Larch Hanson

There is so much fear and insecurity in this world right now. I have no idea what we will have experienced by the time you receive this newsletter, but there are some things I can write that will probably be helpful in any situation:

First of all, 90% of human immunity to illness is called “non-specific immunity”, and that simply means that we carry a salty ocean bloodstream inside ourselves that literally dehydrates most of the critters (bacteria and cellular organisms) that try to crawl into us. If you supply your body with adequate minerals for its internal ocean bloodstream, you will have more energy for coping with stress, however it comes. For that reason, I have decided to offer the blend of chopped seaweeds once again, the “Survival Pack/Soup Mix”. If you don’t have a lot of time to cook, at least get the Survival Pack, and keep a pot of soup going on the stove, using seaweed as part of the soup stock.

My second suggestion: In case there is a nuclear bomb terrorist attack, it would be good to have a food supply of brown seaweeds on hand because the sodium alginate in the brown seaweeds is capable of binding with many radioactive isotopes and heavy metals in the digestive tract, thus enabling the body to excrete them. Laminaria digitata has the most sodium alginate, followed by laminaria longicruris, and alaria esculenta. If you order the Family Pack, it includes two pounds of brown seaweeds as well as nori and dulse.

My third suggestion: This comes from my experience working on the water, in the water, and under the water. When I consciously breathe or hold my breath, I am totally in the moment, and there is no past memory of hurt, no future thought or worry. I am just in the moment, and that is a very healing way to operate in the world, especially during stressful times. So please just pay attention to your breath in the moment, and if you are feeling angry about the world situation, here is a breath exercise that can help you deal with anger so that you don’t hurt yourself, and so that you don’t separate yourself from Spirit and the Light which is always available:

While taking a deep breath, raise your arms high over your head. When you think you have taken a deep breath, take in even a little more, and a little more, and a little more, and hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, and then exhale, dropping your arms, until you are empty, and then continue to blow out your breath in three more puffs, until you are even emptier. Now come back to center and take a couple of normal breaths. Then repeat the cycle again and then a third time. After doing this exercise three times, you will find that it is very difficult to sustain anger or worry. I usually come out of the exercise chuckling or smiling.

My fourth suggestion is that we all need to start thinking about long-term solutions to the problem of terrorism:

A. We need to ask our leaders to actively support the development of alternative sources of energy so that we are not dependent on other countries for oil. Many of our political problems in the world would be lessened if we conserved oil and developed alternative sources of energy.

B. Every time we drop bombs on human beings, we create a certain percentage of terrorists, that is, human beings who become so angry because of the suffering that they witness as a result of our actions that they become terrorists. The long-term solution is this: Every time we generate income, a portion of that income has to be designated for establishing security for all children in the world. In our country, progressive businesspeople and corporations have recognized the need for childcare for the children of their employees. Now we have to extend that awareness to all the children in the world. Since corporations are globalizing their businesses, they also need to globalize their concerns for the safety and well-being of all children in the world. Nothing else will truly solve the problem of terrorism. A terrified child can grow up and become a terrorist if adults fail to show concern about that child’s experience of violence and terror. We need to stop the bombing right now. The oil agenda for a pipeline through Afghanistan from the Caspian Basin is driving this bombing campaign as much as “the war on terrorism”. Think long term: bombing creates another generation of terrorists.

I want to thank this year’s crew: Matt and Raivo, you grew the business this year. You are the pioneers in a new bay, a new territory. Thank you and good luck on next year’s explorations. Scott, you grew into the crew leader, and I’m proud of you. Joanne, your cooking and nurturance toward the crew and the children helped me to see that it would be possible to extend your role to year ’round childcare for four orphans. Nici, I’m proud of how you learned to handle boats in the surf. You’re becoming a very vital woman. Billy, we couldn’t have kept the fires going and maintained the shipping schedule without your patient attention to the details of wood chores and packaging. Kelly, this fall I’m eating the garden that you helped to plant, weed, and water….and I’m feeling rested and refreshed. Luc, the woodwork you built is so beautiful. Thank you. Charles and Jay and David, thank you for fulfilling the fertilizer requirements. You all played so well together. I’m so very proud of you. Leslie, thank you for introducing me to gingko, black walnut hull, and horsetail extracts. Candace, I wish you well in your new endeavours, teaching English as a second language to the Mexican community in Maine. Thank you for all your patient support and encouragement.

