January 1, 2024
I’ve been waiting for months to build a website and start a blog. At first, I used the delays as a way to build up ideas and actually write, but then the “it’s never going to happen” thinking started and the ideas dried up faster than acetone nail polish remover. My complete plan was to roll out the new, shiny website in the New Year and as that plan begins to fade, I find myself free to do something different and unexpected. Funny how that works, when our plans fall through sometimes we discover our freedom.
This morning, after months of reading Substack newsletters, the Start Writing button came into view. I have seen some disdain for the “how to start a substack” newsletters cropping up but I read one that was pretty straightforward and another that had a different approach, so here we are. Hello and welcome.
The last five years have been intense. I made the switch from a single mother of one to a high-conflict blended family. I married “the one that got away”, got pregnant, and was diagnosed with cancer. During the pandemic, I lost my job and became estranged from my family. Following that, my beloved father-in-law passed away and I began working with my husband in his family business. Two years later we finalized his custody case and we were able to breathe.
Then life began anew.
By February 2023, I was enrolled in the Cannabis Coaching Institute. Magic. The science, the mindset work, and the community! It was tough and I often worried about failure but after 8 months of hard work, I graduated as a certified Cannabis Coach and Educator. The evolution during a process like that is so interesting to me; the expectations rarely measure up to the outcome.
During chemo-radiation treatment in 2019, I was searching for ways to ease my pain without pharmaceuticals and stumbled upon a website run by a brilliant, hilarious woman whose generous offerings included practical tips to microdose cannabis, lots of in-depth cannabis science, and a multitude of recipes. The information shared on her website, particularly regarding the endocannabinoid system, and the whole-life improvements that came after beginning a microdosing regimen, was literally life-changing. Later, she would announce the launch of CCI, the Cannabis Coaching Institute, and I would be on my way.
Another kind of magic came out of those tumultuous years, too. More freedom and access to the garden; it’s long been something I loved but there never seemed to be enough time for it between work and dogs and children. Our house sits on a spacious suburban lot but it was quite literally a jungle, complete with ponds-turned-swamps when we moved in. It took six months to create a backyard that our kids could safely run around in or that our dogs could explore without needing to be fished out of a swamp. Little by little, as my strength came back and my skills developed, my vision began to take shape. Our property took the last turn from jungle to functional to oasis.
This is how evolutions are, they take you to places you didn’t expect because you didn’t know enough at the start to even imagine them. The Forest Witch Apothecary, after which this substack is named, is my project and vision. It is the rootstock of cannabis cultivation, sustainable gardening, and health. This project has several facets, all of which are important in their own right, but together they become the mainspring of sustainable practices that impact our access to food, pain and healing both mental and physical, our relationship with the earth, and some I haven’t imagined yet.
Now, during introductions, my response to “What do you do for work?” is inevitably the most unexpected and divisive. There are some sticky spots, like cannabis legalization, but none like our predecessors have fought through and I’m feeling uncharacteristically optimistic. If you know anything about gardening, you know that the work never really ends, and if you don’t, don’t let that scare you. It’s worth it, I promise.
Perennially,
Elizabeth, The Forest Witch
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