Solstice thoughts for reluctant humans

We did it – we made it round the bend of the year, through the darkest moment, back into returning light. 

Yesterday was the last night of Hanukkah as well as the winter solstice, and I marked it with a foggy forest walk followed by a pile of latkes, eaten with applesauce made during the long days of summer from our backyard's early-fruiting apple tree. 



Just before we arrived back at the S-Bahn station, in the falling misty dark, the biggest flock of geese I have ever seen flew over. Honking, low and silhouetted under the dark grey fog, we could hear the rush of their wings like a gathering storm as they passed, and passed, and kept on passing overhead.



As a forager, these winter days are for rest – or at least, that's what my body tells me. But I don't think I'm alone in finding rest challenging. True rest requires sitting with what's present, and what's present is that I don't find it so easy to be a person in these (literally and figuratively) heavy, dark days. 



So I've been finding myself looking to the non-human world for other ways of being. Maybe I can be moss, wet and cold and lush, not rooted so much as anchored. Maybe I can be a snail, probing, slow, spiraled in on myself. Maybe I can be a slime mold, expanding in all directions until I find what nourishes me. Maybe I can be a wild goose, sailing on the current left by my fellows, honking my way through the long night.



Whatever I am, there are so many things that pierce like dusty sunbeams through the gloom and bring me sparkles of joy. The haunting sound of geese. Candles glittering in the dark. The burst of color of a wet mushroom in the drab winter forest.

Usually, though, these come down to moments of shared delight with friends and chosen family. Often, those friends & chosen family are not human.



And, let's be real. The sparkliest moments of all bring together human & non-human friends in the form of delicious, decadent treats to fill our mouths, bellies & souls. I make as much as I can with hoarded preserved foraged ingredients, this time of year. It just feels special.



These moments help me to remember that though the dark is real, and though the dark is deep, it is also in movement, and it is not absolute. This night will last just a little less long than last night. And tomorrow will have just a few more moments of light than today. And it will be spring again. And we will return back into the dark again, too.



As the cycle turns, I'm doing a lot of reflecting on the past year. This has been a beautiful, chaotic, extraordinary, challenging, and intensely creative one. I offered over 35 public foraging workshops, 11 of which were donation-based community events, ran my first season-long mushroom foraging course, hosted 10 team events & private events, produced 7 episodes of the foraging podcast Tales from the Undergrowth, created & performed two spoken word & foraged installation pieces, and made my mushroom drag debut as Amethyst Deceiver.



But none of this truly captures the essence of this past year and its uncountable joys of connecting with you all, with this land we exist on and within, and with the weedy & fungal beings that make their home here.



I am so enormously grateful to you all for being with me on this wild path. Your curiosity and care for the edible plants and fungi of Berlin is such an extraordinary thing to be part of. I'm so excited to see what 2026 brings for us.

The first foraging workshop dates for 2026 with The Wild Path are online and bookable now! Gift vouchers available. More workshop dates as well as courses will continue being added through the coming weeks. Reach out to inquire about a team event or private event.