Culture Council: Re-Patterning Through Reverence and Cannabis

We are people of patterns, many of us have good and bad traits that can continue to repeat themselves over the course of our lives. Psychedelics, when used in a safe container with an intentional mindset, can give us the bravery to peer into dark areas of our lives or patterns to look at, communicate with and understand them to ultimately”identify them” and “work through them” or “work with them” — communing in devotion to be better. If you’re in an industry that uses psychedelics relationally or as a tool, I invite you to understand how cannabis can be an ally in re-patterning versus other psychedelics.

Going to a psilocybin and ayahuasca ceremony held in reverence can drop us into a space for the medicine to hit us so hard that we have no logical choice but to settle into the waves of experience that could be life-altering or pattern-changing, giving us an opportunity to integrate the experience for weeks, months, years and for some an entire lifetime. They can be powerful!

You may have heard of the afterglow you can receive after a plant medicine ceremony. You feel happy for no reason, with your nervous system feeling charged, almost a subtle tingling throughout your whole body. Once this glow ends and often before, people may fall back into the patterns they were in prior, albeit hopefully with a new texture. 

This is natural; we have a peak experience, ride the wave — and, hopefully, put extreme focus and dedication into integration — and land at some point. Not being in the glow but working the same job, snuggling the same family dynamics, commencing with your community, which is great but was built within the construct of our “self” that we always identified with. Our “self” is familiar, and that familiarity is what we can drop back into — our patterns. 

I hesitate to describe that as good or bad, it’s what is — and it’s up to you to understand if there needs to be a change or maybe growth in certain areas. It’s not that we have to change our job or family dynamics, but how we show up to them often does need to change. How we show up is our pattern. 

Sometimes through our integration, we can enable change but people can tend to slip back into old ways, albeit new mindsets and belief systems — we are people of patterns.

While all Master Plants (a plant that can teach you a lesson) have an important role in nature and our society, cannabis has a unique role in the cosmology of the plants. 

The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?

Cannabis is a psychedelic that we can journey with daily and integrate on the same day; and if we visit the plant with intention when we consume, we have the potential to break patterns more easily due to the frequency with which we can consume — bettering our relationship with ourselves and the earth. Unlike ayahuasca, cannabis’s psychoactive effects can be subtle in comparison and take a master to draw out her fullest expression of benefits. 

Cannabis can be categorized as an entheogen if that lies within your belief system — the Divine within, good for prayer and meditation. Cannabis can also be categorized as personal development through its introspective lens by showing you areas in your life that are deficient, giving you an opportunity to address them and grow. Cannabis can honestly be categorized in many ways, as it’s an amplifier of whatever is going on in the inner realms of your thoughts — i.e., creativity for music, flow state for athletes, hyper-priming for problem-solving, peeling back layers for therapy, enhanced senses to connect with nature, etc.

Cannabis can also be labeled as inhibiting. If you have the mindstate to do nothing, then it will easily allow you to drop into that state. As humans, we’re prone to check out from time to time; life can be intense, and many consumers may be looking to be mindful of how they disconnect.

Cannabis use is readily available, albeit not recommended for abuse. It allows you to journey on whatever you want to be amplified in your psychology or relate to something deeper through enhanced proprioception. It can also help you identify processes and integrate them that same afternoon — more than likely being completely clear-headed before dinner. Thus, this can give you an experience with a low impact on your daily rhythms attuning to new patterns. 

As consumers are focused on health and wellness more than ever, they are re-discovering mindful ways to use historical staples in their lives — meditation apps as opposed to video games, regenerative farm-to-table restaurants over fast food, plant medicines over alcohol. As this happens, the cannabis consumer is becoming more and more attracted to intellectual use. Letting customers know how they can use cannabis as a psychedelic and deepen their development is the next phase of the cannabis industry.  

What is the best way to break patterns? Consistency in something that goes against those patterns or constant attention to breaking them. If you are someone who works in the psychedelic or cannabis industry, then you have the opportunity to shepherdthe plant in reverence and intention to uplevel your clients.

I invite you to look at cannabis through the lens of a psychedelic or entheogen and how customers can break patterns that are no longer serving them, making them better consumers, employees, family members and stewards to this earth and beyond. Use this lens to provide perspective on business and marketing decisions. In many people’s views, this is how you honor cannabis, your business and the world.