What is foraging?
The media often frames foraging as free food and trespass, but it is so much more than that. It is about noticing, learning about, and understanding ecological relationships. It is about being present in nature and participating in it, understanding and respecting seasonal abundance and ecological limits. We talk about nature connection as though it is something that we should try and do or achieve, but we are nature. The connection shouldn't be the focus; we need to understand why we feel disconnected from nature.
A forage walk is about engaging with nature, which means slowing down. Except it doesn't feel like that. Finding mushrooms, learning about their ecological role, understanding their relationships in their habitats, and learning about their uses for food or medicine leads to a feeling of participation in nature that feels intense, not slow. When I walk in the woods, I feel a presence of mind that I often don't feel in everyday life.
Foraging engages all of your senses; you will learn when it is safe to explore new species with touch, smell, and taste. Purposeful 'noticing' of details in nature, followed by sensory engagement, creates a wonderful loop of excitement, Sensory engagement furthers your interest and you notice even more... Have you ever tasted a spicy Russula or Lactarius mushroom? It is an experience that you won't forget!
Habitat literacy allows you to appreciate the true depth of the natural places where you walk; it helps you understand what you find and what you might expect to find. It is no good looking for a porcini out on the moors! But you might find some beautiful waxcaps there. Habitat literacy helps you to read the landscape; it helps us to understand our place and our belonging in nature.
A foraging course is an exciting day out. Like-minded people gathering together to learn about nature. This isn't just another subject, or another interest. You're learning about life on Earth! It's history, the entangled web of relationships, and insights into its future. No one expects you to walk a set distance or even to talk. If the woodland is a theatre, then the species that we find are the main performers, and we will learn about them with awe and wonder. Some people will chat and enjoy the social element. Others focus on learning and nerding out together. But no one demands that you talk, and quiet learning and soaking up knowledge is participation. You do you; you are accepted just as you are.
Neurodiversity must get a mention here! Did you know that ADHD traits offer certain advantages in foraging situations? Research has explored whether traits such as curiosity, exploration and shifting attention may have been useful in hunter-gatherer environments. There are also interesting ways of understanding ADHD outside the usual deficit-based medical language; a Māori term sometimes associated with ADHD, aroreretini, has been translated as “attention goes to many things”. I am a member of the Association of Foragers, a collective of foraging teachers from across the country, and we are pretty much all ADHD! The annual gathering is bonkers! And of course, ASD-type minds can be extremely advantageous, especially with things like taxonomy and classification, not to be too stereotypical! But whatever your 'strain' of neurodiversity, you are welcome here to do 'people-ing' in whatever way suits you best.
Is connection the opposite of disconnection? When you learn about nature, you experience the interconnectedness of what was already there. We are dependent on industrial food supply chains, but foraging isn't about independence; it is how we learn to become interdependent in our participation with the land.