Larch Hanson

NOAA Weather Radio has a new computerized voice called “Donna” and she seems to like saying the words “partly cloudy” a lot, except that the skies over Bar Harbor (summer tourist mecca) are always described as “partly sunny”. I live 30 miles east of Bar Harbor, as the crow flies, in the area that is definitely termed “downeast Maine” . . . more lobstermen, less tourists . . . and Donna tells it like it is: partly cloudy and always a “chance of rain”. Donna seldom says that about Bar Harbor. “Downeast” is a term from sailing days when schooners on my part of the Maine coast sailed downwind, going east. Those days are gone. On the other hand, my bay is empty and peaceful at this time of year. In fact, my bay has been undisturbed since last fall when scallop draggers worked for a week and then were gone. The summer migration of lobsters from deep water into the bay hasn’t occurred yet, so this morning the crew and I had the bay to ourselves…. and that’s the usual, not the unusual, way it is. When the summer lobstermen come up into the bay, we will be headed toward the offshore islands, kelp season accomplished, alaria season accomplished, dulse season yet ahead of us to do.

So what has the weather actually been like this year? Well, I ate kale from the garden all winter long, and I was actually transplanting kale plants from garden to greenhouse in January! I had to chip through an inch of frost. In the ocean, there is more kelp than usual, but less alaria in the upper annuals zone. The deeper perennial alaria zone seems as full as ever, but I do not harvest this zone because that is my spore stock for replenishment of the upper zone.

Spring drying weather has been damper than usual. I have yet to hear Donna announce a three-days-long ridge of high pressure which would mean, “Fill up the kelp lines; it’s going to be sunny and breezy.” Nope, instead she gives us her cheerful but shallow-voiced “partly cloudy” predictions, and I wish she would just come out and say it like the downeast fishermen do: “Cheer up, chummy, things will get worse.”

Out there in the world beyond my peaceful bay, it would seem that situations are definitely getting worse. A Gallup poll of 2000 Americans asked the question, “Do you think there will be a nuclear catastrophe in this country within the next fifty years?” and 60% replied “Yes.” It is my opinion that the other 40% do not read the newspapers: “Only a thin, noncorrosive, stainless steel membrane kept the hole at the Ohio reactor from bursting open.” ” A nuclear reactor in Ohio is found to have a large hole nobody thought possible, burned almost through its 6-inch protective steel cover.” Former NRC Commissioner Victor Gilinsky wrote in a recent commentary in The Washington Post, “If this occurred in Russia we would be saying it could never happen here.” Well, we have 103 aging reactors in this country, and it IS happening here.

Bill Moyers recently explained that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center could easily have destroyed the two atomic reactors at Indian Point, about 35 miles up the Hudson River. The resulting meltdown would strike the Hudson River and raise clouds of radioactive steam that “would render thousands of the world’s most populous and expensive square miles permanently uninhabitable.” Cheer up, chummy. Even the May 2002 issue of Reader’s Digest, the mainstream equivalent of cheerful NOAA weather radio, includes an article, “The Nuclear Bomb Squad,” which is based on interviews with current and former members of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, 1000 members of a volunteer “army” who are deployed when there is a threat of a nuclear “dirty bomb” in our country. Dirty bombs use conventional explosives to spread radioactive materials into the environment.

So why do I bother to tell you all this bleak news? Why do I choose to “tell it like it is”? My crew, warming up in the hot tub before a morning harvest in 45 degrees surf, jokes with me: “Larch, put a picture of us in the newsletter. Sex sells!” And I reply, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re supposed to feel good, and I want the Circle of Friends to know that you feel good, doing this work, but more important, I want the Circle of Friends to know WHY we are doing this work.”

It is because kelp contains Iodine 127 that we do this work. Iodine 127 will prevent the body from absorbing radioactive iodine 131 which is constantly being released into our atmosphere by so-called normal operations of nuclear power plants and weapons facilities. Homeland security is a joke unless you have true security of good nutrition that includes Iodine 127 in your daily diet. This is specific protection for the thyroid gland, and you need to be aware that most nuclear pathologies in a disaster like Chernobyl are related to the intake of radioactive Iodine 131 into the thyroid gland. Rather than wait for the government to dispense potassium iodide to the population after a disaster occurs, eat kelp as part of your daily diet.

We also do this work because Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki, M.D. and the staff of his hospital, survived the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. The hospital was built of bricks, it was located about a mile from the epicenter of the explosion. Dr. Akizuki and his staff had been eating a diet that included brown rice and miso soup and seaweeds. Sugar was excluded. After the bombing, rice balls, seaweeds, salt, miso and other good-quality strengthening foods were fed to all the patients and staff.

Kelp contains sodium alginate which is capable of binding with ingested particles of toxic strontium 90, cesium 137, and various heavy metals in the digestive tract, thus aiding the body in excreting radioactive fallout. After Chernobyl, the Russians isolated the polysaccharide U-Fucoidan in kelp, an excellent absorber of radioactive elements.

Here are sources for good quality salt and miso:

South River Miso
888 Shelburne Falls Road
Conway, MA 01341
Phone: 1-413-369-4057

Natural Lifestyle Supply
16 Lookout Drive
Asheville, NC 28804-3330
Phone 1-800-752-2775

I suggest that we all practice being a world community. I have always relied on word-of-mouth to sustain this work. This time, I am enclosing two fliers in my mailing: One for you, a member of the present Circle, and one for someone who is more at risk than you whom you would like to invite into the Circle. If you can afford to copy this flier and distribute it more widely, please do.

Once you have secured your supply of miso (see above) and seaweed, and once you have decided where to live (make this an intentional spiritual decision), here are some words to put up on the wall, for the growth of your spirit:

“Relax. Pay attention. There is nothing to be done. It is all covered. You do not need to worry. You will get exactly what you need, in every moment of your life. Your Great Perfection, liberating you into the Light, is already accomplished. Relax, stay in the Heart with the sound of “Ahhh” and be grateful. Trust Spirit, put “other” in place of “self”, and breathe deeply, relaxing into the Great Presence.”

I love you all very much.