Salt from the Earth

Scholarship Opportunity: Do You Know a Florida Teen Who Wants to Make a Splash for the Ocean?

Calling all creative Florida teens who want to make a splash on behalf of the world’s oceans! Ocean Matters is proud to announce a partnership with the prestigious Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs, which is generously providing one full scholarship ($3,500 value) to an Ocean Awareness Contest applicant from Florida to participate in our Ocean Matters’ Florida Marine Ecology Expedition, June 19-29, 2020!

Artwork by Hana Choi, 14, Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest participant.

The Ocean Matters Florida Marine Ecology Expedition combines five days with Clearwater Marine Aquarium on the west coast of Florida with another five days in Key Largo with the Coral Restoration Foundation (TM) on the east coast, giving teens a broad experience of the integrated issues impacting the watershed and ocean. Students will earn open water scuba certification, participate in a coral restoration project, learn about manatee, turtle, and dolphin conservation from researchers in the field, and gain skills to make a difference in our changing world.

The applicant must apply to both the Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest with a piece of art (visual art, film, music, poetry, prose, or interactive & multimedia) that addresses this year’s theme of “Climate Hope: Transforming Crisis” and to the Ocean Matters Florida Marine Ecology Expedition to be considered. You need not win an award in the Ocean Awareness Contest, however, to be awarded this need-based scholarship for the Ocean Matters expedition.

“Amazing trip! So thankful for everything—the experiences, scuba certification, the friends I’ve made. This has honestly been the best thing I’ve ever done in my life—will never foget it! I’m so sad that it’s come to an end.” — Ellie Siney, Florida Marine Ecology Expedition 2019.

“I got to help fix what was falling apart.” — Josh Fields, Florida Marine Ecology Expedition 2019

“This program has been the most impactful week of my life. Thank you so much!” — Sophie Sharp, Florida Marine Ecology Expedition 2019

About Bow Seat

Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs is a Boston-based nonprofit that provides a global platform for teens to create and communicate for the blue planet. Bow Seat’s programming engages youth in learning about ocean issues through art-making; amplifies their voices to advance environmental awareness and action; and empowers them to become cultural changemakers.

Artwork by Sydney Prescott, 14, Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest participant.

How to Apply to the Scholarship & Deadlines
To be eligible for this need-based scholarship, students must submit to the Ocean Awareness Contest with a piece of original art and opt-in to the award on the submission form by March 1, 2020, AND apply separately to Ocean Matters by March 15, 2020.

The Ocean Matters Award recipient will be notified by April 1, 2020.

Rules & Eligibility

Students must be a resident of Florida, currently enrolled in high school, and at least 15 years old by the start of the program.
Students must be able to swim 200 yards comfortably and tread water for 10 minutes to be able to participate in the Florida Marine Ecology Expedition.
Students must submit to Bow Seat’s Ocean Awareness Contest and opt-in to the Ocean Matters Award on the submission form by March 1, 2020.
Students must apply separately, and be admitted, to the Ocean Matters Florida Marine Ecology Expedition program by March 15, 2020. Eligible students must demonstrate merit and need on the Ocean Matters application to be considered for the scholarship.
While it is our policy not to share email addresses with third parties, students who opt in to this award agree to have their email address shared with the Ocean Matters team solely for the purposes of this scholarship.
Student submissions (Visual Art, Film, Interactive & Multimedia, Music, Poetry, or Prose) to the Ocean Awareness Contest will be reviewed by the Ocean Matters Award selection committee. Students who do not receive the Ocean Matters Award are still eligible to earn a prize in the Ocean Awareness Contest.
The award winner will be required to complete Bow Seat’s Affidavit of Eligibility/Liability Release.
The full program scholarship includes all scuba equipment and certification, instruction, food, lodging, and materials. Travel to and from home to Clearwater, FL is not included.
The award winner agrees to write a blog post about their Ocean Matters experience for publication on the Bow Seat blog.

Artwork by Hannah Jones, 16, Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest participant.

Questions & Contact
For questions about applying for this scholarship, please contact alyssa@bowseat.org. For more information about the Ocean Matters Florida Marine Ecology Expedition, visit oceanmatters.org, or contact cbergeron@oceanmatters.org. All scuba related questions should be directed to lmccallion@oceanmatters.org

Please help us spread the word about this amazing opportunity for a Florida teen! Sharing is caring.

