Online articles by Clea Danaan (links to other websites)

The Sea Within
Originally published in Sage Woman magazine, Autumn 2002 - www.sagewoman.com

On a sunny afternoon last fall, the mischievous Chinook wind blew down from the Rocky Mountains. I decided to hike Mount Sanitas, a foothill of the Rockies that reaches skyward only a few blocks from my house. My shoes gripped the hard, dried earth as I breathed heavily up the little trail. A raven flew overhead, her raucous haghhh greeting me. I switched off the main trail to follow the eastern-most ridge, through a stand of short pine trees shifting madly in the wind. Gusts pulled up clouds of fine dirt; I squinted against the flying debris as I climbed higher, towards an outcropping of stone. Here I paused to take in the mountains.

I leaned against the great sun dried stone, and gazed out over the pine trees at the grassy brown foothills. In this spot I could see no sign of civilization; the trail below could not be seen through the trees. The laughing wind overwhelmed any sound of far-off traffic. I placed my feet solidly on the rocky earth and raised my arms in an invitation to Her: enter my being. A great gust of wind swirled around my body, and I tilted back my head, grinning. I am here. Earth below me, fire in the sky above, air lifting my dark hair… and water? Water in this dry rock land? Your body, child, carries the sea within. I shifted my listening to my own body, listening to my own ebb and flow. I felt the saliva in my mouth, felt deeper to the moisture I hold within my very cells. The moisture I miss in this dry land.

I moved to Colorado two years ago from the green, salty Pacific Northwest. I left behind the tide pools, tiny ecosystems nestled in black rock. I left behind the roar of chilly breakers. Left behind, too, the slinking blackness of the octopus, the slipping wetness of orca whales. The sea has been as constant as my own soul, but now I only carry it within to the thirsty Colorado mountains.

We all carry the power of the sea within. Her rhythm can be found in our craniosacral fluid as it ebbs and flows, cradling the brain and spinal column within our bones. There is no blood in or around the brain. Instead the brain and spinal column have their very own nourishing sea, bringing them oxygen and minerals. The craniosacral fluid is always slowly being absorbed, while it is produced in waves. The fluid enters the cranial vault, then pauses as it’s absorbed, then flows in again, and the skull expands and contracts to accommodate this protective, nourishing fluid. I can feel this ebb and flow by laying my hands lightly on my body, or on someone else. We widen and narrow with this internal sea.

My womb also widens and narrows, but more slowly, performing a monthly dance with the moon. Sometimes I follow her, other months I flow in contrast to her waxing and waning. The salty thickness of my blood prepares to nourish another life, each month letting go with a sigh to cleanse away my choice. One day a life will settle in to the thick blood wall, and I will swell like the moon. Another promise will arise from the primal sea.

The sea lives primal inside our genes, as well. Most of our makeup is primate, but those parts of us that we do not share with our chimpanzee cousins we do share with aquatic mammals. Human babies can swim from birth, and instinctively hold their breath when submerged, whereas chimp babies do not. The only other mammals who exchanged thick surface hair for warming subcutaneous fat are aquatic, like elephants and hippos. Our paddle-like hands and feet possess subtle webbing between the fingers and toes. Furthermore, we sweat, urinate, and cry far more than other primates, perhaps because our bodies once spent considerable time in water, where such a profusion of fluids wouldn’t be wasted. Millions of years ago, after splitting with our chimp cousins, we very likely became a semi-aquatic species and evolved these and other anomalous traits. The memory of this evolutionary epoch would still be held in our genes.

This evolutionary memory might explain why my own draw to water seems more than just emotional. Often when standing where salty waves lick the pebbled shore, I have felt a great pull to keep going. I imagine entering the cool, dark waters and finding that my legs have magically transformed into mermaid fins. Gill flaps would come unstuck on my back, between my shoulder blades. My eyesight, less than perfect on land, would grow keen and my night vision would improve. I would return to my ancestral land. A fantasy, yet one that I can feel down to my very genes. Did Irish lasses feel this same pull, inspiring them to wonder about selchies?

The selchie is a seal woman, who came one day to the shore to take off her seal pelt and dance in her human form. A sailor saw this beautiful naked woman dancing at the water’s edge, and he secretly stole her seal pelt, hiding it away so she could not return to the sea. She had no choice but to stay with him as his bride and bear his children. Everyday she would gaze longingly at the sea, hoping to retrieve her lost pelt. Usually the story follows that her son discovers a magical silvery cloak as his father tries desperately to keep it hidden. The boy tells his mother what he saw, and with a great joyful ache she puts it on and returns to the sea. In some versions she drowns her children as she tries desperately to take them with her; in others they are gifted for life with the treasures of the sea.

