Mission Statement
Nature discovery is self-discovery.
Gordon Hempton
When I first started foraging, I was only looking for mushrooms. As I got acquainted with a whole kingdom of organisms everyone else seemed selectively blind to, however, I also seemed to discover—or rediscover—certain overlooked parts of myself.
In the beginning, getting out and searching for edible species served as a productive pretext for getting away from work. But what at first I worried was distancing myself from my thoughts was actually helping me get back to them. I had just gotten mixed up with all the other endeavors I felt obliged to take part in, and it took some time away to start untangling myself. When even hikes had started to feel like work—objective-driven affairs, regimented with time limits and preplanned routes—foraging forced me to wander, being more spontaneous and unintentional than I was used to. But why wasn’t I used to it, when it felt this rejuvenating?
Unlike much of the manmade world, nature isn’t crying out for our attention. Instead of promising convenience or instant gratification, appreciating its elements demands patience and determination. But we’re rewarded with a deeper sense of existence and our own place within it, as the sense of fulfillment we gain from any activity tends to vary in proportion to the energy we invest into it. There’s not much challenge in buying shrink-wrapped mushrooms from the supermarket compared to finding them in the wild—so neither is there much fun.
What we do shapes how we think. While my commercial activities were implicitly programming me to speed up, power through, and value my time based on monetary compensation and social recognition, foraging taught me to slow down, pay attention, and prize experiences purely for my own personal enjoyment and development. I learned to define what was worthwhile for myself, to take pleasure in the things I found moving, whether or not they served any immediately apparent purpose, without the guilt of “wasting” time. If I could bring back something to display on the shelf or serve on the table, all the better, but I no longer counted on it as the chief purpose of my outings.
Foraging, as I understand it now, is about stepping outside with an open mind. There’s an innate satisfaction in coming home with something more than you left with, but this “something more” need not always be edible, or even tangible.
This blog, then, is an external manifestation of these lessons I’m still internalizing. Though first conceived with a singular focus on finding wild foods, the subject matter will be just as broad and individualized as my own inspirations and insights, with entries taking the form of personal essays, photo series, poems, practical guides, and more. I reserve the freedom to refine and deviate from this path as the situation calls for and my own nature dictates, because, as foraging has taught me, it’s best not to impose boundaries on exploration.
The Author
Jeffrey Morel grew up in a suburban tract-housing development bordering Chino Hills State Park in Yorba Linda, CA. When he was 16, his family’s home burnt down in the Freeway Complex Fire of 2008. He majored in screenwriting with minors in psychology and English at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. There he met his longtime partner. Together they relocated to Seattle, where he began work as a freelancer, writing feature articles on diverse subjects including mental health, regenerative agriculture, and psychedelics. After obtaining his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) from Lost Valley Education Center & Ecovillage in 2022, he and his partner moved to Eugene, OR, to pursue backyard gardening and integrate into the local artistic community. His fiction and poetry have been published in Tethered by Letters, Weber: The Contemporary West, the South Seattle Emerald, and Rabble Review. His blog is Foraging for More on Substack.