The New IPCC Climate Change Report Was Giving Me Crippling Eco-Anxiety. Until I Actually Read It.

Last week, the International Panel on Climate Change (a group of expert scientists from around the world, assembled by the UN) put out their most recent Climate Change report. The negative news cycle got to work right away with headlines like:

We Have 12 years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe, Warns UN — The Guardian

UN Says Climate Genocide is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That. - NY Mag

Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040 - NY Times

True to their titles, the adjectives and phrases used in the first paragraphs of these articles were also inflammatory.

A landmark report…paints a far more dire picture. Disastrous. Impossible. Collapse. Devastating.

I saw the posts on social media. I glanced at the articles. I read summaries (not written by the IPCC). With each fear mongering author, my eco-anxiety increased exponentially.

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Ecological Anxiety is an experience that spurred the Ecopsychology movement, when clients began coming into therapists’ offices expressing fear and extreme worry about environmental degradation. Although the term was initially rare, chances are you’ve heard of it by now, and if not, I bet you’ve experienced it. It’s that absolute freak out you’ve been going through since the IPCC report came out. Anxiety and insomnia, characterized by worried, down-the-rabbit-hole thinking, where there is only one imagined future and it’s too bleak to bear.

I found myself in a major eco-anxiety spiral this last week, including 3am fantasies of maybe buying property (that we can’t afford) in Washington for when our family, and everyone else in California, is forced to migrate due to wildfires and The New Dust Bowl. Given recent events, it didn’t feel that far fetched, but I still recognized that I was spinning out.

Then i remembered my number one rule for clients when it comes to eco-anxiety: If your anxiety is fueled by the news, vet your information.

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In this case, since my anxiety was caused by a report, I needed to actually read the report.

I decided to start with the Summary for Policy Makers. It nutshells the facts and reads like a blueprint for the UN to guide the world in mitigating climage change. So here’s the tough bit: If you haven’t been paying attention to Climate Change, the facts may seem dire. They can be summed up with “It’s serious, and if we want our children and grandchildren to have a fighting chance, we must act quickly.”

However, this is not new news. One of the reasons the report has created such a stir is because many people have not been paying attention to climate science. The other reason is because the journalists who write the alarmist articles are focusing on the timeline of needed action, but leaving out the rest of the report. The worst bit of this, is by using words like “impossible” or “too late” they are exhibiting a serious lack of imagination and innovation, while giving voice to their own eco-anxiety. We may as just throw in the towel and watch the world burn.

Guess what? It’s easy to feel cowed and give up. Rising to the challenge may be intimidating, but it also holds promise and reward. The report is an opportunity that giving up would waste.

The heart of the issue:

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from human causes has created a global mean temperature rise between .8 and 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. This average 1 degree rise is what is causing the super storms and drought that we are currently experiencing, and these events will increase, as will sea level rise. This is a done deal. This rise in average temperature is expected to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052. However, if we can keep the rise in average temp from getting to 2 degrees Celsius, humans, animals, plants and whole ecosystems may be able to adapt. If we don’t stop this temperature rise, our ability to adapt and survive will be severely curtailed. If we continue at the same current rate of CO2 consumption, the temp will go up to 3 degrees Celsius. At 3 degrees we are probably looking at extinction.

WHEW! Ok, that bit was hard to swallow. But here’s the surprising bit - the rest of the report is hopeful and inspiring. Read on.

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Where does the 12 year limit come from?

In order to keep the temperature at 1.5 degrees, we need to globally begin carbon drawdown by 2020, reaching net-zero ideally by 2045 at the earliest and 2055 at the latest. (For our purposes, I’m choosing 2050). By 2030, our carbon emissions need to be 45% less than they are now - that’s where 12 years comes from. Net-zero means that whatever CO2 we emit, we also have to capture, so the emissions stay at zero.

But isn’t that impossible?

It’s not impossible. It’s unprecedented…but only in scope. We are not lacking the technology, the resources, or the knowledge - but only the intention and the will. When America entered WWII in December of 1941, our country was crippled by the Great Depression, and still recovering from WWI. Through intent and will, by 1944 we were leading in arms production, and the whole nation had pulled together to make it happen. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” was a common refrain. Well folks…Don’t you know about Climate Change? Even before WWII, we had already seen the industrial revolution. In 50 years, mechanization and electrification had spanned the country - and we are far more technologically advanced now. Change does not have to be laborious and slow -we just have to want it, and not all of us have to want it all at once. We can start taking the necessary steps now, and as the 1.5 degree increase does the damage it already promises, more people (and nations) will jump on the bandwagon.

