“I wonder if much of what ails our society, stems from the fact that we’ve allowed ourselves to be cut off from that love of and from the land.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
As I visited the ocean, my obsession began to focus on kelp, seaweed, and algae as a metaphor for connection, origin, and home.
Kelp forests, like the one in the Pacific Northwest, serve as a habitat and ecosystem for an enumerable number of fish and invertebrates. They are not plants, but a colony of sorts…a group of organisms dependent on each other. These organisms are thought to have appeared 5 to 23 million years ago and are possibly the reason that early humans settled in the areas where these forests were prevalent.
We have been dependent on these beings for survival and have grown and developed alongside them. We came from the ocean. We came from water. Is there is a part of us that might feel like we still belong?