Rest in the Light, abide in the Heart.

Note
If you still have seaweed left over from last year, don’t despair. It will keep for more than two years, if your storage is cool, dry and dark. However, why not share with a friend, and renew your supply? If we let go of energy, more can come. Now is a good time to introduce someone you know to seaweeds. I need to maintain a thousand friends in the circle in order to sustain my life’s work. If you can help me find new customers, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for your support. Your cards and prayers sustain me in the work.

Kelp contains Iodine 127. 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.

Just before Christmas, 85 mph winds from the southwest blew over many 50′ tall spruce trees in our forest. Buildings were spared, but we went without power for a few days. Since we didn’t have water, I found myself back in a familiar daily task: hauling water from the stream at the head of the cove. I didn’t mind it, because I had done it every day during the early years here on the peninsula. In fact, it reinforced all the feelings of gratitude and delight in water moving freely that I have developed over the years. This is a healthy state of mind.

There is a book about this topic, A Message From Water by Masaru Emoto. When unpolluted water freezes, it forms microscopic crystals that resemble the beautiful and unique patterns of snowflakes. Moreover, polluted water is chaotic, and it won’t form into beautiful crystals. And get this: Water in a glass can be influenced by human thought! In one experiment, school children were asked to think thoughts of gratitude toward a glass of water, and upon freezing, the water formed lovely crystals. But when the children shouted, “You fool!” at a glass of water, no crystals would form! Further experiments demonstrate the power of prayer to bring order into chaos, and when plant essences are introduced into water, there is a heightened beauty in the crystals that are formed. I am tempted to say that “Water contains the consciousness of earth, and we are not separate. Freely flowing water inspires feelings of delight and gratitude in our mind and heart, and in turn, water is encouraged to heal itself when we show it our feelings of delight and gratitude.” So let me ask you this: Have you ever sung a happy song to water flowing freely? And would you believe that I have been singing to the water and the seaweeds I harvest for 28 years?

Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.

When I first came to this forest, I tried to garden but the soil was very thin and acidic. Digging down, I would usually find only six inches of forest loam, then rocky subsoil and bedrock within two feet from the surface. I hauled hay and seaweed, clamshells and lime, and slowly I developed a deep black loam in raised bed gardens that grew lovely greens. I experimented with various greens, and I found greens that like to be here, growing in a cool mineral rich soil.

My life is entering a new phase. I have acquired some skills, and people who know me say that one of my skills is “developing and holding a sense of place upon the earth for the betterment of all”. I’m ready to share those skills with exceptional people who will not waste the opportunity. That means, of course, people who are able to meditate on the preciousness of human life, people who know that life is short, people who are working to become AWAKE in every moment.

These roles and opportunities for spiritual development are available to the right person:

1. The gardener who goes down to the sea, hauls the rockweek up to the compost pile, develops more raised beds, landscapes and plants flowers, develops forest trails, builds more greenhouses, plants and transplants, patiently weeds and sings to the plants, thanks them for their part in the healing of the whole, packs shipments and writes letters of encouragement to greens customers in the Circle of Friends, teaches apprentices, cooks seafood, makes salad. In winter, work shifts to firewood responsibilities, packing seaweeds, helping in the woodworking shop, tending the fires.