So what do we do?

I’m so glad you asked! Here are 4 solutions I deduced, based on the IPCC recommendations.

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SOLUTION 1

Tell your congressional representatives that you demand policy for Net Zero by 2050. Bring Climate Change to the forefront - they will care if they know you do. Insist on candidates who prioritize it. For instance, New York representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is bringing forward her demands for a “Green New Deal”- a plan to transition the US towards a carbon neutral economy. Regardless of which political party you align with, Climate Change is a non-partisan issue and an equal opportunity destroyer. Vote as if all life depended on it.

SOLUTION 2

Along with the goal of net zero by 2050, it is imperative that we focus on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. There are many options for this, but these options are in different stages of development and research. Right now, the most developed and studied (proven to work) are Afforestation (turning barren land into forest), Reforestation (replanting timber lots and burned areas), land restoration and Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). Other promising solutions include Biochar, Enhanced Weathering and soil carbon sequestraiton. A focus on CDR can be achieved by either doing it ourselves (like through planting trees), supporting organizations that are doing it (working with a local or national organization that needs volunteers for reforestation efforts), investing in companies developing CDR and again - supporting candidates who put CDR on their agenda.

SOLUTION 3

While I’m not an economist, I do understand how our addiction to a growth economy is at the root of the problem (especially with overconsumption). Since our capitalist culture is addicted to a growth economy, this addiction can be used to fuel the new green economy and growth of net zero technologies. A green economy is not necessarily a green growth economy - the latter focuses more on things like creating an EV boom - consumption, just more green. While our consumption does need to become primarily green, I’m thinking about green incentives, like the Forest App that helps you cut down on screen time and then rewards you by planting a tree. Or organizations like Americorps who offer university scholarships for individuals who complete a term of service. And there’s always the good ol’ carbon tax (go Washington, go!)

SOLUTION 4

Support social justice and equality by investing in sustainable solutions for developing countries and at-risk communities. Food and water security through sustainable agriculture and permaculture, restoring ecosystems (like Bayview / Hunters Point in SF) to create healthy habitat for people and animals, and supporting the education of girls and women worldwide so they can live vibrant, healthy lives, which includes being able to make informed choices about reproduction.

BONUS SOLUTION

All those things (or that one thing) that you are doing to live a greener lifestyle? Keep doing them. They really do count. However, I caution against putting the onus of saving the world from climate change on your own shoulders. It will only increase your eco-anxiety, make you exhausted and drive you to distraction. It’s also impossible. So the very best, the most important thing you can do? Talk to each other. In person. Especially your neighbors. Especially your neighbors that you don’t agree with. Find a way to connect with that relative with different political views - and do it by not talking about politics. What makes your neighbor happy? What’s something you and your relative both have in common? Find out. Because we’re all in this together.

And there’s no time to lose.

The Sonoma Fires One Year Later: Coping with the New Abnormal in California

Trauma warning for those impacted by wildfire. The following content may be emotionally stirring and potentially triggering.

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Last October, our family (like everyone else in Sonoma County) woke to a sky black with smoke, a horizon on fire and the ashes of our community’s lives floating to the earth like fallen angels. During the night, the Wine Country wildfires had moved across the landscape like the return of a mythological being, unpredictable and energized. In the weeks that followed, we became Sonoma Strong. Yet a year later, we are still hurting and for many, the full impact of loss, anger and grief is only setting in now.

Since that grey dawn, I have worked with fire victims pro-bono, sometimes offering coaching and problem solving for wading through the stress of a re-build, normalizing feelings of guilt and grief as the trauma is processed and most frequently offering empathic understanding for the loss of what was dear - neighbors, houses, trees and animal companions. Our local chapter of CAMFT has been intricately involved with the Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative and My Sonoma Strong, offering groups, yoga, meditation, forest bathing and individual therapy throughout the county. What we have all observed, is that the number of people seeking help trickled in at the beginning, and then at the 6 month mark there was a big uptick. As the rest of the world moved on, Sonoma County residents found they were still living in the ashes.

