Some seaweed companies sell seaweed incorporated into candy or chips. Some mix it with spices and sell it in shakers. Some sell it in small retail packages, and the price per pound is more than $100. If the packages are exposed to direct light, the pigments will degrade. Call me a purist if you like, and thank me when you do, because my intent is to deliver the essences of various seaweeds to you, bone dry when appropriate and protected from humidity and direct light, and offer you recipes for using them. Most of the recipes at theseaweedman.com and larchhanson.com are wet recipes because iodine is a volatile, and roasting kelp or alaria will drive off the iodine. The soak water and the cooking water should be used. This water transfers the iodine to people, and since we all need iodine to protect our thyroids in a world of failing nuclear reactors that emit radioactive iodine, this is the most important point. Seaweed candy, spice shakers, and chips won’t deliver the iodine necessary to health.

So here’s a recipe using Soup Mix that is designed to deliver all the nutrients:

Many of you have asked me to continue writing about my life, and so I will tell you about a time in the late 1970’s that was transformative. In a previous Contact letter, I wrote about learning how to dowse with my heart for a childsnatched daughter, Kai, whom I finally located in California. Today I listened to an NPR interview with an inventor who was envisioning a time in the future when many of us will be able to extend our physical abilities by implants that make us more sensitive to energy fields. We will become cyborgs. This particular researcher had a small magnet implanted in his wrist that allowed him to experience electromagnetic waves from music. Another person interviewed had a small magnet implanted in her left ring finger that allowed her to sense electromagnetic fields. The magnet would vibrate, and the nerves in her ring finger could pick it up. These interviews were followed by an interview with a bioethicist who commented that we may become distracted by technology to such an extent that we fail to develop what we are capable of becoming “just as we are”. I found myself agreeing with the bioethicist. The heart is 60% neurons, and it is an organ of perception in its own right. When we name our senses, we should include the heart. We have this phrase, “I know it by heart.” That implies that the brain isn’t the repository of memory, and that the heart is capable of sensing…….what? When people ask me about how I dowsed with my heart to find my daughter, I often reply, “Well, ducks fly south, remembering home. For me, my heart was more at home when I found my daughter. I just had to get very still, and listen to my heart, arms wide open, turning to the four directions like a human compass. My heart was telling me that it had a gift to give, and that I would feel forever burdened if I didn’t give this gift. It was important that I not ignore the message of my heart or try to numb it out. It was a painful yearning, not unlike the yearning for the Beloved that is described in various religious traditions. I also felt a pulling sensation in my belly, and there are stories from sailors about sailing to the far side of the earth, and when they turn towards home, they feel a cord pulling the boat, and they know that their loved ones are standing on the home shore, pulling on the cord, pulling them home.”

I just had to get very still. You can kinda guess that I might have a meditation practice, yes? It started with learning to pray, as a child, (thank you, Mom) and then as a young adult, I learned Vipassana, a breath-centered style of meditation. (thank you, Buddha). Ten day courses are offered for free (thank you, Goenka). There was some sitting involved at the start (thank you, body & cushion), and then I simply became a body in equipoise that breathes in any way appropriate to the moment while staying mindful (breathing out, bend over, grab kelp; breathing in, pull it into the boat; breathing out, let it go, and rest; getting inspired, see the next kelp plant; repeat the mantra for a couple of hours until the boat is filled with a ton of kelp). Twenty years later, a Tibetan Dzogchen teacher taught me the path of maintaining Presence, day and night, no matter what (thank you, Namkhai Norbu). During those long nights that I spent in intensive care last summer healing a subdural hematoma, I prayed to Spirit for enough time to finish up my sacred contracts this time ’round (thank you, Carolyn Myss), and I felt the unseen Circle of Friends working on me to get me back to normal as I rested in Clear Light (thank you again, Namkhai Norbu). Who do I thank for being introduced to the Circle of Friends? Now I can return to the story that I set out to tell about transformations that happened to me in the late 1970’s.