In a Mean World

by Laura Parker Roerden

I. When life crowds you with the call of too many mean words,
words that line the very highway you are walking,

words that tumble along ghost town prairies as dangerous tumbleweeds gathering seeds, spreading like wildfire
and threatening to crowd out truth,

try to find the center of the pendulum,
though it swings out of control,
though it threatens to rip apart the fulcrum with every swing.

The center is not a place or ideology,
but the essence of the very moment
you are in, even as it weeps with the
soft acknowledgement of wounds.

2. This morning, I turned on the spigot
of clean, cold water in the barn
to fill an empty bucket, my thoughts

tumbling, too, replaying every slight,
the dangerous words I had heard, all while

the sound of purity spilled unbridled.

I gave hay to the sheep first, then llamas, then goats. Navigating the barn, the sound sparkled like glass marbles,

clinking and

climbing

a ladder of notes,
higher,
then higher

still while the bucket filled. I stayed tethered
to the sound as if navigating a canyon,
or the head of a river, or womb—

a womb meant to birth something of my choosing.

I knew the pail was full when the sound
slightly muffled, so I dropped the hay
and ran to the valve, turning it

deftly and decidedly to off. And then I saw it:

a tiny field mouse,
floating dead on the surface.

It had been trapped in the empty bucket.
My carelessness had left it gasping
while I focused on walking the roads of a mean world;

The water

—poised to give life, as well as take it away—
the voice of the fulcrum itself.

Laura Parker Roerden is the founding director of Ocean Matters and the former managing editor of Educators for Social Responsibility and New Designs for Youth Development. She serves on the boards of Women Working for Oceans (W20) and Earth, Ltd. and is a member of the Pleiades Network of Women.

A Coming Hurricane

by Laura Parker Roerden

I read today that a flock of seagulls was once trapped in the eye of a hurricane.
The birds had sought refuge in the false calm of fair skies, but didn’t realize they
now flew through a tunnel of destruction, all ways out blocked by certain devastation.

Birds that sense plummeting pressure from an oncoming storm either fly aloft
on waves of wind or hunker down, feet gripped onto lower branches or huddled
together in brush. They risk being blown off course and face the errant bolt

of lavender lightening from the differential of opposing forces sparking a fire.
The winds, which are now stirring, reveal the trees’ lonely bones as perches;
and harbors of strength among the lowest rungs; yet also invites us to rise.

No, hope is not a destination, but instead a way of entering into dialogue
with possibility like a leaf trembled and blown finds its way to the ground.

A Small Poem

by Laura Parker Roerden

Small things sometimes call us home, like the two birds I saw
circling the hay field this morning on my way back from
farm chores. Their shrill vibrating whistle, a half warning, half invitation
stunned me awake from a deep dream—even though

I should have been sufficiently awake from an hour of shoveling
manure. Why would two seagulls have come so far inland? I wondered,
as I mentally calculate whether the recent hurricane
or an errant trash heap had thrown the birds off course.

Then I saw the unmistakable thick body and spiraling flight of
predators: a grey morning sky backlit like a metallic robe
about to hit the ground in full favor of nakedness, no pretense.
The birds were not seagulls, but red-tailed hawks.

I hadn’t noticed that our free-range hens were already
scattered outside like balls on a pool table hit particularly well
by a skilled opening break. The roosters were on high alert and
had surrounded the hens, several of which were on a

chaotic sprint towards the low lying platform my father had built
as a roost, but we now used for a refuge and cover outside
for moments just like this, for times when hawks were double-
or triple-teaming the hens. The hawks have lost interest

in the hens, for now. But suddenly the hayfield has come alive,
shaking in the wind with vulnerability. A small toad or mole: now the sole subject
of the hawks’intention. I start to draw closer, but my boots on the newly paved road
are too loud. The trite intrusion draws my attention to a small rivulet of

water from last night’s rain along the side and I think just how insufficient
a surface asphalt is, as rain can no longer follow a true path to the sea
and how so often our way is bridled by obstacles of our own making. The sun,
still hidden beneath a grey cloud cover, shimmers as if stretched

across our skies in shredded ribbons. So I take off my
muck boots and wait, while the heavy strain against the birds’ wings
appears to hold them aloft and the hawks soar ever freer
in the stark fact that existence is connected to these moments.

