Return to the Source: Balkan Chronicles 5D

 

The Awakened Forager’s Instinct: How Kopaonik’s Gifts of Nature Teach Me to Feel Abundance

I spend most of my time during my retirement journey in direct contact with nature. Lately, I have felt incredibly clearly that a primal foraging instinct has awakened within me. This has nothing to do with the systemic, consumerist accumulation of objects—of those, I currently carry just over 20 kg, and I am still in the process of consciously reducing that amount. I am referring to the nature of a gatherer of gifts, with which the Earth so selflessly endows us.

During these treks, deep insights come to me regarding our past. Are the images served to us by official science and the media—of a caveman hunting with a spear and consuming bloody game—actually true? Our anatomy, and especially our long digestive tract, clearly shows something entirely different: our primal nature was foraging and eating plants. Already during my stay in Scotland, my morning ritual became feasting on wild raspberries straight from the bush, alongside which wild cherries and sweet cherries also grew. For over two weeks, I gathered and ate whole kilograms of fresh fruit, benefiting freely from the cosmic abundance around me.

After nearly another month spent in the mountains of Serbia, this inclination to draw directly from the source has only strengthened. In Vikend Naselje, I hit the perfect season for wild blackberries and blueberries. I developed my own ritual: I gathered some into a box to eat in the morning for a clean, sun-charged breakfast, and some I snacked on in the late afternoon straight from the bushes. By then, my stomach was completely empty after my morning meal, ensuring the fruit did not mix with other food, perfectly supporting the HCLFLP 76/12/12 model.

Just when it seemed to me that the blueberry season was coming to an end, because the fruit further down was becoming soft and difficult to pick, nature surprised me yet again. It was enough to walk a few hundred metres higher, into the upper reaches of Kopaonik, for the Earth to bestow upon me another fresh wave of abundance—ripe blueberries, and even late raspberries!

These hours spent in silence, on the mountain slopes, help me ground myself deeply in the present moment. I feel an inseparable connection with myself and my surroundings. This is not just gathering food—it is receiving living light, high vibrations, and pure vitamins. Nothing but wonderful benefits for body and soul. On top of that, in hidden forest corners, I gathered fresh mint, which I dried and from which I brew a delicious, aromatic tea every day. And yesterday, with Gaja’s help, I deciphered a biennial plant—a mullein rosette in its first year, meaning just the leaves without the flower. I am currently drying this great leaf and look forward with anticipation to see what kind of infusion it will produce.

Stepping outside the matrix and its artificial food, we discover that true freedom and abundance have always been waiting for us. We simply need to reach down.

Ginkgo & Gaia