Gardening: Such A Magickal Thing

Imagine my glee this morning, when I went to spray-mist one of my bathroom's rain-forest plants (one that I'm not doing a very good job of keeping wet enough -- even while I'm misting it three times a day and more. The leaves keep turning brown on me; proving the plant wants MORE WATER). There, inside the big flower pot, a MYSTERY MUSHROOM had suddenly appeared! [Again, I spray-mist my plant three times each day and this morning was the FIRST time I ever saw these mushrooms.]

Seriously. My heart now burns with glee from within. I'm trying to determine what species of mystery mushroom this is. {Gardening is truly a magickal art -- with the way mystery plants often appear in my yard outside. Who would have thought such a beautiful specimen could introduce itself from within the confines of my little secluded bathroom/off the master bedroom?}

If you click on the above photograph . . . you will see how fuzzy the stems look. They sort of remind me of the muppet characters from Sesame street (the stems really look like they're covered in felt material). The largest mushroom's cap measures all of 1+3/4 inches across. Both mushrooms lean way over so their caps are just 2 inches raised from the soil.

The next photo was really hard to get. That's me, in the background, leaning over to get the shot of the mystery mushroom's underbelly.
I had to shove my pathetic little (weak) camera into the dirt to show the mushroom's underside. [It's a good thing mushrooms are not bashful. I felt like some deviant man walking around with a mirror on my shoe, trying to look under someone's skirt while taking this picture.] Notice how the two new (just born) growths sticking out of the dirt, in the foreground, look like little fingers coming up from some grave? {{OOOBER AWESOME!}}

I have NEVER grown any sort of mushroom before and I've never seen this species in Washington state . . . so I'm wondering if the mushroom spores came in the soil with the rain-forest plant I had ordered on eBay??? [I'm pulling out my "Mushrooms Demystified" book by David Arora as I type this entry. Hopefully I'll find a name for these two mature plants that I'm currently calling "Ernie" and "Burt."]

Look closely at how both Burt and Ernie seem NOT to connect deeply to the soil . . . their muppet-stubby roots barely touch the loam as they both lean way out toward the center of the clay-pot. It's as though they both reach for the heavier watered area (where most of the water drips from my rain-forest plant).

IN OTHER NEWS:
My witty native-bat article arrived in the mail yesterday. It's inside a very shiny publication called "Pentacle Magazine" (with high gloss pages throughout). While I've been published numerous times in a variety of publications, I feel very proud of this particular article because it just flowed while I wrote it and the end-result made Doug laugh to read it. What's more, I feel Pentacle Magazine is probably the best Pagan publication I’ve ever seen (smart, classy and sophisticated). I feel honored to have my name “SunTiger” appear as a byline there: on all four pages 44-47).