Just who do you think you are?

One of my favorite fall activities is mushroom hunting. I first got into this pursuit when I was living on the coast of Washington, many years ago. When the dark, rainy winter descended, I knew I needed an activity to get me out of the house, keep me connected with nature, and ward off seasonal depression. Mushroom hunting provided exactly that.

My first foray was thrilling. I’ll never forget the smell of the cold, damp forest floor with its thick blanket of leaf litter, and the amazement I felt when my eyes began to pick out shapes and colors and textures I’d never noticed before. What was that slimy, orange thing that looked like jelly, or those round white spheres that let out a cloud of dark green spores when you poked them? Why did the purple, gilled mushrooms grow under deciduous trees, while the spongey, red-capped mushrooms grew under evergreens?

I began to realize that there were mushrooms everywhere. They were all around me, their variety astounding. How had I ignored them for so long? Filled with a beginner’s exuberance, I picked one of each, then hauled home the heavy, soggy bags of fungi and arranged them on the kitchen table. Tired and wet, I took out the mushroom identification book I’d bought—and quickly realized I didn’t have the energy to carefully key out forty different mushrooms from six different families.

Over the next few days, I managed to identify perhaps nine or ten of the mushrooms I had gathered. Although one or two were edible, there seemed to be little point in cooking a single mushroom—and they were decomposing quickly. Sheepishly, I carried the whole lot of them to the backyard and flung them under the trees.

On my next foray, I was determined to do better. I didn’t want to pick any random mushroom that caught my eye, only to toss it out when I got home. Instead, I followed the advice in my mushroom-hunting book to focus on a single, easily recognizable family, foraging with purpose and intention instead of merely hoping that whatever I picked turned out to be edible. This time, the forest spoke to me in a new way. Instead of an indecipherable cacophony of shapes and colors, my eye began to pick out the patterns I’d read about in my field guide. I looked for white, shelf-like fungi growing on the sides of trees and fallen logs—and was ecstatic when I spotted my very first harvest of oyster mushrooms.

That evening, instead of dumping out a slimy mishmash of edible, inedible, and unknown mushrooms onto my kitchen table, I cleaned a few oyster mushrooms, dry-sauteed them in a pan, and tested a bite to see if it would make me ill. When it didn’t, I joyfully cooked the rest—and my career as a mushroom hunter had begun.

When I moved to Hawaii, it meant saying goodbye to many of the mushrooms I’d come to know on the mainland and getting acquainted with a whole new set of fungal friends. However, by then I was familiar with the process of identifying new mushrooms, slowly building out my repertoire from a few safe and easy mushrooms to more “advanced” ones. Before long, I was finding monkey ears, witches’ butter, and jelly fungus on my daily walks, and I learned to recognize the marzipan scent of the almond agarics that grace the forest floor a couple of times each year. I also made friends with experienced foragers who taught me things about the tropical ecosystem that would have taken me years to learn on my own.

Every now and then, a skeptical friend or relative will ask me if I’m really “qualified” to forage for mushrooms. How can you be sure you don’t pick something poisonous? they say. This question always makes me laugh. Sometimes, I’ll ask them a cheeky question in return: How can you be sure you don’t accidentally pick an orange instead of an apple when you go to the grocery store? Most people have no problem distinguishing between an orange and an apple, even though they are both round, medium-sized fruits; to an experienced mushroom hunter, distinguishing between an agaricus and a bolete is just as simple and obvious. We learn the necessary discernment through focused effort and practice; and although it’s certainly possible to get advanced degrees in mycology, this isn’t a prerequisite to safely foraging and cooking a great meal, any more than getting a degree in food science is necessary to safely shop for fruit at the store.

At the same time, I’ve come to understand that often when people ask what makes me qualified to hunt for mushrooms, they’re not really worried about me confusing a Destroying Angel for a chanterelle; instead, they’re expressing their own anxieties and yearnings about their relationship with nature. What gives you the right to tromp around in the forest, filled with joy on a rainy day? Who gave you permission to be part of it, instead of looking in from the outside? And I can only answer: I did. And so can you.

Last month, I had the pleasure of teaching a workshop about self-help and spirituality writing—my second time teaching this class. For four Tuesdays in a row, I met on Zoom with a group of writers who all came bearing the bright and precious seed of an idea for a book. In many cases, they’d been carrying this seed for many years, tending it and keeping it safe until conditions were right for it to sprout. They had gathered stories, done research, and thought deeply about what they wanted to share, and why. In many cases, they also had professional and educational credentials—they were therapists, nurses, teachers, and healers with years of experience to draw on.

Towards the end of the last class, one participant asked a very good question: “How will I know when I’m qualified to write my book?”

