Expanding Our Umwelt

Tasting helps us human animals learn the world through textures, shape, and flavor. Over time our predilections becomes part of our identity, our hobbies, our habits, our north stars. But it starts with curiosity. A toddler is as likely to put a bug or a toe in his/her mouth as a strawberry. I have memories of my mother frantically trying to remove a mushroom from my baby sister’s mouth – she had picked a toadstool in the front yard and tasted it. My brother Steve, when a toddler, appeared with a snapping turtle clamping onto his tongue. My brother Casey cramming a big beetle into his mouth. Taste has always been a primary way of experiencing the world and when it comes to wild foods, particularly mushrooms, that’s often people’s first question, “Can you eat it?” But identifying a mushroom is often approached first with sight – does it have gills or spores; then scent – does it smell like red hots and sweaty socks? And by habitat – what environment is it growing in? “Is this edible?” should be the last question about a mushroom, not the first.

The book An Immense World by Ed Yong changed my perception of perceptions. Snakes map the forest floor by using their tongues to smell the paths that their prey travels. Bats use echolocation, or ultrasound released from their mouths that ricochet off objects and the return echoes of this help them locate their prey. Bees unlike humans, can see ultraviolet light and have a different color spectrum. They then dance a map to the nectar for their hive. The way an organism interprets the world is known as Umwelt. The theory of umwelt means we all live in a sensory bubble and our brain only knows this world.

Recently I’ve been practicing ways of expanding my umwelt. I do that by experiencing nature – through scent, vibration and sound, and sensation. I think of this as learning the “beneath the beneath” and to use it to tap into our animal, body sensations. We only have the pleasure of being on this earth for a short while – why not try to feel, sense, and smell it along with tasting and seeing?

This past month, I collaborated on a Sonic Grazing Table with my friend Scott Seamus Kildall where he recorded the vibrations of seaweed, mushrooms and ferns and made their vibrations into music. People put on headsets and listened to this as they grazed on dishes with seaweed, mushrooms and fiddle head ferns. You can follow his Substack on BioSymphonic to learn more about his fascinating process.

I then used his recordings on our first night at the workshop I lead at Esalen on wild foods. I paired the audio with scents of seaweed, mushrooms, and the forest, blended by Jennifer Berry who leads our Wildcrafted Perfume workshop. I invited those gathered to drop into their bodies through sound and smell, the experience the synesthesia, or sensory immersion of nature. I believe that this will, if we continue to develop it, create a richer, happier and more immersive experience of being here on earth. What if we can upend our dopamine addictions by replacing them with pleasure sensations? Really, stop and smell the roses. Close your eyes and listen to the wind in the trees. Feel it on your skin. Walk barefoot in tundra or in a meadow or in a cold creek. It’s a different way of mapping life here, far away from the digital noise that takes up too much of our bandwidth. To my delight, a recent newsletter by by Emergence Magazine has some great meditations to help with nature immersion. Encountering Trees is a meditation about sharing breath with trees. And Listening to Birds is about the practice of learning to listen.