Manzanita, Bald Mountain, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park

Manzanita, Bald Mountain, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park

It’s a well known experience for those of us living on the frontiers of Climate Change. California, along with the Carolinas, Houston, many Pacific Islands and New Orleans, are not only at the leading edge of human caused disasters, we are also a sneak preview into the impact these events have on our wellbeing. From the article, “What One Devastated Community Can Teach Us About Mental Health”

Surveys found that after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005, one in six survivors met the criteria for PTSD, while half developed an anxiety or mood disorder. Suicide and suicidal thinking doubled in the storm’s aftermath. 
- Matt Simon for wired.com

Christian Burgess, director of the national Disaster Distress Helpline as quoted in “What Wildfires Do To Our Minds”

“During the long term recovery … we start to see deeper mental health concerns from callers and texters, such as persistent anxiety; depression; and substance abuse, which can be related to traumatic exposure during the event; loss of loved ones, including pets; and financial strain,” - yesmagazine.org

When disasters from Climate Change hit the same area more than once (such as in Lake County, CA, which has seen eight fires in seven years), residents can find themselves in a case of double jeopardy. Combine this with already present life strains - economic hardship, racism and oppression or co-occuring mental health issues, and one begins to wonder if there is any way through.

A California bay laurel tree in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Burned all the way through, this tree still leafed out in the spring. A beautiful metaphor for resiliency. This tree is also supported by the other trees around it, through the mycorrhizal …

A California bay laurel tree in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Burned all the way through, this tree still leafed out in the spring. A beautiful metaphor for resiliency. This tree is also supported by the other trees around it, through the mycorrhizal web underground that passes nutrients from root to root….also a great metaphor for the importance of community in healing after disaster.

Personally, I have felt the strain as wildfires in California coincide with ecological grief — a state of chronic sorrow that ebbs and flows in the face of environmental destruction. It becomes what philosopher Glenn Albrecht calls Solistalgia - feeling homesick and bereft while witnessing ecological collapse in the place where one lives and/or feels deeply bonded.

On July 23rd, when I heard news of the Carr Fire in my hometown of Redding, I watched video of the flames licking the shores of Whiskeytown Lake and thought of the grey fox kit I once rescued along the road there; how he mewed in gratitude after I offered him a cap-full of water, both of us overheating on the asphalt. After the initial shock from the news, I felt… nothing. Or rather, I felt a numbness that slowly thawed into depression and heightened emotional sensitivity. I felt hopeless, a feeling which permeated into my experience of the Kavanaugh news cycle. My anxiety also increased, along with difficulty sleeping.

I talk about the importance of resilience in the face of climate change and environmental catastrophe like it’s my job - because it is. Ecopsychology is not only about reconnecting the human animal to nature, it is also about how the human community can meet the upheaval caused by climate instability. As a psychotherapist, and as a citizen, I understand that one of the most effective and radical steps we can take towards this resiliency is to meet ourselves right where we’re at. Most of the time, this means acknowledging our feelings of despair, grief and anxiety and allowing for them. It sounds too simple - that can’t really be the answer, can it? Isn’t there some life hack, power of intention, new research or fancy technique to employ? You can certainly try any number of things, but time and again, what I have discovered both as a clinician, and as a sensitive hearted soul, is that feeling our feelings the key to true healing.

New growth coming up from the root crown of a badly burned madrone, Bald Mountain, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park.

New growth coming up from the root crown of a badly burned madrone, Bald Mountain, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park.

As I struggled with wildfires and solastalgia this summer, I finally realized that I needed to give myself the space to get messy. To fall apart, to not know the answers, and to allow the truth of my love for this world to break my heart. Once I was able to do this, my despair began to lift and my anxiety dissipated. My care and concern didn’t cease, but I was no longer incapacitated by unexpressed grief. Most of my clients who sought help after the fires were also having difficulty giving themselves permission to really grieve. They didn’t want to burden family or friends, and they also didn’t feel their grief was valid. Francis Weller, psychotherapist and author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow speaks to the vital importance of allowing for grief,

I am not suggesting that we live a life preoccupied with sorrow. I am saying that our refusal to welcome the sorrows that come to us, our inability to move through these experiences with true presence and conscious awareness, condemns us to a life shadowed by grief. Welcoming everything that comes to us is a challenge. This is the secret to being fully alive.

