Beyond the Plate: Nature’s Timing
Whew. Another week has come and gone over here. I am nothing if not consistently inconsistent. It’s Thursday as I’m writing this, and truth be told, I almost missed a blog post altogether. I was actually writing this for my friends on Facebook to let them know what I’ve been up to this week—a “Hey, I’m alive” kind of thing. So, breaking from the recently established pattern of anecdote-tarot posts, this week, let’s look Beyond the Plate.
If you’re new here, the Beyond the Plate series explores how we are more than what we eat—we are the sum total of what we consume and how we consume. “Anything in excess is poison.” While I’ve often referenced this quote, I’ve found it attributed to many sources, and I most likely encountered it in the context of Buddhism. It’s a mindset I’ve carried with me as I’ve learned to interact mindfully with the natural world around me, especially with my trees.
When I moved into this house and realized the beautiful, tall pine shading my backyard was an Eastern White Pine—whose needles are some of the best-tasting medicine in the country—I knew I’d need to be a responsible friend to the trees. But what did that mean?
For me, it meant not overharvesting her (or her sister) in my overzealousness. It meant waiting for the right time, a lesson I learned a few years ago when I lived off-grid and had access to an abundance of witch hazel. By the time I finally thought to harvest it, I realized I was too late. You can harvest tree parts whenever, but it’s best to wait until early spring when the sap and terpenes—aromatic oils—are flowing. This is when the best medicines and flavors emerge. The problem for me back then was that I was working full-time and living off-grid, so I wasn’t set up to properly harvest and use the witch hazel. So, when we arrived here last summer, I knew it would be a while before I could taste my new pine friend’s tea.
The pines on the property had already been limbed, so the remaining branches were pretty high up. Now, I’m a fan of facing my fears, but climbing a ladder to harvest needles for tea, vinegar, or natural pine soda wasn’t high on my list. I figured I’d spread out the projects over two years: pine soda this year, pine vinegar the next, and just enough tea for a couple of times. Tea can be made with dried needles, so I collected some from a small twig that had fallen earlier this winter. It was earthy, much lighter than I expected, and I couldn’t WAIT for the pine soda this year.
Then life happened. I started a class, got a little job, and was still trying to keep up with my blog commitments. I was studying when my pine friend began shedding her limbs, when my neighbor’s pines were dropping limbs onto their roofs, and when the lights went out. It became a stressful week for more than 700,000 people in Michigan and Canada. Sadly, at least six people didn’t make it, as of today.
As the storm raged on, with branches shedding and the cold dampening everything, I worried. Worried that the wind would pick up the branches and damage our home, worried that our stove wouldn’t keep the cats warm enough, and worried that our neighbors and friends were facing worse. During a break in the storm, we went outside to assess the situation and decided the immediate risk of falling branches was low. After that, it was about staying warm and planning my harvest.
Needles degrade the fastest, so I knew I needed to be quick. As soon as the weather broke, I needed to get the needles for the soda. The pine soda relies on the natural yeast of the pine needle to lightly ferment the drink, giving it the carbonated quality. Tea and vinegar can use less-than-perfectly fresh needles, but the soda had to be fresh. This meant that I had to PAUSE my studies, the power had just come back on, and I was itching to get back to my studies - but I needed to move quickly. Yeast traditionally hates me, so I couldn’t take any chances. Thankfully, I learned that if you rinse the pine needles in water that is too warm, you will release the terpenes that you need for the flavor when I made the tea earlier this winter.
It meant that by the time I looked at the recipe again, I hadn’t already made a dire mistake of over-rinsing my needles. Still, I had decided to chop my needles, and I was terrified that I had made a huge mistake. Maybe I killed too much yeast? I wasn’t sure, so I pressed on. I filled my bottles with my sticky little needles, sugar and my purified water. I sealed them up and sat them in the window. I sent pictures to my gal pals and my brother and laughed about the yeast. Then I went to work the next day and almost forgot all about it.
I woke up this morning and decided I needed to look at the bottles. I wasn’t expecting anything. Again, I kill yeast. I was ecstatic to find bubbles on the needles in the bottles. So I took a little video of my excitement to share with a few friends who knew I was making the soda to let them know it was working.(Because they are getting some.) Had nature not dropped ice on us, thus dropping a full quarter of our tree, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to try so many things this year. The pine soda is only the most exciting; I’m also excited for the opportunity to look for resin, for salve, and to harvest some inner bark to dry for a thickening agent.
As I harvested from the fallen limbs, I sang to the tree and asked its permission. I explained where her needles were going and that we appreciated the shade she provided, and now we will appreciate the drinks, cleaners, and wood she has provided. I told her she was still beautiful and I felt silly the whole time. I don’t know how I feel about the concept of land spirits, but I do believe that cultivating a mutually respectful relationship with nature is important. We are nothing without her, and without us, she will keep doing what she is doing. We are guests here on this planet, and some of us have zero house training. But it’s never too late to start cultivating that relationship with the natural world around us.
With love,
Mia Marie.
Revisiting Cannabis: History, Stigmas, and Sustainable Futures
Weed, Green, Wacky Tobacky, the Devil's Lettuce, Sweet Mary Jane, SweetLeaf (if your Ozzy) these are all common names for Cannabis Sativa the plant that can be medicine, paper, textiles, construction materials, and, perhaps most surprising, fuel. Cannabis has been used throughout most of recorded history and we have archeological evidence that it was in use prior to recorded history. It’s no wonder that our ancestors cultivated these fascinating plants before tomatoes.
