Custodian of the Woodland video blog 52. Samhain Foraging: Whispers of the Woodland Earth.

Hello, I’m Roly, one of the custodians of this beautiful woodland in the heart of Derbyshire. I’m here with two of the custodian friends, and this is video blog 52.

We’re going foraging for mushrooms in the woodland and in the fields, listening to the whispers of the woodland and seeing what treasures the autumn earth wishes to offer. The air carries a hush, a kind of expectancy, as if the forest itself holds its breath, waiting to reveal its secrets. The dew clings to fallen leaves, and each footstep releases the scent of soil, moss, and quiet decay, the perfume of autumn.

Foraging, in its deepest sense, is a sacred act. It is not just the gathering of food, but a ceremony of communion with the land. Each step on the soft earth is a prayer, each breath of woodland air a reminder that we are woven into the same tapestry as the oak, the mycelium, the deer, and the crow. To wander among the trees in this season is to move through an ancient temple, where every root and branch holds a fragment of forgotten wisdom.

Mushrooms rise like small altars from the soil, carrying the wisdom of hidden networks below — the vast mycelial web that mirrors the web of spirit. Beneath our feet lies the living heartbeat of the earth, a communication network older than humankind, through which trees whisper and exchange nourishment. To gather mushrooms is to touch this mystery. A golden cluster of chanterelles glows like woodland firelight, a kingly porcini stands proud beneath the beech trees, and a giant puffball shines like a pale moon on the forest floor. Each one carries its own medicine, its own story of rain, soil, and season.

But it is not just today’s bounty that feeds us. Earlier in the year, we picked mushrooms in January and again in May, when the woodland lay in the hush of winter and the quickening of spring. We dried them carefully, preserving their essence, and today they return, reunited with the mushrooms gathered under the autumn canopy. The flavours of the year gather around the hearth, where time, patience, and memory become the secret ingredients.

Back at the fire, the mushrooms meet flame and pan, their earthy aromas rising like incense. I’m preparing a simple dish of risotto with Reishi broth, which I’ve washed and simmered into a deep, healing stock. The dish will be served with sea bass I caught with my bare hands this morning and a crusty French stick from Morrisons, a humble mix of the wild and the familiar, the ancient and the everyday. Cooking them becomes a ritual, a transformation of the woodland’s gift into something that nourishes both body and spirit. To eat them is to complete the circle, the gift of the earth becoming part of us, carried forward in breath and blood.

At Samhain, this act becomes even more sacred. The ancient Celtic fire festival marks the turning of the wheel, the final harvest before winter, when the veil between worlds grows thin. It is a time to honour the ancestors, to give thanks for the bounty of the land, and to light fires that carry us safely through the dark months ahead. The mushrooms gathered now are not only food, but offerings, gifts of the Otherworld, rising from the shadows just as the spirits draw near.

Folklore tells us that fairy rings are portals, and at Samhain, these portals open widest. Mushrooms are reminders that life and death, growth and decay, are threads in the same eternal weave. To walk the woodland now is to walk beside our ancestors — to feel their presence in the rustle of the leaves, in the scent of smoke, in the stillness of twilight.

As night falls, my friends and I will share this meal by the fire, raising a toast to the season, to the unseen, and to the spirit of the land. Soon, they will depart, and new friends will gather for the Samhain feast, more food, more laughter, and a great bonfire that will burn long into the night. The flames will crackle like ancient voices, reminding us that the cycle continues, that every ending is also a beginning, and that in honouring the woodland’s gifts, we honour the life that flows through all things.