We humans owe a great deal to seaweed. I’ve written that the earth’s great forests are the lungs of our planet. That is actually not true. As we learn more about our oceans, we have come to see that algae and seaweed are the major producers of oxygen, accounting for about 70% of the total produced on planet earth. Not only that, but nutrient rich seaweed provides habitat and food for a multitude of oceanic animals, and they have the potential to help solve humanity’s food production issues.
The vast kelp forests of the Pacific Ocean are not technically plants, but rather, they are brown algae that have come together to form plant-like structures. Their long floating stems with attached leaves are anchored to the ocean floor by their roots. The strands of kelp are free to drift with the flow of water that surrounds them, taking nutrients from the water and converting carbon dioxide into oxygen by the process of photosynthesis. Tethered there, when waves of all sizes roll by the stalks of kelp, they keep their footing, and just allow the waves to wash through them. They bend and float with the currents, but are always attached to the seabed. Imagine in your mind’s eye the gentle undulations of these stalks of kelp as the seawater pushes them in one direction then another. A wave affects a single strand at one location, and the kelp’s stalk bends against the force. Then, that movement transfers down the length of the strand in both directions, setting up a beautiful flowing wave. The ocean’s wave action causes the kelp to perform its own wave action dance.
I just attended a weekend offering by Philip Shepherd titled Radical Wholeness Workshop, where we experienced many exercises to help the participants become better aware of our bodies’ innate wisdom. ( https://embodiedpresent.com/ ) One exercise had us pretend to be strands of seaweed, rooted to the ground. Then, with our eyes closed, a partner would gently brush our body in different locations to propagate a movement that simulated an ocean wavelet or current. Even though we all knew the brushes were coming, we all physically stumbled. However, when we took the time to really ground ourselves with a soft foundation, keeping our knees fluid and our heads heavy, we could better lean into our partners’ “waves” as they came. Our bodies bent and flowed more easily.
I used the metaphor of surfing in the title of my memoir, and it still holds. Waves will come. If we don’t want to be capsized by them, then we need to learn to surf them. The seaweed metaphor is an apt one, too. It teaches us that we need to be flexible and let the waves wash over and even through us if we want to stay grounded and not become unmoored. And, if the cores of our beings are rooted, it is harder to be knocked over by life’s rogue waves. Our balance is maintained when we are anchored to the Source and when we bend and dance with the waves, changed by them, but not torn asunder and adrift.