I mentioned the unseen Circle of Friends. When I was living in San Francisco while working on Kai’s situation, I learned structural bodywork. I lived at the school. Classes were taught on the weekends, and during the week, I was a temp typist all over the city. Finally I was sent to replace a typist who was quitting her job at Chicago Bridge and Iron Company. When I walked into that office located in the cash canyon district (downtown skyscrapers), I asked the secretary, “What does this company do?” She replied, “Take a look at the photos on the walls. These were the iron men who slung hot rivets through the air at each other as they built water tanks for villages at the turn of the century. Then they started building oil tanks and oil refinery systems. Now they also build nuclear reactor containment vessels…..” “Whoa!” I said, “I want no part of that!” The secretary was cool. She said, “Well, that’s what I told them. I’m a water and oil user, but I don’t want to support nuclear power, so I just type their water and oil contracts.” “Well,” I said, “if they’ll let me work under the same policy, I’ll stay. There’s something to be learned here about the nature of these people.” The secretary talked to the boss, and he came out of his private office and said, “Have a seat! We’ll work it out.” So I stayed, and I learned that I actually had four bosses. They corresponded with unsavory companies like Halliburton and Bechtel. They didn’t talk to each other much, and they had no idea how much work I was getting. Often it was just two hours of typing in an eight hour shift. I began to get restless, so I started writing my own stuff. I decided it was best to look busy. In Maine, I had been part of a men’s support group that gathered every Friday night, and so I wrote a manual for leaders of men’s support groups, including the topic of stabilizing bonds that can exist in a man’s life. After that, I went dry.

Right about then, the woman at the school who taught shiatsu came up to me and said, “Larch, I hear you do excellent typing.” “I can type 70 words per minute,” I replied. “What would you like?” She said, “I’m part of a circle of healers who get together with Gurudas, a homeopathic physician, while he asks questions of Kevin Ryerson. Kevin is channeling Dr. Bach of the Bach Flower Remedies. During his last life in England, Dr. Bach felt that the underlying causes of illnesses are often emotional and spiritual, and he discovered that the vibrational patterns and essences of flowers can be used to heal people. You could say that a flower essence is a thought form. He developed 18 essences by treating his patients, and then toward the end of his life, he seemed to take on illnesses and heal himself. By the end of his life, he had developed 36 flower essences and had written a little book about the Bach Flower Remedies. Kevin is also channeling John whom many believe is the disciple Jesus asked to stay behind and work with the earth. Kevin channels Tom, an Irishman who looks after the channel while he is in trance. Tom was an Irish pickpocket in his last life, and he serves to keep up the humor during a session and look after the channel. If we all keep up the energy in the circle of healers, Kevin is good for three or four hours of channeling. Shirley MacLaine had an adventure with Kevin, and she wrote about it in her book, Out on a Limb. We are in hopes of receiving 300 new essences for the American continent, and we will form the Flower Essence Society and continue this work, making information and essences available to healers, and furthering the research.. Would you like to help type up a rough draft of the sessions so that we can offer a book, Flower Essences and Vibrational Healing? If you’re willing, I’ll give you a tape to type.”

So there I was, in the middle of the nuclear reactor containment vessel manufacturing industry, with an opportunity to help develop the world of spiritual healing. Some of the essences were useful for healing diseases caused by exposure to harmful radiation. I went in to work and plugged in a tape. Before I go on with this story, I need to tell you that I was struggling with bronchitis that winter. I had gone through three rounds of antibiotics, and I couldn’t shake it. Sometimes the affirmation, “Peace. No one can irritate me.” was helpful. I knew that the core issue was family irritations centered on the child restraint that Kai and I were enduring, but nevertheless, I hadn’t been able to shake it.

I plugged in the tape, and Dr. Bach was saying, “Daisy. Daisy works like a liquid tracheotomy. It gives the bronchial tubes instant relief.” I had been a respiratory therapist. I knew what Dr. Bach was talking about. There were daisies in the vase on my desk. I started chomping petals. My bronchial irritation started to dissipate. I thought, “Hey! They just demonstrated for me what they mean! I just got paid in advance! For sure, I’ll WORK for you!” And who was “you”? At the end of a channeling session, John would give a benediction, and the hair would stand up on the back of my neck. That’s always a sign that I’m in the presence of something paranormal. I felt that I was in an enormous room, filled with old souls who were silently maintaining the energy so that this work, this transmission, could be accomplished.

By the way, my name, Larch, is one of Dr. Bach’s original essences, described as being used “for perfectly good people who nevertheless lack self-confidence”. When I was attending vocational boatbuilding school in 1971, one day a piece of wood with a distinctive grain was brought into the shop. The instructor explained that the wood came from a tree that has three names: tamarack, hackmatack, and larch. It is a pioneer species that grows in wet soil conditions where alder are growing, and after it dies, usually spruce follow in succession. “I’ll take it!” I said, and I changed my name. Carolyn Myss, writing in Sacred Contracts, says that when we begin to recognize and work on our sacred contracts for this lifetime (which were formed on the other side of the veil, prior to incarnation this time ’round), we often take a new name in recognition of a truer spiritual self. Six months after changing my name, I found myself working in surf, miles from home, in a small boat. I certainly needed self-confidence! I didn’t know about the Bach remedies when I changed my name. I just did it spontaneously.