As Weller says, welcoming everything isn’t easy. For many people, despite our intellectual understanding that tears are cleansing, even crying is difficult and resisted. But there is a way to ride the waves of emotional experience so that they are profoundly healing rather than debilitating. Called grief work, it combines mindful and somatic (body based) awareness, often coupled with witnessing by a therapist, or in community in a ritual setting. Writing, artwork, dance and singing can also be incorporated so that the heart can truly express itself. What we then discover on the other side is that grief holds a gift for us in its hands - an increased capacity to love, to give and receive compassion and to respond with resilience to the stress of our times.

Our culture rewards emotional repression and the appearance of being “strong” and taking action. But when we jump to “doing something” and push away our grief, we not only abandon our own hearts, we also set ourselves up for burn-out and anxiety. Again, what I have found for both myself and others, is that grief work is renewing, and my best and most inspired activism has come from that wellspring. I also definitely advocate for getting involved with local causes (relief efforts, ecological restoration, marches, fundraising etc.) because a sense of “making a difference” is important. It’s a crucial next step towards resilience… after we have allowed grief to transmute our pain.

A fairy lantern, blooming in the ashes at Sugarloaf Ridge.

A fairy lantern, blooming in the ashes at Sugarloaf Ridge.

If you are in need of mental health support, or are interested in learning more about coping in the New Abnormal, I invite you to explore the resources listed below. If you are interested in doing grief work, I am available, and you can also ask potential therapists if they specialize in grief work and/or have experience with somatic psychotherapy, mindfulness and/or trauma recovery.

Sonoma County Mental Health Support

My Sonoma Strong - bilingual support available
Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative
Sonoma Rises - a self care app for trauma recovery
Free counseling through ReCAMFT
Sonoma County non-crisis helpline (NAMI Warmline)
Yoga for Trauma Relief

Books and Articles

The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
Healing through the Dark Emotions: The wisdom of fear, grief and despair by Miriam Greenspan
What Wildfires Do to Our Minds - Dani Burlison for yesmagazine.org
What One Devastated Community Can Teach the World About Mental Health - Matt Simon for wired.com

In the Tradition of the Great Mother

"This is a soup as only the women of Roan Inish knows how to make...Learned it from my mother, who learned it from hers, all the way back to the first...if you're out in dirty weather, it's like the life blood flowing back into your veins." - from The Secret of Roan Inish

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It is the height of midsummer, and my steep walk down to the beach is accompanied by coastal plants in fervent bloom. The air is filled with the dry, pungent scent of white yarrow and yellow tansy, and the dusty path has a barbed fence of blackberry and purple italian thistle. My steps feel light and unencumbered, a rare experience in this sixth year of motherhood. I feel strange without a little hand to hold, yet I am also reveling in the opportunity to move with my own rhythm, to go at my own pace.

As I look out across this little pocket of the Pacific, I see a sleek, dark head pop out of the water, with even darker eyes. A harbor seal. My heart smiles as I think of the Selkie myth...a creature half seal, half human. She can walk on land as a woman, but only at great risk, as she must take off her seal skin. If it is stolen (and in the stories, it usually was) she will be landlocked. Sometimes she may still have a happy life as a wife and mother, but the pot hanging over her hearth will always have seaweed soup simmering, her gaze straying out to sea.

I left daddy and daughter still slow and sleepy in the early dawn to go on this solo foraging adventure. May to September is when seaweeds are abundant on the California coast, and the tides around the new and full moons of June are at their lowest. An extremely low tide is essential for gathering seaweed, since the blanket of water needs to be pulled back enough to reach some of the most choice edibles. It is towards this slippery terrain of rock,  anemone and algae that I now head, moving past the frontier of the comfortable known, to tide pools containing their own secrets. 

Nori, Bladderwrack, Turkish Towel

Nori, Bladderwrack, Turkish Towel

The intertidal zone is a place of dynamic interaction between rock and wave, a fertile edge where change is constant, and many stressors call for literal resiliency. The plants that grow here exemplify adaptability, sometimes drying out completely for half a day, waiting for the nourishing waves to return. Rather than roots at their base, they have what is called a holdfast, and it anchors them to their place in life. The stem, or stipe, is at once rigid and totally flexible, topped with fronds that sometimes come with their own little buoys in order to stay afloat and receive light for photosynthesis. Some sea plants, like nori, don't have a stipe, instead waving their fronds directly from the holdfast and choosing to live in shallower waters. 