There was a noticeable shift in energy in the classroom. I realized that, although only one person had voiced the question, everyone had been thinking about it—and in some cases, worrying about it.

I hesitated, as a number of competing answers piled up in my mind. On the one hand, there is a baseline of knowledge, experience, and technical skill that needs to be reached before one is well-positioned to write a successful book, go on a successful foraging mission, knit a sweater, or undertake just about any other complex task. On that very practical level, the more training and experience you have, the more qualified you will be.

But I also sensed that the student’s question extended beyond practical considerations. What she was really asking—and what made the other students listen with such alertness when she asked it—was how to quiet the voices in her head that whispered, Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to try to help people with their problems or guide them towards a better life? Who do you think you are to talk about God or Source or the Divine? Who do you think you are to share the life stories that were supposed to stay hidden, in the hopes that they will ease another person’s pain? Who do you think you are to call yourself a writer, a teacher, a healer—or for that matter, an artist, a musician, a dancer, or a creative?

We struggle with these questions no matter how many advanced degrees we've obtained, classes we’ve taught, or years of experience we’ve had with our subject matter. Any time we embark on a creative project, whether it’s writing a self-help book or planning a party, these questions and doubts are bound to show up, whether they are voiced by other people or come from deep within ourselves.

Now that I’ve had a few days to mull it over, I’ve realized that to me, the answers to these questions are felt, rather than thought. When I go into the forest to forage, I feel a sense of pleasure, ease, and competence. My body and mind relax; I trust that my years of experience, and the knowledge I’ve gained through research and training, will guide me in the right direction. I instinctively move towards certain trees, knowing that certain mushrooms are likely to be there; I kneel and smell the ground, and a telltale red color catches my eye. The joy I feel springs from my competence, and I love sharing that joy with friends when I bring them foraging with me.

Is joy a qualification? I believe it is. To be sure, we need the appropriate skills and knowledge to do the task at hand, especially if there are risks involved. But once that baseline has been established, I’ve often found that joy is a sign of increasing mastery. Do you relish your creative task, or do you feel stuck, stymied, and uninspired? Does your mind feel fertile and alive when you contemplate the possibilities, or do you struggle to come up with ideas for where to go next? Although I couldn’t quite articulate it on a moment’s notice, what I wanted to tell the students in my class is this: Beyond possessing the necessary knowledge, you’re qualified to write your book, record your podcast, or embark on any other creative pursuit when you enjoy it.

This autumn, I hope you all have the chance to go out in the woods and delight in the abundance of fungi, whether you have any interest in cooking them or not. And if you find yourself lost in a thicket of Who do you think you are? questions, let your joy be the answer.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Pruning Trees, Words, & Life

Dear readers,

My land here in Hawaii is bordered by a guava thicket. The first year I lived here, I gathered entire buckets of the round, fleshy fruit, and spent many happy afternoons making juice and jelly. The following year, I eagerly awaited the return of guava season, only to discover that the harvest was rather smaller. The third year, I hardly gathered any guavas at all—the ones I found had all fallen from a great height, smashed open on the ground, and rotted.

I was puzzled by this change in my guava fortunes. The trees were healthy and fast-growing. Why wasn’t I getting the abundant fruit which had so delighted me in Year One?

After consulting the internet, I found my answer: Guavas only grow on new branches, not on old wood. With every passing year, the trees were growing taller, and the new branches were appearing higher and higher off the ground, until the fruit was so far out of reach it was as if the trees weren’t fruiting at all.

I researched how to prune them. I felt some trepidation about cutting off so many apparently healthy branches. But the sources I consulted were clear: when it came to getting healthy, accessible fruit, the old wood had to go. I added some bar oil to my smallest, handiest chain saw, sharpened my loppers, and went to work on my guava thicket. Before I knew it, I was standing next to a pile of branches nearly as tall as I was. Where the thicket had been dense and impenetrable, it was now airy and open. I could see the sky where the over-tall trees had blocked it before. Returning my tools to the shed, I felt a flicker of nervous excitement. What had I done? Had I gone too far? Would this really work?

I thought it would take months to see new growth on the guava trees. But a flush of new branches appeared almost overnight, skinny and smooth and shining with clean new leaves. I picked some of the young leaves, which are highly medicinal, and brewed them as tea. Meanwhile, I waited for the next crop of fruit to appear. When summer came, the new branches had thickened, and round yellow guavas appeared within easy reach of where I stood on the ground. Far from damaging the trees, the heavy pruning had stimulated them to grow.

