The 21st century is a time for women

I came across Pierre Bourdieu's Masculine Domination, published in 1998, surprisingly late. I'm reading it now, a day or two to finish, but it's already given me a lot of confirmation that I wasn't the stupid teenage girl, I was really being pushed into a strange structure and forced into a role that was absolutely alien to me simply because of my biological sex. Of course, by the time I became an adult woman, right around 1998, it was clear to me that I wasn't interested in the gender role society offered me and would rather go my own way. Warning, cynicism galore ensues, in which I turn the logic of men against them.
How on earth could men think they are the crown jewels of creation when they have XY chromosome pairs, i.e. they are imperfect. How could an XY damaged being be as magnificent as a woman with two full chromosomes. It is clear that the female sex is the perfect natural construct and the male sex is merely there to ensure genetic diversity of the species. Now, how do you like that?
I am irritated because I have another book in front of me, Malleus maleficarum, which has brought centuries of misery and suffering to women. One of my ancestors was a midwife, and I may have seen her my great-grandmother, who died at the age of 103, when I was a small child. I'm a nature lover myself, and I work with mushrooms, and I spend quite a lot of time in the woods and outdoors. All this would have been a sinful activity centuries ago, when witch-hunting and open misogyny were rampant. How on earth could mankind be so stupid, yes you men, to waste the talents of women?! I'm sure if women had been allowed to succeed in science, the world would be a very different place!
And all this misery and suffering was simply because men were afraid of women.

What has Europe given us? Charles de L'Écluse

Carolus Clusius in Latin, Clusius Károly in Hungarian is the name of the eminent scientist to whom we owe the first botanical research in Hungary. Read his biography in French here and in Hungarian here.

Although I vowed not to get upset, but the spread of stupidity and evil for personal gain, the destruction of human lives and natural values infuriated me. Europe has never been mean to the Hungarians, it has just generally looked the other way, as there were quite a few internal problems in the West. Now, I don't list the various wars that reached such proportions in the 20th century that they went down in history as world wars. The alliance of European nations, now known as the European Union, is a historic undertaking and a noble effort to preserve peace in the long term. Anyone who weakens the alliance for personal gain is the ultimate scumbag. And what can I say about Europe's elite, because they are no better than Viktor Orbán or Robert Fico and I could go on and on about the other villains, because the Western elite are as stupid as they come and I'm fucking sick of having such fuck-ups fucking up the world I want to live my creative life in. While scientists have toiled for centuries to understand the world and humanism has spread in Europe, nationalism and the evil dream of empire are spreading like a festering ulcer, setting the whole world ablaze once again!
Oh, you're as stupid as you are, you'll die stupid, and I'll watch damnation with tears in my eyes.

Nem tudhatom, hogy másnak a magyar kultúra mit jelent

Szerintem egyből felismerted, hogy melyik vers első sorát változtattam meg a jeles nap alkalmából. Itt van bal kéz felől a Bori notesz, Radnóti Miklós megrendítő hagyatéka, a tömegsírból feltárt szellemi kincsei. Találomra nyitottam ki a noteszét, és kimásoltam a feltárult, versbe szedett gondolatait.

Gyökér

A gyökérben erő surran,
esőt iszik, földdel él
és az álma hófehér.

Föld alól a föld fölé tőr,
kúszik s ravasz a gyökér,
karja akár a kötél.

Gyökér karján féreg alszik,
gyökér lábán féreg ül,
a világ megférgesül.

De a gyökér tovább él lent,
nem érdekli a világ,
csak a lombbal teli ág.

Azt csodálja, táplálgatja,
küld néki jó ízeket,
édes, égi ízeket.

Gyökér vagyok magam is most,
férgek között élek én,
ott készül e költemény.

Virág voltam, gyökér lettem,
súlyos, sötét föld felettem,
sorsom elvégeztetett,
fűrész sír fejem felett.

Ami még eszembe jutott a jeles nap kapcsán, hogy le kéne fóliázni a Himnuszt, mert Kölcsey Ferenc nagy valószínűséggel meleg volt. A nemi identitása picit sem csorbítja művei értékét! Ellenben az el nem ismert emberi oldala csonkává teszi a valódi alakját. Ez az álszentség, hamisság igen csak rút sajátsága az úgynevezett nemzetieknek, mert akik sokat tagadnak és hamisítanak, más gonoszságokra is képesek. Halálos bűneiket megismétlik, saját inkompetenciájukat másokkal megfizettetik. Tényleg ünnep a mai nap?

Silent January

Winter is a time of withdrawal and preparation, when I myself work on my plans in retreat. The winter months are quiet, but in the silence you can hear the voice of your own soul. January surprises us with its winter days, it's been a long time since I've been able to photograph a gruel. I was standing on the ring dam, which used to protect the town from the river in the 19th century, but has now lost its function. It was a perfectly peaceful moment. Winter can give you such a gift. I also walk on frosty days. This year I'm taking my daily exercise more seriously. It looks like I'll easily make it to 150 kilometres of walking a month. I'm shooting with my old compact camera, the Canon PoweShot A630's noisier, blurrier image quality is more suited to the winter mood.