The Garden Spider

by Laura Parker Roerden

Every single evening
in her short life
the garden spider spins

a web of concentric
circles. Each anchored
to five

or so holdfasts,

simple spokes
on a wheel,
against which everything hinges.

Around and around she goes,
adding to her work,

bridging the distance from
one holdfast

to another, length by length,

adding depth
and perspective as she telescopes inward,

moving deftly to a center only
the edges can project, filling
in a spiral with detail.

Her strange and perfect offering
completes itself in zigs and zags like a zipper
on a fine golden purse to safely carry expected coin.

By morning the light and dew
create a hall of mirrors,
drawing her prey down

now lit corridors,
the mirage of open
space an enticement to beyond,

but instead a dead end.

A goldfinch flies over the garden
on his way to a field where evening
primrose offers buttercups of nectar

and darts past the spider,
her work a magnificent lit
lamp tilted just so

he can avoid ruining her elaborate
composition. By evening, the spider
dines on her work, now studded

with the jewels of beatles
and papery moths, lying still
in silky sarcophagi.

The spider unwinds
her entire web, ingesting it within

in a feat of impressive completion,

only to begin
again spinning
come dark.

The Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia or “with a bright face” in Latin) goes by several other common names including the writing spider, corn spider, or McKinley spider. They are found in all 48 contiguous states usually in gardens or at the edges of open fields. We commonly see Garden Spiders on squash or tomato plants in the farm’s vegetable garden that abuts a hayfield.

Into the Clearing

by Laura Parker Roerden

All day long I had lain in the grass and waited for the sun
to reach the clearing, though it never did come. The dew

from the morning had left my hair damp to the touch;
my heart aching for something I had never expected to miss.

I knew these woods to be vernal wetlands, but I had forgotten
just how much shade can be thrown by the trees that

surround it. Yet all it takes is an unwillingness to thwuck in
the muck, past the skunk cabbages and stinging nettle to

miss out on the thicket of grass, soft like a bed, a cool reprieve
from the summer sun. As a child, this spot had been where I’d

have picnics in the daisies and bluettes, which swayed so low to
the ground as if fighting off sleep. I knew a rock that acted

like a sun dial and pointed at noon to a secret location of lady
slippers–fragile pink moccasins–that I could imagine fairies

wore to silence their footsteps like pine needles buffeted mine.
The edges of the field were where the remnants of a long ago

stone wall had fallen, once marking a pasture or home site, and
later simply held space in a child’s imagination, a canvass

of clouds, whose angle of reflected light told her the time.
The time is late now, so I have to go. In the clearing today

stands a house, built by my brother. He had to go too,
taking his place among the moss in a family cemetery with my

parents, grandparents and great grandparents.
But I visit my brother in the clearing when I can

by taking that walk into the dank, smoldering woods and
listening as birds call out my arrival as if nothing has changed.

Cooking With(out) Gas

Best Investments in Sustainability

by Laura Parker Roerden

What if I told you that there was a cheaper, faster, healthier, safer, less energy intensive, cleaner, and lower carbon footprint way to cook than using an electric or gas stovetop and range? You’d wonder why you never heard of it before, right?

Stephanie Cmar, Top Chef alumna and former chef at Stir of Barbara Lynch Gruppo, demonstrates induction cooking. Photo by Colleen Brannen.

I know I was stunned when recently attending an event put on jointly by Mother’s Out Front and HEET at my dear friend Claire Corcoran’s house to learn about induction cooking, an electromagnet method of cooking that has been around for a decade. My family had just months before bought a new cooktop, but even as long time greenies who have spent the past year buying two electric vehicle cars and converting our house to solar, we did not come across this option in our research. After learning more, I’d say induction cooking definitely meets the criteria for a best investment in sustainability.

Healthier
Numerous studies have linked gas stoves in homes with increased asthma, bronchitis, and wheezing in children. Additionally, if you live in Massachusetts and cook with gas, there is better than 50% chance that you are using fracked gas, which contains health-threatening chemicals used in the fracking process. Pollutants involved in fracking have been linked to pediatric neurological issues, lower birth weights and increased asthma. So by taking a pass on fracked gas, you are keeping your own family from being exposed and are also helping the communities where fracking has had the greatest negative health and environmental impacts.