Iridia

Iridia

Bounty appears on the first of the rocks still damp with receding waters and I pick a piece of little rockweed for my initiatory communion. I savor the sensation of outer meeting inner as the smell and essence of the sea rolls around on my tongue. Slowing my breath I steady my mind and remember to move with reverence, grace and mindful attention.  When we wildcraft, we spiral down the curls of DNA, returning from our modern definition of consumers to our ancient roots as gatherers. 

Seaweed gathering also has another ancient connection. We all began our lives as mer people, swimming in our own private ocean, the womb. Amniotic fluid has a near identical composition to seawater, and the plasma in our blood (the watery part) is also highly similar to the salt and ionic content of the ocean. Being a mother, I often think of how children orbit around us, pulling on our tides of blood and milk. We mamas are both earth and ocean, land and sea, anchor and wave. The intertidal zone is an apt metaphor for raising children, with its pressures and stressors, fertility and growth, demanding that we hold fast and also be able to ebb and flow with the changing tides of needs and moods...both our own and our children's. 

I feel my best as a mother when I am able to be present and be a presence, spaciously containing my daughter and her tidal moods, and my own expansion and contraction, without detaching and pushing away, or clinging and pulling close. I am by no means a totally zen mom, but this ability to find space in the crowded demands on attention, time, my chocolate bar, is the only ability I can be sure will provide me solace when the going gets rough. Cultivating this kind of roominess is nothing fancy, but it cannot be done without support. Seaweeds, and the emotional and physical fluidity they offer, are good allies.

Kombu

Kombu

Seaweed is cardio-tonic, meaning it strengthens the heart. Because of the mind-body connection, when the heart is physically strengthened, our ability to handle emotions stored in the heart and chest region (anxiety, fear, sorrow and shame) is increased, our wounds washed clean. The nervous system is calmed by the minerals in seaweed (think of it as a relaxing day at the beach for your nerves), and eating small, daily amounts of seaweed support our lymphatic and immune system. Seaweed's resume also includes (and is not limited to) balancing thyroid hormones and metabolism, soothing the gut and bowels, easing PMS and menopause symptoms, and as essential support for those with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Regardless of how good one's diet may be, nearly everyone is in dire need of more iodine, magnesium and trace minerals. We evolved from and with the sea and sea veggies nourish our bodies on the cellular level.

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Looking up from collecting ruffles of nori, again I see the mournful, receptive eyes of a seal watching me from the waves. It is as if those eyes understand the depths of the soul like they understand the depths of the sea. As an ecopsychologist, I frequently hear mothers relate a loss of sense of self in the early years of motherhood. As if their own selkie skin was stolen by the beautiful, sudden, transformative experience of becoming a parent. Raising kids is a joy and it is also very, very hard. For the wounded, depleted or chronically ill mother, practicing conscious or attachment parenting may call on every last internal reserve. For the mother who did not experience full attachment to her own caregivers, to the mother who needs more separation and time alone than she gets, for when pregnancy has mined a mother's own deep sea deposits of trace minerals...there is a need for rebuilding, reparenting, remothering ourselves. We can turn to The Great Womb, the mother of all life, for healing and to learn how to hold our own needs and pain, while at the same time  cradling our children's experience with the vastness of the sea.  Sometimes we move into full letting go or separation from certain habits or patterns as we crest the steep waves of learning, but we never stop holding fast. The healthy attachment our children experience with us becomes the foundation for their own ability to cling to a sense of self love amidst the changing tides.

 

Simple Seaweed Broth

1/2 cup seaweed of choice (wakame, sea palm, kombu etc.)
4 cups water

A handful of dried shiitake mushrooms (optional)

Knob of ginger, sliced (optional)
soy sauce, tamari or Braggs to taste

Add seaweed (and mushrooms and ginger if using) to boiling water. Simmer for 20 minutes. Leave seaweed in if you like, or strain it out if you are still getting used to sea veggies. Season with soy sauce etc. and sip quietly...even if you have to hide in the bathroom to do it.

