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Before Crossing the Stream — We Ask the Forest’s Permission

Before entering, we gathered three kinds of new growth and wove them together in offering.

At the great stone near Thep Prathan Waterfall, Elder Phanom spoke the invocation in Nyagru.

Only then did we cross the waters — the first lesson of *“To the Forest’s Soul”*:

**before you enter nature, you must first ask leave.**

Walking with Those Who Can Read the Forest

The trail winds through valleys — where winds sometimes sweep open like invisible avenues, and at other times the air hangs still, warm and thick within the deep woods. The landscape shifts constantly: from mixed deciduous forest to dipterocarp woodland, open glades, and waist-high **Arrow Bamboo** meadows.

In one such clearing, we met two Nyagru grandmothers gathering mushrooms. They carried woven baskets brimming with the night’s rain — rain that, to those who know the land, means food has risen with the morning. This is *“reading the forest”* — no calendar, no app needed. You simply know which trees fruit when, where the mushrooms emerge, and what season calls you to gather.

One Barking deer's mango Fruit — and the Wisdom Held in the Woods

Beneath the Barking deer's mango trees, we found fallen fruit — ripened, dried, and fermented naturally on the ground, as the Nyagru have long harvested and prepared them for food and livelihood. Elder Phanom offered us a taste: tartness first, then astringency, ending with a lingering sweetness on the tongue.

Along the way, he and Elder Sawit paused often to name plants, share stories, and point out wild fruits — Carabao teats ,wild grapes, and Many other plants that most people might simply walk past without even knowing what they are.. “It is safe to eat,” Elder Sawit would say simply, “but not too much.”
These quiet words hold a profound truth: knowing the forest is not just knowing what you may take — it is knowing how much, when, and how.

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We pressed on toward Thep Prathan Waterfall before dark. Locals say that after 4 p.m., the forest no longer belongs to humans. It may sound like folklore