2. The woodworker who builds windsor chairs, knowing that each chair will be sold as a “patron’s chair” on behalf of an orphaned child. A children’s book is being written and illustrated on the whole process, emphasizing the idea that no one can sit comfortably for very long in this world until all the children of the world are covered by a shift in human consciousness toward child-centered work. As my woodworking apprentice, you will be given a complete shop, ready to go. You will also learn how to build boats for seaweed work, and real working cradle boats for children. The right person for this work is able to stay focused on maintaining order and sharp edges while holding clear intent in the mind and heart for long periods of time. A love of good music will help you to enjoy the process, and when you need a break, there’s a trampoline, plenty of opportunity for yoga, bodywork, swimming, creative writing, art lessons, dance, and meditation. Could you stand that much success? Do you want to manifest love upon the earth?

Rest in the Light, Abide in the Heart.

Today I am 55. Since 1970, I have lived on a peninsula named Dyer Neck, looking out to the westward on Gouldsboro Bay, and beyond that, Cadillac Mountain, part of Acadia National Park. Many of you have been to Bar Harbor which is 30 miles southwest of here. Every year since 1974, I have harvested seaweeds, primarily for food and medicine. Included are three types of kelp: laminaria longricruris, laminaria digitata, laminaria saccarina. In addition, I harvest alaria esculenta, dulse, irish moss, nori, and three types of bladderwrack: fucus spiralis, fucus vesiculosis, and fucus edentata. I also harvest ascophyllum nodosum (rockweed) for fertilizer.

I work within a four mile radius of home, and in practical terms this means that I range over thirty miles of shoreline on Gouldsboro Bay, Dyer Bay and the Sally Islands which stretch across the mouths of these bays. Within this territory, I harvest every seaweed bed that SHOULD be harvested for human food and medicine, believing that 1) These plants belong to humanity, and I am a steward, 2) It is possible to harvest these plants in such a way that they regenerate each year, 3) It is possible to train apprentices who can be installed in other similar niches on the coast of Maine, (my apprentice of five years, Matt Spurlock, is living testimony to this belief as he now works on his own in Frenchman Bay; it is my life’s work to train more apprentices until the entire coastline is harmoniously populated by skilled harvesters who understand the process of regeneration), 4) There should be limited entry for seaweed harvesters through an apprenticeship program, 5) Each trained harvester should choose an exclusive territory and appropriate species, stick with it, report his/her work to Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, and be held accountable, 6) There should be a marine extension agent who oversees the annual seaweed harvest and provides continuing education for licensed harvesters.

To those people who are concerned about environmental issues such as the loss of habitat for marine life and the loss of biomass as a result of my harvesting efforts, I would say this: My annual harvest, April through October, is a constant number, that is, I produce a total of 6000 dried pounds of seaweed for human food and medicine.

Visualize a sixteen foot long container boat. 30 container boatloads of seaweed dry out to produce 6000 dried pounds. This averages out to one boatload of seaweed harvested per mile of shoreline in my territory per year. That is my total impact, and it all grows back! The container boatload I’m describing is approximately 50 bushels of seaweed, or 2000 wet pounds harvested per mile of shoreline. This boatload of seaweed will dry out to 200 dried pounds of medicine, food, or fertilizer.

My working concept of a kelp plant is that it has a three year lifespan, and thus I primarily harvest the three year old plants on the surface at low tide which would be lost to winter storms anyway. This strategy has worked pretty well. A11 of my kelp beds have regenerated each year except the kelp beds destroyed by draggers. I pay attention to maintaining a slow flow rate through the beds so that the kelp spores can settle and attach to bottom in order to create new plants, and I avoid allowing too much sunlight to penetrate the beds because this will change local water temperatures and invite other heat-loving species to take over the beds. I do not believe that divers or draggers should be allowed to harvest kelp beds because they can destroy smaller plants on the bottom which a surface harvester cannot reach at low tide. The resource is not that plentiful.