Unlike the selchie, I cannot really live under water one day. And unlike the selchie, I chose my land-locked home, here in Colorado. For now I will learn from the mountains and their cousins the plains. I will learn of rock, and of endless bright skies. The land here teaches me about cold winters and hot summers, and of dry, thin air. The call to return to the sea is always there, however. My body responds with her own waves and tides, her ancient memories of floating on warm African waters, her mythic call to return to the sea. So for now I carry my salty longings within, and catch memories of sea spray on the roguish Chinook as she blows up over the mountains to this rocky place I call home.

The Invisible Trust Fund: Organic Foods
Originally published in Organic Family Magazine, Winter 2006 - www.organicfamilymagazine.com

Adapted from part of Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political & Environmental Change

As a mother of a breastfeeding baby, I am very aware of everything I eat. I want my daughter to get the best nutrition possible, avoid allergies, and receive as few pesticides as possible. Eating organic foods, despite the sometimes much higher prices, feels like a crucial commitment to the present and future health of my child. Not only does it give her the highest nutrition, it helps preserve the beautiful planet she now lives on, and is one little way I can try to assure she has the best future possible.

Organically grown food is much more nutritious than conventionally grown vegetables. A study in the UK found that organic produce contains much higher amounts of magnesium, vitamin C, phosphorus and iron than those conventionally grown. Conventionally grown beans have one-tenth the iron of organic beans, while conventional spinach contains half the calcium of organic spinach. Organic lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and potatoes contain particularly high levels of minerals. We absorb nutrients through food far better than through vitamin supplements, and vitamin deficiencies can lead not only to physical health problems, but depression and anxiety as well.

Danish researchers found significantly higher amounts of antioxidants – from ten to fifty percent more – in organically grown produce. Antioxidants reduce our risk of developing cancers and coronary heart disease. A study in Sweden suggests that consuming organic foods may reduce the prevalence of allergies as well.

Not only does organic food contain more nutrients, but also a lot less poison than conventionally grown produce. The Pesticide Action Network North America found when they examined data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that essentially all Americans contain in our bodies a cocktail of dangerous pesticides. While the EPA and CDC know some of the ill effects of individual chemicals, there are almost no studies demonstrating what might happen when these pesticides are combined. Our bodies have become living chemistry laboratories, containing toxic levels of dozens of kinds of dangerous chemicals.

The highest amounts of toxic pesticides were found in children, women, and Mexican Americans. I find it staggering that the average 6 to 11-year-old studied by the CDC is exposed to four times the “acceptable” level of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, a chemical known to interrupt nerve development in humans. The women studied had extremely high levels of organchlorine pesticides in their blood and urine samples, chemicals that inhibit brain and neural development in fetuses when they cross the placenta.

Our bodies are not able to pass many of the chemicals, pesticides, and other pollutants we are exposed to; over time, pesticides build to toxic levels. We store many of them in our fatty tissue, from which we draw extra nutrients for breastfeeding. Though it is still the absolutely best food for our babies, breast milk contains extremely high levels of pesticides and POPs, or persistent organic pollutants, chemicals that do not break down easily.

Of course, it is not only humans who are adversely affected by pesticides. According to the Worldwatch Institute, converting one percent of United States’ lawns to organic garden space “would reduce the toxic pesticide exposure to families and wildlife by up to 3.4 million kilograms per year, while also helping to reduce reliance on energy-intensive commercial food transport.” What if every fourth household converted their lawn to a pesticide-free garden? That might be 20% of existing lawn in the United States; translating to 68 million kilograms less toxic pesticide exposure in food, soil, and water. That means healthier children, water, and wildlife. It means living more respectfully toward the natural world – including us humans.

One study found a strong association between home pesticide use, especially lawn treatment and pest extermination, and some types of childhood cancers. The traditional American Dream may include acres of rolling jade-green lawns and year-round produce selection at the local grocer, but does it include our children dying young of cancer?

In addition to growing organic fruits and vegetables on our own land, we can make a big difference by buying organic produce from local sources. Brian Halweil of the Worldwatch Institute writes, “A head of lettuce grown in the Salinas Valley of California and shipped nearly 3,000 miles to Washington, D.C., requires about 36 times as much fossil fuel energy in transport as it provides in food energy when it arrives.” Take that much inefficient use of fossil fuel out of the picture, and you end up with less reliance on ecologically harmful oil drilling and unstable Middle Eastern nations.

Furthermore, fossil fuel produces carbon dioxide, a molecule that traps heat on the earth and is largely responsible for the greenhouse effect. Organic gardening actually helps to reduce and even reverse greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere by collecting and retaining carbon in organic soil. The Rodale Institute determined after a twenty-three year-long study that organic soils help retain carbon, reducing and even reversing the overabundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Recently Americans have been alerted to our vulnerability from bioterrorism and the spread of infections, like Mad Cow Disease. By importing our food from around the world and shipping it across the country in large cargo containers, we put ourselves at risk for food tampering or delivery disruption by terrorists. We also bring in foreign pesticides, which may be controlled even less stringently than in the United States, and foreign diseases. The 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak in the United Kingdom was traced to grain imported from China, and it spread rapidly via cows transported to central slaughterhouses. We can create a better ecological and political future for our children by buying locally grown organic foods.