Cheaper, More Energy Efficient and Safer
When you turn on an induction burner, an electric current runs through the coil, generating a fluctuating magnetic field, but no heat on the burner itself. Then once you set an iron or stainless steel pan on the burner, the magnetic field induces many smaller electric currents in the pan’s metal, creating heat in the pan. Because there is no transfer of heat from the stove to the pan, 95% of every dollar you spend on energy goes right where you want it – in the pan! Gas delivers only 35% to the pan and traditional electric about 56%. Also, once the pan leaves the burner, the burner goes into standby mode, so no electricity is used in between periods of cooking or shifting pans.

Induction cooking is also faster, (2 to 4 minutes faster to bring a 6 quart pan of water to boil). While the speed isn’t life changing, the energy saved does aggregate over a year significantly.

So what do they cost? Currently, Consumer Reports recommends a Kenmore brand range that is $1,000. But you might consider a 2-burner counter top version for $100-200 to test out if induction might work for you. As consumers and commercial vendors discover the benefits of induction, the prices will no doubt come down.

If induction becomes the standard for cooking, the old adage of “touching a hot stove” will no longer make sense: an induction stove burner is only hot if there’s a pan on it. The potential for leaving a stove on is also lessened, which is an additional safety benefit over gas and electric.

Lower Carbon Footprint
Here in New England, many of our homes use natural gas. This gas is mostly methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Because a significant amount of that methane leaks into the atmosphere all along the system from where it’s produced to where it’s used, natural gas damages our climate more than coal. You can always green your electricity source, but you can’t green fossil fuel.

Induction stove tops and ranges are slowly becoming the norm in restaurants and professional kitchens, because of all of the benefits. Though it does take some adjustment to new cooking speeds and settings, it’s probably no more difficult to learn than transitioning from gas to electric or vice versa requires.

Cooking by the animated glow of a fire is deeply encoded in our mythology and DNA. I’m quite sure that’s why I have in the past preferred using gas over electric. But lessening our carbon footprint and energy usage can truly help us feel a different warmth inside: that of knowing we walk gently on our bountiful earth.

Salt from the Shaker Recommended Read about fracking:

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Learn more about From the Shaker: Best Investments in Sustainability.

Stitch by Loving Stitch

by Laura Parker Roerden

My grandmother darned socks.
A good farm wife, she knew
any tear could be mended,
the original wound transformed

into a caesura, a brief pause held by the conductor
to grab our attention, to show us meaning
that hovers uncomfortably in a void.
Or into a sharp, an intentional accident in service

to asserting a consciously uplifting melody.
Nana knew that darning took painstaking
skill, a recovery, of a pattern not usually
perceived by the untrained eye, but seen by those

disciplined enough to lean in and acknowledge the
asymmetry and contradiction of things once whole,
now splintered. That darning takes patience and faith,
word by word. That bridges built across an abyss need

to also be shored up, stitch by loving stitch, until they stand
no longer alone. That it takes a steadfast surrender
to duty and one another since every stitch rises
or falls entirely due to the number

of stitches interdependent with it.
That we must finally take responsibility
for the damage we have wrought and the scars we leave
by sitting and working under the brightest of lights.

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A New Morning

Love this world like a tent staked into hallowed
ground, one tempered blow of a hammer at a time.

The tent might rise or fall with the wind,
become soaked in the rain, or provide

less warmth than needed at times.
But still there will be moments when

you awake to dew, refracting morning light
in rainbow patterns on its edges, a

kaleidoscope of possibility, an ocean scape
like truth in a gentle breeze, reflected

as new horizons. The patterns of the
treetops animated across the fabric

where shade and light unite as meaning.

Cosmology

by Laura Parker Roerden

Something tells me you could chart the path of a heart
the way a peacock raises flowers like too many moons.
I saw our peacock in full bloom today and noticed the eyes

in his feathers expanding like the universe; a quick shudder
of his plume suggesting no boundaries to his aspirations.
The light created a halo of iridescence shimmering, azure colors

in a constant flux across a visible spectrum. I am struck by how
assured we all are in these times, how quick to flash with knowledge
when stars overhead suggest uncharted territory and a call

to humility. Yes, even as assured beauty can feel like a reasonable answer
to a world of brutality and cynism, something in the peacock’s
showy brilliance suggests a seed of difficult truth unfolding. The risk

that what we love can all too soon and quickly be taken away, makes us pause
and shudder in answer with our own feathers. But perhaps questions unfurling
as Fibonacci have more worth than answers hung proudly like flags on a pole.

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