“Mushrooms are very supportive of health conditions and that’s been supported by scientific literature. Anyone attending my lecture can walk away with the ability to know how to identify them in the woods and how to forage them,” said Tyler Davidson, founder of Elden Medicinals and certified Michigan mushroom expert. Davidson is passionate about holistic health, wellness and a root cause approach to healing—and his favorite way to approach this is through functional fungi.
“Saying ‘medicinal mushrooms’ makes people think about drugs,” he said with a laugh, “so I’ve been focusing more on ‘functional mushrooms’. I’m focusing totally on the legal mushrooms and helping people see that it’s more than just one mushroom—all mushrooms have something to support us with.
Davidson is giving an interactive workshop at Crazy Wisdom on February 7 from 12-1:30pm to share his love of mushrooms. It’s open to everyone–he presents information with a lot of varying levels, so people who know nothing can get their feet wet, but people with more experience can still learn.
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“Anyone will walk away with the ability to know how to use these mushrooms for their wellbeing, whether it’s health conditions or general support like cognitive functioning or blood sugar or hormones or gut health,” he said.
This workshop is a natural outpouring of his love for mushrooms, and more broadly, his love for the earth.
“The closer I am to the earth, the more I commune with nature, the more I feel like I’m myself,” he said. He thinks fungi are an important part of that, and people are really waking up to the regenerative power of mushrooms and nature itself. “In dying, mushrooms create more life. They help us get healthier and they help spark new life in us because all of their wisdom.”
He formally began his company, Elden Medicinals, in 2024, after he’d been working with mushrooms for decades, from foraging with his father to starting down the path of being a holistic health coach. “I healed nerve damage in my neck through an experience with lion’s mane,” he said. That made him passionate about helping other people utilize these natural supports.
Part of the reason why he called his business Elden Medicinals is Davidson views mushrooms as our elders: “They have helped reshape the world several times over through extinction events, they’re some of the oldest natural living things on the planet. They’re so good for us and the forest and they symbolize that regenerative root cause approach.”
80% of the fungi in his extracts for Elden Medicinals, Davidson wild forages himself in Michigan. The ones he can’t source from the woods, he sources from a friend who organically grows mushrooms on his own mushroom farm. If you want to find out more about his products, they’re available on Etsy or on Instagram @eldenmedicinals.
“One of my missions is to inspire people to get out in the woods,” said Davidson. “Get out in nature! Get out of four walls and get inbetween four trees.”
When at Crazy Wisdom, Davidson’s wild foraged mushroom tinctures will be available for purchase at 20% off. And he is also bringing his famous chaga and herbal root tea that is delicious and nourishing.
“My workshops are a hands-on experience,” said Davidson, “so I like to bring field samples of every single mushroom we’re covering so they can see them for themselves and I pass them around. It’s a very interactive experience–even though we’re not out in the woods, attendees will still get the experience as if they were.”
Tickets for the workshop are $25 and are available here. You can also purchase with cash day-of.
There will be a raffle, and a ticket purchase equals one entry, but you can get additional entries at the store and who ever wins walks away with mushroom extracts.
Davidson just loves nature, period. Besides mushrooms, he also loves kayaking, long hikes, traveling, seeing new places and cooking.
“Spending wholesome time with my friends and family by a fire playing music and laughing, those are the things that really bring me joy,” he said. He’s seen firsthand how nature has positively impacted not only him but people of all ages. He worked with youth for five years at a residential treatment facility and was part of the therapeutic staff who introduced so many kids to their first time in the woods. “When you’re working with kids with trauma and PTSD,” said Davidson, after being in nature, the kids would, “have less behavioral outbursts, were calmer, and were sleeping better.”
If you have private land and want to know what mushrooms are on your property and how to use them, Davidson offers private land surveys where he’ll come out to your property and leave you with a booklet on your property and the mushrooms there. He also offers a guided mushroom walk, and does consulting and nutritional therapy.
You can email Davidson or connect with him via Instagram.