On 11 January, the city was shrouded in a frosty fog. I took the opening photo on 12 January, when the fog had lifted and the gruel was melting fast in the sunshine. I last minute caught the beauty of the white with the blue sky. I always follow the same route, but I never take two pictures that are the same, even if the subject is the same. The light changes from day to day, minute to minute. Photography is painting with light, light has a powerful effect on the images. That's why photography is unforgettable, it gives me a sense of flow too. You see, life is not boring in winter. There are plenty of harmonious moments to be found in a perfectly ordinary city walk.

When there is an anticyclone overhead, the sky is completely clear and beautiful blue. With this photo, I managed to capture my favourite colour, yarrow, which is an herb, with the autumn foliage of an oak tree in the background. It is a perfect expression of the grandeur of existence and the pure, simple joy of being. I use yarrow as a tea in a herbal mixture in winter. It is particularly useful for me as a woman. Although fungi are my main profile, I am also interested in wild medicinal and edible plants. It is great to see that there are still values in the landscape that we have a duty to preserve for the benefit of future generations. As a conservationist, it is good for me to see these creatures.

I notice many things while walking, like this paper star next to the library. This was a memory from the Christmas holidays. I smiled to myself. As a middle-aged woman, Christmas was much simpler, but I still experienced the essence of it, the family bond. Indeed, one of my pains is that the social bond between man and man has been severed and there is no chance of reconnecting. We share common human values and it is in all our interests to preserve them. In 2024, I will have to make an extra effort to protect my heart so that it doesn't break. I am also working on my defenses to have a strong self-defense. No one else is protecting my interests. My naivety is long gone.

I am there in the bigger picture. I will do what is within my power to do, with a sense of responsibility, but no more. The online part of '101 Mushrooms' was launched on 19 January. On 26 January, the topic will be the mushroom identifying process after the boletes. It always feels good to share my knowledge and enthusiasm. It makes me feel complete. I am also making progress with my creative project, see my previous posts. Self-expression is very important to me, because it is a characteristic of the Hungarian wreck-society that, due to a lack of self-awareness, it is rigidly attached to old and harmful ways of functioning, and an open and curious soul like me would not be alive if she could not say what is hurting her. I will stay within my sphere of influence, I will not convince anyone in 2024. I shut myself away for my own peace of mind. The one thing I am really good at is looking out of the abyss, quiet and careful attention.

I hope that you can spend the winter well. Look for moments of reflection. The joy that comes from the purity of being can surprise you in unexpected ways. Joy does not require great things. The noise has become too much, which is precisely why you cannot see yourself and the fundamental truths. Art is a tool for our minds to perceive and interpret the world. Art and knowledge are a great help to us. Winter is a good time for cultural activities. I went to a photography exhibition in the third week of the year. There I took the sixth picture in this post. And if you want to spend the growing season from bud break to leaf fall in a useful way, and you are from Békés County, then you are looking for me. Mushroom hiking will start in March. I really hope that there will always be rain in time for the mushrooms to grow. In spite of the difficulties, life also holds joy for all of us.

Those wonderful boletes

Today at 5pm I will be giving an online lecture to my fellow mushroomers who have signed up for my '101 Mushrooms' course. In my linked article you can read the course recommendation in Hungarian. It will be a year-long programme, and I'll have the theoretical part before spring. But I repeat the knowledge transfer over and over again to make sure it sticks in the memory. I like to talk about mushrooms, I like to share my experiences, because I have a big project called simply 'Enjoy', and in it I have my projects related to the joy of living. I also see the good and the bad very well. I can enjoy life and my laughter is full of joy. When I talk about my favourites, I really blossom and I'm full of energy. This is also an added value, an added blessing to my performances. I love to inspire my listeners. I love it when they too light up with joy. It's good to share happiness.
Yes, I know, I'm a very sentimental, emotional, sensitive idealist, but I was born that way.

First habitat mushroom photo of the year

The photo of pale brittlestem Psathyrella candolleana from this year, walking home I noticed the fresh fruiting bodies in a small pile of leaves. Despite the fact that it is a common fungus, I was pleased because the reacted to the mild spring weather, so it was not a fungal-mummy. The first week of the year is a very mild one in Hungary. For those who don't notice this and still deny climate change, it will be a very traumatic experience when the world changes for good.
I'm thinking about the mushroom season, watching the soil moisture and waiting for the cold snap again, because the morels (the article I linked is in Hungarian.) need the moisture and the cold effect to start growing quickly from March. The frosty weather of the second week is due to the polar vortex disturbance. It looks like the rest of January will be normal winter weather. It would be nice if there was snow, because snow cover is beneficial in many ways.

