Missing Witches - Meditation： Cannabis Kin

00:00:00.000 If you want to support the Missing Witches Project, find out how at MissingWitches.com 1.00

00:00:05.760 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:12.940 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:25.160 I shall be a holy anointing oil. 0.99

00:00:29.320 on the feet of our dry, cracked world.

00:00:33.180 I have grown up from the soil for millennia,

00:00:37.700 healed and built and tied,

00:00:41.920 woven and burned.

00:00:44.520 I am concrete and paper and clothing

00:00:47.920 and waking dreams.

00:00:50.840 I create from within a limitless potential.

00:00:55.200 I have been demonized, criminalized,

00:00:57.640 abused, misunderstood, debased, and had my powers and intentions questioned and mocked. 0.82

00:01:05.840 I am a witch, and I am weed kin. What do we witches and weed have in common? We are misconstrued,

00:01:17.400 dangerous, enviro-healers trying to help save the world, only to be met with the hegemonic

00:01:23.760 forces of capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy trying to stomp us out. We are

00:01:31.360 cannabis kin and we aren't going anywhere. So legalize us because we are

00:01:40.640 miraculous. What is a miracle? We can look to one of our most famous witches of

00:01:49.140 all time to find out. Jesus of Nazareth did magic, turned over the money lenders' tables in the

00:01:56.980 temple, befriended lepers and prostitutes. He was a compassionate, feminist, loving conjure man. 0.57

00:02:06.440 The story goes that he could heal by touch. But guess what? The healing oil that Jesus and his

00:02:13.680 followers used to anoint the sick most likely contained significant amounts of cannabis.

00:02:20.180 A passage in Exodus lists the oil as containing cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, and cannabis. According

00:02:28.460 to Chris Bennett, a writer and expert on the relationship between cannabis and religion,

00:02:34.540 Jesus used a mixture containing cannabosum, which has been identified in recent years

00:02:41.140 As a translation of the word cannabis, to treat pain, leprosy, lesions, swollen muscles, and other conditions, was cannabis aid to miracle?

00:02:56.560 I got drunk when I was 15. So drunk that I kissed a stranger, then was so mercilessly hungover I couldn't keep food down and vomited for three straight days.

00:03:07.240 During those three days, I came to the realization that alcohol maybe wasn't for me.

00:03:12.440 I didn't drink alcohol again until my 19th birthday.

00:03:15.460 Instead, I went hard into becoming the pothead I was always meant to be.

00:03:20.780 Yes, I'm a pothead.

00:03:22.700 I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed.

00:03:25.080 My spouse says at this point, I'm pretty much made of weed.

00:03:29.200 I'm definitely marijuana kin.

00:03:32.420 I'm cannabis kin.

00:03:33.600 We go together like 0.96

00:03:36.400 Ram-a-lam-a-lam-a-ka-ding-a-da-ding-a-dong

00:03:39.260 But just like witchcraft, cannabis isn't for everyone

00:03:45.440 No peer pressure here

00:03:47.320 It's okay if it's not your thing

00:03:49.780 I had a friend for whom smoking led to selective mutism

00:03:54.160 The lights turned off and the TV turned on

00:03:57.240 She would sit in stony silence while I twiddled my thumbs

00:04:00.880 Energized by the same joint that locked her onto the couch

00:04:04.920 I'm not a fan of alcohol, but if it works for you

00:04:08.480 I won't judge you for your ethical consumption

00:04:10.520 I won't send you to jail or the gallows

00:04:14.120 For I am called weed, demonized and criminalized 0.53

00:04:19.160 I am called witch the same 0.92

00:04:21.720 See, witches and weed

00:04:24.340 We exist at a crossroad 0.99

00:04:26.380 An intersection between here and there

00:04:29.500 between humanity and divinity.

00:04:33.640 I think my body's rejection of alcohol was a miracle that saved my life.

00:04:38.840 Weed is my kin and it means me no harm.

00:04:41.660 Alcohol is a big part of the culture of southern Ontario where I'm from.

00:04:46.400 But during those California sober teen years,

00:04:50.000 unlike almost all of my friends,

00:04:52.220 I never blacked out, never broke a bone,

00:04:54.240 never wrapped myself around an unsuspecting toilet

00:04:57.460 or had my inhibitions and capacity lowered to the point of actual danger. 0.99

00:05:02.640 Rather than fucking or fighting, 0.95

00:05:06.020 weed was a gateway to giggles and floaty feelings, 0.98

00:05:09.460 experimental art films and naps,

00:05:12.500 adventures to harmless burnouts,

00:05:14.680 basement apartments to score and scuttling off to a park

00:05:17.720 with butter knives and blowtorches in tow.

00:05:20.940 We learned science by building bongs and bucket rigs

00:05:24.580 that drew smoke into homemade chambers.

00:05:26.600 We got creative, rolling joints in the shape of tulips and crosses and gatling guns.

00:05:34.360 And I was weed kin.

00:05:37.420 Soft, fuzzy, nature-loving, witchy, creative, and curious.

