ago, " she began to tell me, " when I was a very young girl and

this city was still a village, there was a strange epidemic that

killed nearly everyone in a couple towns over the hill. The symptoms

were very similar to what you are suffering. People grew increasingly

unhealthy, suffering headaches, digestive problems and often

unusually aggressive or paranoid behavior. "

Ma Tilde's Tale:

She then went on to tell me this story: A family from one of those

towns moved next door to them. She soon became close friends with

their son, when they were older they married. On the morning of the

wedding his mother had come to Tilde and given her a small amount of

bread dough, telling her that this particular culture, or desem, had

been taken care of by their family from as far back as they could

remember. They believed that the desem would reward the care put into

it with good health. A small amount had been passed to her on her

wedding day, just as she was passing it on to Tilde, trusting her to

keep it going for future generations. Tilde felt a deep

responsibility as she accepted the gift.

Tilde and her husband started a small bakery and the desem leavened

bread quickly became the most popular. They were unable to have

children but were happy to hand out hot buttered slabs of bread to

kids passing the bakery on their way home from school. One winter was

short and when the spring came it was warm and wet, people started

getting strange symptoms that caused crime rates to rise as people

became more irritable and irrational. For some reason the people who

preferred the desem bread remained unaffected and level headed.

It was her husband who finally made the connection. Talking to

customers all day at the bakery he began to see clear patterns

between various events. They speculated with friends that the micro-

organisms in the bread were aware of the generations long DNA

relationship they had with his family and were able to create varying

combinations of bacteria, yeasts and therefore nutrients in each

batch of bread depending on the requirements of the baker's digestive

system at the moment.

The weather finally dried up the fungi went back into dormancy,

waiting for the right conditions to release their spores once again.

People continued to enjoy and thrive off of the desem bread, but when

Tilde's husband died she had to give up the bakery, without children

she had been unable to pass on the desem.

At the end of her story Tilde smiled and her eyes gleamed, " But I

continued to keep the culture going for the future generations. " With

that declaration she set in front of me a plate with a large wedge of

dense and fragrant homemade bread. Butter melted juicily into the

crumb and a small dish of hand picked sautéed mushrooms was set

beside. " Enjoy your snack, " she said and sat down beside me. We

tucked in, mushroom juices and butter trickling down our chins and I

felt good and excited again. The bread was tangy, but much lighter

than any sourdough bread I had tried previously.

After our meal she wrapped up a portion of the precious desem for

me. " Here, I won't last much longer, you must be my daughter now and

keep this bread's culture going for the generations to come. " She

explained how to care for the desem, showing me how to feed it daily

with freshly ground whole wheat flour, how much to leave for the next

batch of bread and the not too hot or cold temperature it thrived

in. " Soon you will be treating this desem as a close friend. If you

treat it right there will be great respect between you. " Her eyes

turned inward and she said, " it has been a wonderful companion for me

for many years now. The bread will help to give you a strong immune

system and you will find that you will have better resistance to the

molds in your apartment. "

I awoke from my dream, and sitting up, found myself back on the

bunker, the sun sinking over the ocean. Slowly I sat up and headed

back home to Loki. We moved out of the apartment as quickly as

possible and moved to the very top of the city where the air was

fresh and slowly began the path back to health. Once a fungus gets

into your system it is tough to get it out. Months after we moved out

of the 4-515 Adelaide apartment, Loki would awaken us every night

having drenched the whole bed in sweat. Finally we got rid of the

blankets and he was able to sleep through the night again. We stopped

eating bread, drinking beer, anything with yeast in it. We even went

on carbohydrate free fasts for months at a time, still symptoms

lingered or would rise again just when we thought we were free.

My dream stuck with me and has raised my curiosity for live foods and

the microorganisms that have thrived alongside nearly every culture

in the world through symbiotically optimizing digestion deepens as I

learn more about them.

I recently made the famous Flemish desem described in Laurel's

Kitchen Bread book and I am very excited to be eating bread made in

this old fashioned manner. I look forward to the meditative practice

of kneading and feeding the starter. There is a whole community

passionate about sourdough.