THE HAPPY MUSHROOM

(This a distant cousin)

Once upon a time, in a far away field lived a happy little mushroom.

She was a pretty mushroom, her cap was white with large red spots and the underneath was...well...mushroom coloured.  Her stalk was cream and a bit thick at the bottom where it met the soil.

The Happy Mushroom lived by herself on a mound near the top of a rise in the field which was very large.  Although she was alone, a fact she had no control over, she was happy.  Each day as the sun rose she welcomed the warmth of daylight and in the evening she welcomed being wrapped in darkness.  Much like any other mushroom I suppose. 

The Happy Mushroom enjoyed her outdoor existence and was continually occupied in feeling the changes of weather, seasons, sounds of the outdoors as well as the presence of other living things.  She not only enjoyed life but she loved being surrounded by life itself.

However, as time drew on the Happy Mushroom became dissatisfied and became the Not So Happy Mushroom.

So, being smart, the now Not So Happy Mushroom knew she had to do something to improve things.  She wanted to become the Happy Mushroom she once was and enjoy her life again.

She began to think about how she could fix things.

Fixing things began with thinking about the cause of her dissatisfaction, what could she do about it and, what would make her happy again.

She was alone, immobilised on the top of a rise in a very big field. 

What could she do?

The now Not So Happy Mushroom, being an outdoorsy mushroom, began solving her dilemma by thinking about her nutrition and then examining how she felt about things.  After all, did her mother not tell her about the wisdom of the sage of mushrooms knows as ‘The Big Fungus’ and that he used to say that nutrition for mushroom growth comes from two places, good earth and the enjoyment of being?

Now, the Not So Happy Mushroom firstly thought about her place on the mound in the field and naturally she was rooted to the spot.  Literally rooted!  So she could do nothing about it.  She was to remain in this spot forever.  She considered the earth to which her roots were bound and then she realised something important.

As she had been on the mound all her life, there were a few unfortunate factors.  Firstly, being on a mound, over time, rainfall washed earth away from her roots and secondly, her roots had been removing nutrients from the soil.  In short, her nutrition larder was becoming scant of good quality mushroomy minerals.

The Not So Happy Mushroom was beginning to solve her problem. She had addressed the issue of nutrition, but not how to improve it.

‘What would ‘The Big Fungus’ say?’ she thought.

Thus began the use of her ‘being’ that ‘The Big Fungus’ used to expose as his philosophy, a bit like Buddhism or Taoism.

‘What would ‘The Big Fungus’ do?’ she asked.

The Not So Happy Mushroom realised she was now becoming the Little Philosophical Mushroom.

But really, all she wanted to be was the Happy Little Mushroom again but this would not happen unless she kept on following her path and that path took her back to nutrition, of the mineral kind.

The Little Philosophical Mushroom came to the conclusion that somehow or other she needed to be sitting in and being surrounded by better quality soil.  So, by putting on her metaphorical philosophical cap, she figured the only way to be surrounded by highly nutritional soil again was to ‘feel’ it into ‘being’, to ‘think’ herself being surrounded by, and a part of rich nutritional humus, grass and other such naturally fiberous material.

The former Happy Mushroom who had become the Not So Happy Mushroom and then the Little Philosophical Mushroom whilst being rooted to the spot did what The Big Fungus used to do. 

She stilled her inner self by excluding sounds, smells, vibrations and all other extraneous distractions.

Whilst meditating with images of being surrounded by good quality grass and other humus type material, her inner voice was saying over and over:

 ‘I am...surrounded by good nutrition,

  I am...surrounded by good nutrition,

  I am...surrounded by good nutrition, 

  I am...surrounded by good nutrition’

Over and over and over and over, in her mind she continually pictured being surrounded by good mushroom nutrition and her inner dialogue and image continued and never stopped.

The afternoon, evening, night, dawn, day passed and a few days later as the morning coldness and frost was still present, the sun rose from he horizon.  And as the Mushroom emerged from her meditation, she felt different.  The morning, although very cold, her roots felt very warm, she could smell the morning grass but it was much sweeter and as she slowly emerged she realised a major change had occurred in her life. 

It was this morning that she became aware that she was almost fully covered in some kind of mushy grassy fresh sweet smell of humus rich soil.

The former Happy Mushroom who had become the Not So Happy Mushroom and then the Little Philosophical Mushroom whilst being rooted to the spot doing what The Big Fungus used to do was now the Happy Mushroom again!!!!

Not so far away was a Happy Cow and, the Happy Mushroom was almost completely covered in cow manure!!!

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Moral of the story, if you have faith and focus on what you want, it can happen.

You too can be a metaphorical Happy Little Mushroom.

Cheers,

Verde.

1. Mushroom image: feelgrafix.com

2. Field image: aecos.com

3. Cow image: vmbulletin.com