00:05:43.840 It's worth noting that when we smoke using a bong, we are engaging all of the elements.

00:05:49.620 Earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.

00:05:55.140 Part of joint rolling for me is the craft, a mini artisanal project created to be burned.

00:06:05.920 We are an ancient high that puffs and passes in circles through time.

00:06:13.320 A well-preserved substance found in a 2,700-year-old temple in Telerad has been identified as cannabis, including its psychoactive compound THC.

00:06:25.500 According to the BBC, researchers concluded that cannabis may have been burned in order to induce a high among worshippers.

00:06:33.020 This is the first evidence of psychotropic drugs being used in early Jewish worship. 0.58

00:06:37.660 we witches are weed kin psychedelic herbalists experimenting on the fringes of polite society

00:06:46.120 we have been politicized and put down but we are miracles of creation veronica horn writes

00:06:54.400 evidence of ancient rituals containing cannabis can be dated as far back as 5000 bc it was used

00:07:02.060 in ancient Chinese and European rituals, and even ancient Scythian funeral rites for kings.

00:07:09.200 All across the world, for thousands of years, cannabis appears to have left a mark on religious

00:07:14.280 celebrations and rituals. People use it as a way to more closely communicate with the divine.

00:07:21.140 They utilized it as a means of being lifted out of mundane reality into a broader state

00:07:27.540 of consciousness. And that, for me, is part of what witchcraft itself is for. To help us relinquish

00:07:37.420 the mundane and get caught up in the phenomena of our own hands. Or the scent of lilacs, or the slow,

00:07:45.460 deliberate caterpillar creeping by on the grass. To be amazed and enamored by plain old grass.

00:07:53.440 to lightly sweep our fingers and feel every soft, dewy blade tingling and teeming with life,

00:08:01.580 to lift ourselves up and out, to laugh.

00:08:07.400 I used to say that I wasn't even sure if weed made me feel better all the time.

00:08:11.720 Just different.

00:08:13.980 And different was what I was looking for.

00:08:17.000 And while I got wildly experimental with altered states, weed was always bestie.

00:08:23.440 and it's the only drug that stuck around into my adulthood.

00:08:27.660 To celebrate success or sand the sharp edges off a failure,

00:08:32.020 I am weed kin.

00:08:33.980 We're friends.

00:08:35.800 We enhance each other's experience.

00:08:39.700 But lest we get too comfortable and float away on a cloud of smoke,

00:08:45.320 let's foster our weed kinship with a dose of reality.

00:08:49.380 You want to know what this war on drugs was really about?

00:08:52.860 Said John Ehrlichman, assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon.

00:08:58.840 The Nixon campaign in 1968 and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies.

00:09:05.600 The anti-war left and black people.

00:09:08.320 You understand what I'm saying? 0.94

00:09:09.860 We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black. 0.76

00:09:14.560 But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin,

00:09:19.700 and then criminalizing both heavily,

00:09:22.440 we could disrupt those communities.

00:09:24.860 We could arrest their leaders,

00:09:26.700 raid their homes, break up their marriages,

00:09:29.240 and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

00:09:33.820 Did we know we were lying about the drugs?

00:09:37.140 Of course we did.

00:09:42.520 This was a witch hunt.

00:09:46.160 and this is the real kinship that ties witches to weed we have been used as fear-mongering

00:09:54.740 scapegoats to embolden and empower the forces of individualism racism capitalism and hegemony

00:10:01.960 and much like witchcraft the vilified cannabis plant is not just about getting high and kooky

00:10:08.280 woo-woo and woe, dude. Witches and weed are world savers with bad reputations.

00:10:18.740 Hemp is the part of the plant that we don't smoke. But far, far from useless, hemp is a 0.79

00:10:25.240 fucking miracle. It's naturally resistant to pests and disease, making it extremely hardy 0.98

00:10:32.640 and tough. Hemp also draws CO2 from the atmosphere at a greater rate than any other plant, and in

00:10:42.900 some cases, such as hempcrete, it continues collecting CO2 even after it has been harvested

00:10:50.280 and processed. One study shows that hempcrete, a hemp-based building material, absorbed an

00:10:56.580 additional 307.26 kilograms of CO2 per meter cubed after 28 days. Hemp requires four times less

00:11:07.760 water than cotton to grow, but makes a strong yet supple textile. And then there's paper.

00:11:17.420 In 1916, agricultural scientists in America discovered that it was possible to make paper

00:11:22.620 from hemp pulp. Not only did paper derived from hemp have more favorable properties, it also

00:11:29.920 produced four times the amount of paper per acre compared to trees. Despite it providing a higher

00:11:37.000 yield and being more environmentally friendly, by 1933 the production of hemp fiber was almost

00:11:43.780 non-existent on a national scale. And this might seem puzzling. Paper made from hemp fibers was

00:11:52.460 used for more than 200 years. Dating back to ancient China and the Egyptians, even the

00:11:58.400 Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper before being copied onto parchment. Back

00:12:04.880 when President Hoover was in power in the 1930s, the owner of one of America's largest newspaper

00:12:10.520 companies, William Hearst, invested in thousands upon thousands of acres of woodland in order to

00:12:17.220 provide enough pulp for the newspaper industry. Due to the size of his investment in timber,

00:12:24.360 he tried to eradicate hemp as competition in the industry he sought to dominate.