Sometimes, the fruit we long for is waiting to appear—as soon as we cut off the old wood. This is true in life as well as in horticulture. I think often of the times in my own life when I’ve pruned old wood, whether by moving away from a beloved town, leaving a relationship in which I’d invested heavily, or setting aside a project which had consumed my energy for years. I remember the trepidation I felt at the prospect of each pruning: How can I take down that branch? What if I kill the whole tree?

It took me a long time to understand that, just like the guava trees, my life would not only grow back, but flourish in the wake of every shock. We tend to think of loss as a negative thing, but skillful deletion is a highly creative act. Empty spaces hum with potential. Although the forms of life can be altered or destroyed, the force of life remains undiminished. Life wants to grow back. All we have to do is let it.

As an editor, I’m keenly aware of the ways that courageous pruning can allow a book’s true message to emerge. Sometimes, we have to bravely wield the saw, cutting off entire sections of a manuscript which may have been necessary in the first draft stage but are no longer serving a purpose in the final version. No matter how interesting or well-researched a given section may be, it needs to go if it’s not giving readers something nourishing, memorable, and necessary—in other words, the branch gets pruned if it’s not producing fruit.

Just this week, I took a two-hundred-and-eighty-page manuscript and trimmed it down to a hundred-and-seventy-five pages. Even though I am confident that this pruning will result in a beautiful, focused, productive book, I must admit I felt a few moments of vertigo as I watched the word count dropping precipitously with every cut. Would the author be shocked when she saw the enormous pile of branches I’d removed from her tree? Or would she trust me when I told her that the tree was now stronger, healthier, and soon to be overflowing with fruit?

As a project moves along, the prunings become more subtle: a sentence here, a word there. It always amazes me how even these subtle deletions can dramatically alter the feeling of a book, lifting unnecessary weight, injecting lightness, and allowing the beauty of the language to shine through. It’s tempting to think that an extra word or sentence won’t make any difference, but as the extraneous material falls away, I swear I can hear a book breathing.

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This Thanksgiving, I was invited to stay on a remote piece of land in a part of Hawaii that few people get to see. Accessible only by helicopter, it is the site of an ancient Hawaiian village, and has many beautiful waterfalls and archeological features, which a small team of stewards are restoring. One of the stewards took me for a walk around the land, showing me the rock walls he’d rebuilt, the agricultural terraces he’d restored, and the ancient stone walking path he’d uncovered from under layers of brush.

This person had lived and breathed this restoration project for several decades. His knowledge of plants, aquaculture techniques, and archeological features was exhaustive. I commented on the fact that he seemed intimately bound to the land, to the point that I could scarcely imagine the project going on without him. I was stunned when he shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Nah. One of these days, I’m going to walk away, and they’ll carry on without me just fine.”

It was humbling to listen as this master stonemason explained to me that when he rebuilt a wall or restored a terrace, that was it—he was done. Why hang around and gaze at his creations, impressive as they were? Those branches had fruited, and were now spent. It made no sense to linger for the sake of lingering, to hang on to what was finished when life is constantly urging us to begin again. His love for the land was deep and genuine, but he had no fear of leaving it, knowing there were an infinite number of places he could love.

I realized that the artists and spiritual teachers from whom I’ve learned the most all share this quality of detachment. It’s novice writers who cling to the words they already have on the page, not trusting themselves to generate equally good or better material to replace what has been deleted—master writers can cut with confidence, knowing there’s more where that came from. The spiritual masters on whose books I’ve been lucky enough to work at Hierophant emphasize the importance of embracing change. They remind us that our lives come with us wherever we go, and whatever we do.

This quality of detachment requires a deep trust in life. At the same time, practicing detachment is the best way I’ve found to gain trust in life, if you don’t already have it. Cut a paragraph or chapter from your book, and you’ll find that you do, in fact, possess the skill to write something even better. Accept a change without resisting it, and you’ll discover that life rushes in to fill the empty space. When a thing is complete, bow and move on. By learning to let go of specific things, we embrace the infinite, discovering more and more to love.

I look forward to pruning my guava thicket in another month or two, and I look forward to puttering around in the garden of words here at Hierophant, tending the many excellent books we’ll be releasing in the upcoming year. May you all be happy and safe, and may your buckets always overflow with fruit.

Sincerely,

Hilary Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Click here to read Hilary's previous essay, "The Magic of Nature."

Looking for guidance for pruning your own thicket of words? Check out Think Like a Publisher by Hierophant President Randy Davila. This detailed guide for authors explains the basics of the publishing industry in clear and concise language, including what publishers (and readers!) look for in a manuscript, the importance of a good editor and how to find one, author platform building, marketing strategies, and even how to find the right self-publisher for your manuscript.