Mermaid Bath

A restorative bath for returning to your Selkie self while your body soaks up nourishment from the sea
 

Small cotton or muslin bag, or bandana square plus a rubber band
Several pieces of seaweed...fucus, turkish towel or kombu are all good choices
A handful of rolled oats
Your choice of favorite herbs...lavender, calendula petals, sage, rosemary etc

Tie up ingredients in your bag or bandana square, and place under the tap while your bath runs. Allow to steep for at least 5 minutes and leave in while you roll in the waves. You can also use the bag as a loofa, to take take full advantage of the yumminess. If you harvest seaweed yourself (see resources) you can put fresh (or dried) strands of feather boa seaweed in your tub for a true mermaid experience.

 

Some common seaweeds of the west coast, and their uses

 

Fucus or Bladderwrack: High in carrageenan, and therefore slimy. Good for thyroid support, arthritic joints and especially the skin. Hydrate a small piece and use the mucilaginous gel as a moisturizer and to heal burns (better than aloe!). Be warned...it's very fishy when first applied, but the smell fades. Contains iodine, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and trace minerals, plus more.

 

Nori: Especially good roasted or fried, or crumbled on top of food. Also a cancer fighter. High in protein and vitamin c, as well as vitamin A, potassium and magnesium, etc.

 

Kombu: One of the easiest ways to get seaweed nutrients is to put a small piece of kombu (2 inches or so) in your grains, beans and soups as they cook. Excellent for burns, sore throats and heartburn. Mermaid secret = after rehydrating, the mucilage makes the best natural lube! Contains fucoidan which protects against gamma radiation. Along with being high in iodine, calcium etc. like the other seaweeds, kombu is also high in glutamic acid. Aside from being a flavor enhancer, glutamic acid is an amino necessary for vegetarians and vegans.

 

Bull or Sea Whip: Ground up and mixed with toasted sesame seeds to make gomasio, this is another easy way to get iodine and minerals in your diet. One of the highest in mineral content, bull whip kelp is 25-50% mineral when dried. Includes calcium, B vitamins, manganese, iron plus the usual like iodine, potassium, magnesium etc.

 

Turkish Towel: A tasty and crunchy seaside nibble, turkish towel is a fun one for the bath...the pieces are rough and bumpy and make a great, nourishing loofa in the bath or shower. High in vitamin C and carrageenan = perfect for skin care and anti-aging. 

There are so many other tasty sea veggies! Some grow on the East Coast, or in Japan, but all are luscious and worth a try. Wakame, dulse, hijiki, sea palm, sea fern, cystoseira, iridia (rainbow) seaweed...

 

A note about wildcrafting seaweed

I have been a forager ever since childhood, and most of what I know about edible and medicinal plants comes from my interactions with them in the fields, forests and shore. However, I no longer condone wildcrafting. This is simply because there are too many people doing it. Foraging became a fad in the early aughts, and many of the spots I used to source from have been depleted or destroyed. I absolutely think that you should get to know plants in the wild, and I support having a little trailside nibble. When it comes to seaweeds, I also encourage you to get to know these plants in their habitat, but I do not encourage wildcrafting them unless you 1. Spend over a year getting to know these plants, in the same spot, without harvesting 2. Harvest from a place where no one else does, and no one else will and 3. Gather only the smallest of amounts for personal need. 

Resources

This article is meant as an intriguing introduction to sea veggies, but is by no means exhaustive! There is much to explore at low tide.

 

Pacific Seaweeds: Updated and Expanded Edition by Louis  Druehl and Bridgette Clarkson

The Sea Vegetable Gourmet Cookbook and Wildcrafter's Guide by Eleanor and John Lewallen 

The Self Healing Cookbook: Whole foods to balance body, mind and moods by Kristina Turner

Seaweed, Salmon and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian feast by Margaret Dubin and Sara-Larus Tolley

Ryan Drum - aka Fucus Man - is the west coast’s authority on seaweeds. You can find his articles at www.ryandrum.com

 

For stories about Selkies:

The Sea Lion Woman of Olima by Sylvia Linsteadt

The Animal Family by Randall Jarell

The Secret of Ron mor Skerry by Roasalie Fry

In film: The Song of the Sea and The Secret of Roan Inish

 

 

 

 

© Mary Good 2015 All Rights Reserved