Spring Foraging Tour Announcements

Announcements

After the barren winter, the Garry Oaks and Bigleaf Maples are unfolding their new neon green leaves. The branches bouncing on the wind seem to beckon away from your screens and office to-do list, to come play in the sun shine lingering longer and longer each day. On the forest floors beneath, annual shrubs and herbs encroach on the trails, tickling hikers’ ankles with promises of tasty meal supplements — free for the taking... but only to those who know how to distinguish the toxins from the treats.

It’s spring! For a forager, that means edible greens abound — and I’m here to teach you how to harvest them, adding nutritious gifts of the woods to your dining table. Here are the spring dates for my Edible Forest Tours:

• Sun. May 18, 10:30 a.m. @ Shotgun Creek Trailhead

• Sun. June 1, 10:30 a.m. - Location to be announced

• Sat. June 14, 10:30 a.m. - Location to be announced

  
  

These 3-hour guided adventures blend education, nature therpay, and play, offering guests of all ages an overview of why, how, and what to forage in season. Expect hands-on learning, delicious wild flavors, and a fresh sense of intimate belonging in the forest.

All tours take place within 30 minutes of Eugene, at public trailheads and permaculture-managed lands.

Costs are sliding scale:

• $60 per person if booking alone

• $50 per person for groups of 2-3

• $40 per person for children and groups of 4 or more

• Returning guests: get $5 off for referring a friend.

Spots are limited—book now by using the contact form at JeffreeMorel.com.

What I’m Reading

1. Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

   
   

What he realised, and more clearly as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion-the only felt religion-that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the profoundly significant phrase, to make good. The decalogue has been reduced to two commandments. One for the employers-the elect, the money priesthood as it were- 'Thou shalt make money'; the other for the employed- the slaves and underlings'- 'Thou shalt not lose thy job.'

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is one of those novels that’s so compelling because it’s about a character you may love to hate, yet, thanks to the author’s mastery of perspective, can’t help but understand. The name Orwell was enough to get me interested, but the $3.50 price tag and book jacket summary about a starving poet who’s declared war on the “money god” sealed the deal.

Hinting at the industrial despair he’d later amplify to dystopian proportions inNineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell ruthlessly catalogs how shame and pride over financial considerations sour every interaction of protagonist Gordon Comstock’s life, leaving him hardly enough peace of mind to complete a single poem. Rather than valorize his struggle though, Orwell makes clear that Gordon is also projecting his own emotional incapacities and fears onto money, until, indeed, it does begin to seem like a vengeful god one can’t escape. It’s a wise choice that prevents the story from becoming a mere morality tale, acknowledging the gray areas where one may be accurate in his views but still needlessly callous in his responses.

For me, reading the novel is a great study in how to satirize unspoken sociocultural undercurrents by occupying the uncomfortable headspace of a character who, to the detriment of his own relationships, is unhealthily obsessed by them. It’s also an uncomfortable reflection on the intransigency I’ve experienced attempting to balance the demands to make decent money with artistic aspirations. In developing a heart-aligned business offering outdoor education, I still regularly find myself processing how to navigate the system of money worship without either unconsciously succumbing to its dominance, or sacrificing your own well-being in a doomed crusade against it.

And of course, because it’s Orwell, it’s also impeccably written.

Recommended for: Orwell fanatics and frustrated young creatives who spit out the word “capitalism” like a slur.

2. Poetic Outlaws on Substack

Every morning you have to conquer the demons who say, “This will never be any good. This will never be what I saw when I dreamed of it.” But you just have to say, “Keep on, keep on,” and finally it gets through. —May Sarton

This month, I’ll also refer you to one of my favorite fellow publications here on Substack, Poetic Outlaws by Erik Rittenbery. Now, I subscribe to many publications about pursuing goals of personal improvement, spiritual attainment, and ecological education… But I don’t always have the motivation to read them. Poetry, on the other hand, is not trying to tell me some bit of advice to incorporate into my daily routine. It’s just speaking from experience, to experience, without judgement or any attempt to alter one’s behavior — only one’s perspective.

Poetic Outlaws offers me a regular alteration of perspective from some of the great poets of the past centuries, as well as essays reflecting on their work by the publication’s curator Erik Rittenbery. As the title suggests, the poets he highlights aren’t ones who necessarily play nice with others (Charles Bukowski — need I say more?), so they’re not always ones to emulate, except, maybe, in their mastery of language.

Recommended for: fierce individualists, misanthropes, wounded romantics.

Now, to close this post, my poem of the week, inspired by a recent walk in the Cascade Mountains.

Enjoy.

A Tree Falls in the Forest

If a tree falls in the forest

and there’s no one there to hear it,

that is no forest.

Nature listens.

If you quiet your mind of such questions,

your hearing adjusts to the forest

excavates the quiet.

Every being sings their part

in spontaneous orchestra

one instant only

with stadium seating

from mossy beds to mossy canopies.

Hushed and gathered

by guardian old growth trees

whose ages unfold softening spines

until someday, beyond you or I,

they break away above the river

building a bridge to the other side.

The remains are ours to play in

like the flowers ours to admire

but we aren’t the only ones to breathe in

love songs pollinated on the wind.

If a human walks in the woods

too soft for the steps to sound,

do they go anywhere

other than here?

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