I carry the world in the palm of my hand

The five images cover 12 years from 2010 to 2022. The title of this entry refers to the responsibility. I do spend a lot of time in nature and study the world with great care.
I apologise to those who read only in Hungarian, but I will return to publishing entirely in English in 2024, as there are already plenty of mushroom reports on the blog, and it is timely to build international links. I am a green patriot, born and living in the south-eastern part of the Hungarian Great Plain, but this small landscape is also part of the big one. Our treasures, however modest, are worth showing to the world. By editing this blog in English, I am supporting my own language learning and setting an example. I write my novels in Hungarian and later translate them into English. Joseph Conrad is one of my role model. The key to our survival is to recognise our uniqueness in the mirror of the world, but at the same time this recognition helps us to connect to the mainstream of the world. Isolation is a death trap.

All that I absorbed in my mind in my native land, I will show it to the world before I die. I think I have an unique vision of the world, which is both brutally sombre and airily light. The combination of extremes is pretty well done in my person. It gives me a dynamism or passion to me that used to be quite normal in Hungary, but has somehow disappeared over the decades. I don't care about that, as a middle-aged woman with a great sense of responsibility, I am already fully aware of my scope and within that scope I will do everything within my principles to preserve life on earth. With this in mind, I will shape my life in the new year. I let go of a lot to focus on my priorities. I have three plus one plans for 2024. The first is not only a plan, but also a serious task. As a teenager, when I was still learning about mushrooms, I made a half-joking promise to the market mushroom inspector that I would be his successor. Well, my time has come. Having worked in this particular profession for six years at another market, I know exactly what I have undertaken.

It is dizzying to think that thirty years have passed between that promise and now. Three decades is a significant part of my life so far, I can see the years ticking by. Such events are milestones and truly moving. I can clearly see and feel that I have crossed new line. It is not age that makes us adults, but the experience and embrace of responsibility. Of course, for the rest of my life I will still have the traumatised sobbing child inside me, but she enjoys having an adult around and protect her like a knight armor. I am undoubtedly on a very special journey in its unique smallness. And I sense the movement of the world through nature, and I love gazing at the stars, looking out at the Milky Way. How "good" it is for me that I persevered in the face of all the difficulties and that at the best of times, five people came to my aid. I think of them with gratitude, but what I think of the others I will now keep to myself for the sake of my quiet working life. I have fought my battles, and all that remains is to conclude my business, that is, to hand over my inheritance. So my second big task is to write one of my novels in full and develop the others to a level where they can be written by an AI in the event of my death. Real human life is no longer about heroes, even if I see myself as a hero, I am aware of the reality, but the child in me is eager for the triumph of good and the promise of all good things coming to good ends. What a beautiful lie, but I give it to myself. And I also owe a debt of gratitude to the mushrooms who, as natural elements, have in reality come to my rescue. Studying mushrooms is one of the better decisions of my life.

I owe a debt to mushrooms and I will continue the education.In 2024, I have named my green project '101 fungi' and I have already posted an article in Hungarian on the blog. Basically, I hope to be joined on the mushroom trail by fellow mushroom hunters who are curious about mushrooms and want to learn about nature. I would love to experience camaraderie, which in Hungary is more impossible than riding a dragon. Anyway, I'm quite cheerful, because I've really been through a lot in my life. I am not the least bit alarmed by such difficulties, and I laugh at the absurdities of my home country. I let them go, because they do not support me in my work. In 2024, there will be no more public affairs articles on the blog, but I will collect, edit and publish them separately, because I owe it to society. I will gradually stop using social apps because there will be plenty of social interaction in the marketplace, which, as an introvert, will be enough for me. As I turn forty-six in February, I've had time to get to know myself and explore my limits. I know what my optimum is. I'm not going to run after anyone and I'm not going to loudly shout that I've drunk from the fountain of wisdom, because I haven't, but what I do know, I'm happy to pass on in my own quiet way.

One part of creating a fantasy world is the map. Well, I solved it very simply, I saw a map of one of my worlds in a worn patch. My infinite imagination is willing to help me with little things too. Why did I put this picture last? Because in addition to the three main projects (I have presented them in order of importance), there is an extra, a fourth, the storytelling workshop. The linked article is in Hungarian and English, so my readers at home and abroad can learn about my secret love project. This is a bigger task than it first seems, because it involves a long-term plan. If I teach young people to use one of our most useful tools, they will surely be empowered to spot harmful manipulation and to defy it by writing their own story, becoming the shapers of their own lives and not just drifting at the will of others.
Hungary and the world will be irretrievably lost if we do not regain as much of our independence as possible at the individual level. Despite its importance, this fourth project is not up to me. As I have written above, I will not run after anyone and I will not shout to promote myself. My market duties and novel writing plus training will already demand considerable energy from me.
Otherwise, I'm happy if others are active in parallel with me. As closed and strangely sad as I am, I have a kind heart that rejoices to see bubbling activity and the happiness and fulfillment of others.