Alaria plants grow at two levels in the surf at low tide. Annual alaria plants are in the upper zone, and these will be totally destroyed by winter storms. I harvest the annual zone. The perennial zone plants grow deeper, and they hang on through winter. I do not harvest them at all. They provide spores to repopulate the upper annual zone.

I harvest dulse, bladderwrack and rockweed with a “loose hand”. This allows 50% of the plant bed to remain in place. The idea is to leave the bed looking as though no one ever was there. This is an acquired skill, passed from baymaster to apprentice.

Candace once asked Matt how long it would take for him to learn what I knew about harvesting, and he replied, “Five years.” Last winter Matt built his own boats at my house, and this past spring he built his own drying racks and building. The next step is to convert Maine Seaweed to a harvester’s co-op so that all of us can truly work together to provide you with seaweeds from some of the cleanest ocean water on the continent.

At the present time, half of the harvest goes to herbalists for tinctures and supplements, half goes to cooks and people who eat raw foods. Some lower grades of seaweed are chopped for animal supplementation and fertilizer. Scraps go to our own greenhouses. Nothing is wasted.

I want to thank Candace for the cooking, packaging, shipping and phone work she did this past year.  I want my daughter Sarah to know how much I enjoyed working with her in the boats this summer. The next boat gets named after you: Surfy Dancer. I want my sons Jay and David to know that we have a special bond, felt on the water, that erases the boundaries between life and death. Trust that bond. I want to thank Scot the seal for the good work he did in the surf this year. And Zack: Come back! I want Matt to know how proud I am of his growth and accomplishments during the past five years. Carrie, I miss your cheerful presence. I want you to come back and create your niche here on the crew. To the Circle of Friends and the would-be apprentices: Come visit! Life is short! If you don’t come this year when will you come?

I’m hungry to see your faces and hold your hands in the glad silence of grace at the table.

Rest in the Light, Abide in the Heart.

Mad cow disease, hoof and mouth disease, anemic aquacultured salmon. What do these all have in common? Crowding. Confinement. Improper and unnatural nutrition of animals. Fourteen years ago, before people were talking about the dangers of genetically modified organisms, I wrote the poem below:

Seeking the Wild Exception

There are unseen patterns,
Afloat in the Universe,
Anchored to the Earth by mineral salts,
That determine the Form of each plant.

A plant is but a condensation of a Pattern,
or Thought,
Expressed in transformation of minerals, water
and sunlight,
Yearning to retum, through evolution,
to its true home,
In Infinity.

A human body, also, is a condensation of
a Pattern,
And the human body is anchored to the earth,
Through the minerals of plants,
And the human Spirit is aided in its retum
to Infinity
By the Essences of plants, arising, lifting,
upwards toward the Light.

The sea plants were the first ones to truly anchor themselves
To the earth, through concentrating minerals
at their lower end,
And then floating, upwards, lifting, back toward
the Light.

We all had to go down into the depths with dark
and salt,
Before we could lift, upward, toward the Light.

I ask my daughter:
“If we destroyed all the daisy plants,
(like the ones in the vase on the table)
And all the daisy seeds ….
Would there still be a chance for daisies?
Would the world again evolve through daisies?
Does the Pattern still hold?”

I have sent her into the Darkness,
to ponder on the Light.

She knows that her Pattern is anchored
and uplifted
By the Patterns of kelp, alaria, dulse, nori,
Buckwheat, oats, rye, wheat, millet, rice, com,
Carrot, kale, onion, bean, burdock, cabbage
and broccoli,
To name a few.

The thought of losing any link in the
Chain of Being
Troubles her ….especially in this precarious age.

The human family is asleep to this Awareness,
This Knowing:
Destroy the plant patterns,
Or interfere with them,
In the name of “improvement”
And you will distort the human pattern.

A sea harvester seeks the wildness of the
outermost islands,
In hopes of capturing the unspoiled patterns…

And when he grows old,
He roams in fields of waving grain
Seeking the Wild Exception.