Today I want to focus on some of the more modern thoughts surrounding what is arguably one of the most versatile plants in existence. I grew up in the DARE era. I was shown commercials about how my brain on drugs looked like a fried or broken egg. Weed being one of the most talked about for some reason. Sure, the program talked about coke and heroin but for some reason, weed was the focus of the media it seems. This was of course decades ago now and I live in a state that has legalized the “recreational” use of cannabis. I put recreational in quotes because I am of the opinion that all folks that are using mind and mood altering substances are self-medicating to some degree.
“What are your qualifications?” I can hear some of the more critical folks asking. I have been observing and living various degrees of addiction since I was born. I’ve seen it all. I lived with an alcoholic mother who at some point developed a love affair with booger sugar and other things that we don’t often automatically even consider as addiction. Members of my extended family have all shared stories of their own addiction struggles. I spent years tending bar. I’m observant and psychology is a hyper fixation of mine, even though I do not have a degree. I have spent years observing addiction and drug use, in various settings. And I have that face that everyone wants to share their demons with. You start to notice some patterns after a while.
Now back to cannabis, specifically. Did you know that our Founding Fathers smoked, just, a lot of pot and used hemp as textiles? Neither did I until I started working in the cannabis industry. I started working with a company that took great pride in their caregiver roots. Caregivers are what the medical industry called folks that grew for medical use patients. Card carrying patients with any number of ailments ranging from chronic pain and loss of appetite caused by cancer and cancer treatment to severe and debilitating anxiety. Because this company took great pride in what they were doing, they provided us with reading material for education purposes that we were encouraged to read during our down time. I unfortunately can’t remember all the books that I read, but I will do my best to include a list of references for more reading.
Wait, so the founding fathers smoked pot and used hemp and then it was bad and now it’s good again? How did we get here? Great questions. Hemp and Cannabis are the same plant, but one is bred specifically for its medicinal benefits. We actually used cannabis in this country for like 100 years without an issue. Then POC brought us jazz music and jazz cabbage became associated with POC. I shouldn’t have to tell you that during the early 1900s we, those of us lacking melanin, were particularly heinous in our treatment of what we perceived as others. Many of us STILL are and unfortunately that is a conversation for another day. So, I am saying that racism set our country back significantly.
Had it not been for racism and greed we could have had a healthcare system that bothered to research why cannabis is medicine and we could have been further ahead in identifying exactly which compounds work best for which ailments. Had it not been for racism and greed we could have saved millions of acres of forests in Michigan alone. I’m not here to educate you on why that’s bad. I’m sure there are better resources for that. Well where does greed come in, you ask. It was lobbyists with personal interest in things like paper made from trees and criminalizing the medicine to make a profit that convinced corrupt politicians to help demonize it. Crazy to think that we still allow lobbying despite humans proving again and again that they will only look out for their own best interests instead of the best interests of the many. But again, that is not today’s topic! Stay on track.
When Nixion had cannabis scheduled as a drug, it was against medical professionals advice. For context, because context is always important, there were protests against the Vietnam war going on at this time, there were civil rights protests and there was the women's liberation movement. Politically it was an active time. Culturally, the communities that would be disproportionately affected by the criminalization were - you guessed it- POC. There are better educators out there than me to explain the nuance here, but it boils down to this, believe POC when they tell you their experience and how it is we got here. Generational trauma gets passed down in two ways; behaviors like people pleasing and code switching (and many others.) and a literal genetic component. Trauma: individual like abuse suffered in the home and collective like slavery, lynching, and an un-winable war literally change our DNA. None of that is actually today’s main focus however it is an important bit of context. And you are always encouraged to fact check me.
Medical professionals knew that there were real world applications for cannabis in the healing sector, even in the 70s. In the 70s, maybe for the first time, we were seeing things like PTSD which were talked about as “shell shock” and “combat fatigue”. While there was a huge stigma around mental health, even more so than today, especially in regards to our veterans, what they were seeing would eventually be labeled as PTSD. I can’t say for sure that medical professionals knew cannabis would help with mental health things back then, but given that was when they were also looking at LSD for its ability to rewire the brain, it's not hard to imagine they had an inkling.
What we know now is that humans have what is called an endocannabinoid system. Its a complex system that I once read described as being responsible for the body’s homeostasis. Research on this is a bit on the newer side of course but what we know is that the shape of the compounds found in the cannabis plant fit perfectly into this endocannabinoid system. This system helps regulate things like cortisol, the stress hormone and other systems. It is a key player. I can’t remember specifically if I read this next bit or if it is an original thought, but it seems to me that the endocannabinoid system can be thrown out of wack by living in fight or flight and this effects the cortisol levels. I don’t remember the specific science that led me there, unfortunately. Smoking pot, anecdotally, helps me function like a normal person with a normal nervous system. Smoking pot helps others manage their physical pain. Cannabis is medicine.
Moving forward, I hope to see a future where we use cannabis in sustainable ways. Imagine less deforestation and more hemp farms. Picture a shift from oil to hemp biofuel and replacing concrete with hempcrete for building materials. Cannabis is a plant that requires fewer resources to grow than most crops, and its applications are endless. If we hadn't demonized this plant a century ago, we might already be living in a greener, more sustainable world. But the second-best time to make this a reality is now. If you have thoughts on how we can make this vision a reality, let’s chat in the comments.
With love,
Mia Marie
P.S
Further Reading
Green: A Field Guide to Marijuana by Dan Michaels and Erik Christiansen
Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America by Emily Dufton
The Cannabis Manifesto: A New Paradigm for Wellness by Steve DeAngelo and Willie L. Brown Jr.
Terpenes: The Magic in Cannabis by Beverly A. Potter Ph.D
Additional resources:
Generational Trauma
Trauma and Addiction
Generational Trauma and substance use
War on Drugs and the demonization of Cannabis
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