Doing so helps our communities as well. In the United States, most people get their produce from the supermarket. Most of the food in supermarkets comes from giant agribusiness conglomerates. These corporations control farms, acting as the only purchaser of the farmer’s produce as well as the supplier of the farmer’s seed, fertilizer, and other supplies. That farmer sees very little of the money we pay at the supermarket; most of the purchase price of food goes to packaging and marketing.

That money, along with additional government subsidy, pays for chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Agriculture today is the largest polluter and uses the most petroleum of any industry. Its use of pesticides and cultivation of monoculture (an entire field of potatoes or broccoli) reduces biodiversity through habitat loss and accidental or intentional poisoning of wildlife. Food diversity has also suffered world-wide, because agribusiness farms grow what is most hardy and least perishable – not what is healthiest or most flavorful. Those foods can only be grown locally.

Local foods, grown in your yard, in a community plot, or a local organic farm, keep money local. Buying locally ensures that small farms can avoid being folded into the oligopolistic agriculture market and losing control over their own land. Growing your own food keeps more funds in your pocket as you do not pay for shipping, packaging, or other extra costs – just the food and your time spent in the garden. Sharing your garden bounty with neighbors or shopping at the local farmer’s market builds community; strong community means lower crime rates and individuals whose needs are met more efficiently.

Fred Kirshenmann, organic farmer, said, “Food is not like any other commodity. Food is a community creature. Food has always been at the center of community celebrations – a wedding, a birthday. So the industrial giants who want to completely commodify our food and reduce it to roughage for profit are bucking against a very powerful cultural phenomenon – hospitably. But true hospitality emerges when we each bring something to the table.”

When we each bring something to the table, grown by our own hands, we teach our community and our children about true hospitality. Children who garden learn the value of cooperation and working with the land. They discover the joys and sorrows of the life cycle, and of responsibility for their actions. Children who garden eat more fresh vegetables, reducing their chances of becoming obese later in life; and gardening together teaches youth about cooperation, participation, and self-motivation. By sharing with their neighborhood, especially those in need, they learn about sharing and peace-making. Eating carrots grown by the old man down the street, they learn about respect for others, regardless of ethnicity, age, or class. They learn about compassion. Derrick Jensen writes, “Part of our task as members of a community is to feed each other.” He includes the non-humans in his definition of community.

Organic, locally grown produce means less cancer and heart disease, less obesity, reduced greenhouse gases, lower crime rates, and safer, more financially robust communities. It makes for healthier breast milk, which builds a healthier child; my commitment to organic foods feels like an invisible trust fund for my daughter. I suspect the readers of this magazine would agree that organic foods are better than those conventionally grown, but like me might balk at the higher cost. Every time I purchase organic fruits, vegetables, meats, and other foods, I see past the sticker price by reminding myself that my choice puts “pennies in the bank” for my child, the planet, my community, and the future.

Sources

Assadourian, Erik. “Cultivating the Butterfly Effect.” World Watch Magazine. World Watch Institute, January/February 2003.

Ausubel, Kenny. Restoring the Earth: Visionary Solutions from the Bioneers. Tiburon, California: H J Kramer. 1997.

Cleeton, James. “Organic foods in relation to nutrition and health key facts.”

11 Jul 2004. This factsheet is a summary of an article published in “Coronary and Diabetic Care in the UK 2004” by the Association of Primary Care Groups and Trusts (UK). http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/health-benefits.cfm, accessed December 8, 2005.

Gardner, Gary & Brian Halweil. “Overfed and Underfed: The Global Epidemic of Malnutrition.” Worldwatch Paper 150. March 2000.

“Globetrotting Food Will Travel Farther Than Ever This Thanksgiving.” Worldwatch Institute, press release, November 21 2002. Accessed March 25, 2005, at http://www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2002/11/21/.

Jensen, Derrick. A Language Older than Words. White River Jct., Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2004.

Leiss, J.K.; Savitz, D.A. “Home pesticide use and childhood cancer: a case-control study.” American journal of public health. New York, N.Y.: Feb 1995. v. 85 (2), p. 249-252.

“Pesticide Residues from Non-Organic Foods Building Up in Our Bodies.” Pesticide Action Network. May 11, 2004.

Sullivan, Dan. “Organic Gardens Help Fight Global Warming.” Organic Gardening. Jan/Feb 2004, 51(1).