Now you know what I mean when I write about “the unseen Circle of Friends”. Today you can Google Flower Essence Society, and you will find them. You can also find copies of Flower Essences and Vibrational Healing, by Gurudas, channeled through Kevin Ryerson. That book was just part of the ongoing Work. We are surrounded by ancient intelligence in the plant world, and I was just beginning to realize that. For instance, this is what I find on the walls of my frosty greenhouse every time I fill it with kale: an intelligent pattern!

In one of the channellings, John stated that in the original creation of life on this planet, all creatures were to be created crystalline and quartz-like in structure, as in countless other worlds. (Our space exploration program always searches for carbon-based life; we’re barking up the wrong tree!) But acts of free will caused life here to be carbon-based. This was a radical shift away from the original Divine plan. The Lemurians understood that health and spiritual growth are easier to experience when life is quartz-like in composition. Thus they specifically developed the thymus gland and its etheric imprint to approximate and manifest these energies in the physical and subtle bodies. Bleeding heart flowers and essences were developed through creative visualization and meditation at the height of Lemurian mental horticulture to balance the heart chakra by coordinating the energies of the thymus gland and the heart. Even today there are numerous spiritual practices to transform the physical and subtle bodies into a crystalline structure. For instance, wearing and possessing quartz crystals assists this process. For years, I carried rose quartz with me in my shirt pocket.

Imagine two visitors from another planet circling the earth with their space ship. One of them looks down and exclaims, “The whole place is made of meat! Imagine! They’re trying to put consciousness into meat!”

After that experience with flower essences, I returned to Maine. Tuscon Co-op Warehouse wanted me to ship 300 pounds of dry dulse. That summer, I was reading The Findhorn Garden Book. Eileen was channeling the devas of a garden in Scotland, and Peter was manifesting it into physical reality. My friend Erek sent me an essay describing the baseline matrix of life as feminine. Male is an overlay. In order to become male, the Y chromosome must develop, testosterone must be produced, external genitalia must develop, and internal genitalia must develop. Some of these male embryos revert back to female, and some abort if the overlay fails. Embryologists know this as fact. Most little boys are in touch with their heart core in early life, but quite often they get snookered into believing that the world of men is all about shell body roles, and they lose touch with their heart. Then they are truly vulnerable, and they can become miseducated to become soldiers and worker drones for corporations of various sorts. They allow the banker who creates money out of thin air with the stroke of a pen to assert a claim on their time and labor…..forever. It goes without saying that there is never a chance to stop, relax back into heart-core, re-evaluate, and heal.

The time I spent in the intertidal zone that summer, picking dulse for Tuscon Co-op Warehouse, was an opportunity to ask questions directly of the intelligence that was there, in the intertidal zone.

I would ask a question, and then I would shut up and listen. I discovered that the voices were good-natured and feminine voices. Of course! And they touched my heart and core. Again, my sense of it was that an unseen Circle of Friends was willing to guide me if I would simply trust, shut up, and listen.

I went to Atlanta, to see a friend. While I was there, I went over to Emory University and asked for a job in horticulture. I ended up manicuring flowers in the president’s rose garden. I had asked to be of service, and once again I discovered that the unseen Circle of Friends was more than ready to sensitize me, educate me, and put me to work, wherever I landed.

I worked for a Christmas wreath company, and I discovered that the tips of the balsam fir trees used to make wreaths have a cross. Herbalists and homeopaths talk about the Doctrine of Signatures, that is, there is a pattern in the plant that relates to an organ in the body or a process in life. The cross in the fir trees signifies the energy flowing between heaven and earth vertically through all of us that is distributed horizontally through the hearts of people, extending love to all. We are simply asked to open to this energy and allow it to flow. Once again, I felt at home with the unseen Circle of Friends who were guiding me to places where I could be of service.

Well maybe that’s enough for now. But tell me: Do you make little heart sounds that sound like “ahh” and feel like a little hum in your heart? The cat likes to curl up on me when I do that. She’s not the only one who has a purr!