00:12:30.160 He formed an alliance with DuPont, a petrochemical company that also provided the means necessary to

00:12:36.340 turn wood fibers into paper through a sulfur-based chemical process. After realizing the competitive

00:12:42.260 opponent hemp posed to his investment, Hearst began an influential newspaper campaign to dissuade

00:12:49.480 Americans from supporting the hemp industry. He portrayed hemp as an extremely dangerous and

00:12:55.940 malevolent drug, weaving his agenda into the news in a way that would appeal to the racial fears of

00:13:02.020 the time period. His newspaper had a massive domino effect and happened to be one of the main

00:13:08.700 driving forces between the illegalization of the growth of plants belonging to the Kanabachi family.

00:13:16.420 While Hearst struck fear into the hearts of Americans to damage the hemp industry,

00:13:21.380 his associates at the DuPont Corporation were pressurizing the United States Congress to pass

00:13:26.280 a bill that would impose sanctions on those who sell, acquire, or possess marijuana. Hemp,

00:13:34.040 which looked similar, was then cast in a bad light due to the stigma around the family at the time.

00:13:41.280 Essentially, the wood pulp paper industry succeeded due to it being more profitable.

00:13:50.040 Politics. Money. Power. Propaganda. Maybe you've seen an old film called Reefer Madness,

00:13:58.960 in which marijuana consumption turns polite suburban teens into murderous villains.

00:14:04.040 the smoke burning away their conscience and consciousness.

00:14:08.000 And as teenage potheads, we watched this film and laughed and laughed. 0.97

00:14:12.640 But in retrospect, it's not fucking funny. 0.97

00:14:16.900 The death cult of corporatocracy and religiosity convinced millions of people 0.96

00:14:22.420 that millions of other people, people who use weed or witchcraft,

00:14:28.400 are bad and scary.

00:14:30.700 Propaganda won and the earth lost out

00:14:35.820 And we lost out on a miracle 0.99

00:14:39.840 Witches and weed are systemic kin

00:14:45.760 The endogenous cannabinoid system, named for the plant that led to its discovery

00:14:51.540 Is one of the most important physiologic systems involved in establishing and maintaining human health

00:14:58.840 Endocannabinoids and their receptors are found throughout the body, in the brain, organs, connective tissue, glands, and immune cells.

00:15:08.200 With its complex actions in our immune system, nervous system, and virtually all of the body's organs,

00:15:16.500 the endocannabinoids are literally a bridge between body and mind.

00:15:23.340 By understanding this system, we begin to see a mechanism that could connect brain activity

00:15:29.120 and states of physical health and disease.

00:15:33.620 We are only beginning to understand our kinship with this plant.

00:15:40.100 But now, in the 21st century, there's money to be made, so capitalism extracts,

00:15:46.920 digs its claws into our soil with no regard for those still languishing in prisons and graves.

00:15:58.020 Me, I don't smoke to forget.

00:16:01.120 I smoke to remember.

00:16:03.560 Remember my connection to plant and soil.

00:16:07.660 What a brain attached to a nervous system floating inside a galaxy might imagine when compelled to slow down.

00:16:16.920 and think differently.

00:16:20.760 Crossing a bridge between mind and body.

00:16:25.920 I am witch.

00:16:27.980 I am weed kin. 0.99

00:16:30.860 Debase me.

00:16:32.220 Demean me. 0.97

00:16:33.540 Try to eradicate me.

00:16:35.240 I am still here.

00:16:39.220 Extremely hardy and tough. 0.99

00:16:42.700 All witches are weeds. 0.72

00:16:44.660 We pop up unwanted to mock the status quo's false sense of control, and laugh. 0.99

00:16:51.780 Witches are weed kin. We are growing, and we're not going anywhere.

00:17:13.860 you must be a witch

00:17:35.340 hi folks it's risa and amy here from missing witches inviting you to get involved in our

00:17:44.040 annual raffle in support of the native women's shelter of montreal and indigenous run non-profits

00:17:50.140 wherever you live we have a ridiculously fun witchy heap of prizes donated by a whole community

00:17:57.240 of folks joining together to make a magical wave of reparations magic there's a prize pack from

00:18:03.460 jinx monsoon a one-on-one tarot session with sarah goddess diner magic classes from pam grossman

00:18:11.300 a full year of writing workshops with kate blue and the bardo art pieces jewelry pieces readings

00:18:18.040 books and so much more make a donation to your local indigenous support org or the native women's

00:18:25.640 shelter of montreal and then just forward the receipt to missingwitches at gmail.com with the

00:18:29.960 subject line reparations before may 31st for every 10 you donate you'll get one entry into the draw 0.95

00:18:36.480 check out all the details at missingwitches.com slash reparations and uh blessed fucking be 0.97

Missing Witches - April 27, 2023

Meditation： Cannabis Kin

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