SA
Hi Travis!!
T
Hoi
SA
Can you tell me three words to describe your mind/body/spirit at this very moment?
T
Hmmm, three words to describe my mind/body/spirit. I would say…pensive, soft, optimistic. Thoughtful and pensive can be swapped maybe.
SA
So the month of April is cannabis month at Studio Ānanda & I really wanted to talk to you because we’ve been talking a lot about our relationship to marijuana recently. Mostly about taking space from it & as close friends, just being really open about where we are in our journeys with the plant. Before we jump right into it, And then, where are you at right now in your relationship with marijuana?
T
I’m in an interesting place. As we talked about before, I wanted to take a break from smoking. Since our original conversation, I recognize maybe it’s more the habit of being high every day, getting lost in the haze of being stoned and losing my grounding in my reality, creating a buffer from fully realized emotions so I could relax, take a break from being anxious always. So lately I’ve been smoking far less, really confining it to the weekends if I want to smoke.
SA
It’s interesting you say that smoking is a way for you to feel less anxious, because for so many, consuming marijuana is something that makes them far more paranoid than they usually are. Do you feel like smoking daily was a way for you to suppress emotions, and do you think that since you’ve pared it back, you’ve been feeling more?
T
Inadvertently, I think so. I don’t think I’ve ever smoked with the intention to suppress myself emotionally, I’ve enjoyed the feeling of being high, the mental and physical feel of being stoned more so than anything. But as you smoke more regularly, that becomes a part of the equation, and you don’t always readily recognize it until you give yourself some room to get clear, sober up for a bit. I would even say smoking regularly allows for my anxiety and paranoia to be triggered more readily because I’m less grounded in the haze of regular consumption. But I would say since I’ve slowed down the smoking, the anxiety hasn’t increased, but I’m more aware of my feelings in general, like there’s more clarity and certainty in my thoughts. Less giving into the anxieties and thoughts that do pop up that I tell myself are real but aren’t.
SA
I wanna come back to this piece on intentionality. I’ve noticed for myself, when I don’t allow myself come into sacred consumption, actually honour the plant for what it is – a medicine, that’s when I spiral. So, that could look like daily consumption to suppress or even, smoking with folks who also aren’t asking for the integrity from the plant. But whenever I do come back to cannabis with a very intentional goal of excavating deeper truths, relaxing, meditating etc, my journey is a lot smoother.
I wonder, since you’ve now carved out time to intentionally interact with the plant, the weekends, if that’s also contributing to the clarity you’ve been feeling?
T
Hmm, it’s hard to say. On one hand, I do think smoking with intentionality is a healthier exercise because creating space to be tuned into the experience and seeking whatever one might be seeking from their time with the plant makes the experience more enjoyable. I think you can leave the high and come down knowing you’ve grounded the parts of yourself you’ve needed to hear and see what you need to more clearly, and not get too lost in the haze. On the other hand, I would say creating space away from the plant has given my brain and my body more room for intentional thought in a sober mind. I think having room to unlock some thoughts with the plant is powerful, and having room behind that to hear those same thoughts sober grounds it a bit more, makes it more real and less a thought that’s blowing in the breeze or one I can only access with getting to the high mind.
SA
Totally, I mean – if we are to consider marijuana a medicine, or a therapy, then we need to be able to sit without it as well to fully process what comes up away from it.
I do think the tendency to rely on it for daily functioning is a facet of capitalism in that, we become disconnected from the plant as a sacred medicine and a gift from the earth, instead using and abusing it for instant gratification. It reminds me of when my Mama asked me if I was an addict when I returned to Sydney, and I had to really sit with the connotations of addiction, and how internalized capitalism shows up in our cravings + attachments to substances… what do you think about that?
T
I agree that capitalism has created a feedback loop for instant gratification with substances in general. The latest push for marijuana legalization in the US oftentimes feels absent of the people who’ve suffered the most in the plant’s procurement, and the industry itself is so openly biased against people of color + pushing more white and wealthy people into positions to gain capital from the industry. It feels like seeing this brings those thoughts into a sharper focus, because as access increases to marijuana and the commodification of it becomes more widespread, you have to sort of question how does my relationship with the plant change? Now that I can get marijuana more easily, does that mean I open the window to smoking more, and if so, is that bad? Can I find grounding with the habitual change? Does this access mean I should even question it, because isn’t this a good thing? It feels like there’s questions that inadvertently pop up that I think are easy to obscure because it’s considered a net good for legalization. And I have to say, these are questions asked with more intentional practice in smoking, I don’t think every opportunity to smoke has to follow intention, I think one should have whatever reasons they want to smoke. But I think there are questions to ask as access shifts and legalization becomes a stronger reality here in the US and the west in general.
SA
Yes. And the reality is, intention only truly comes with education. So many disenfranchised folks don’t have access to education around marijuana. One can never really ever place judgement on how folks choose to cope, it comes with awakening, I guess. And then there’s the ways that the western medical and wellness industry have commodified marijuana as an anxiety medication, disregarding Indigenous healing that has happened for centuries with the plant. It’s so insidious and so malicious how legalization, criminalization and addiction are all these modern, western concepts imposed and implanted, pitting folks of colour against the plants we raised….
How old were you when you began your relationship with marijuana, and what are some ways you’ve grown with the plant since?
T
That’s so true, and it’s unfortunate the powers that be have made a concerted effort to stigmatize marijuana and how it’s used (which I think the whole point of doing was to disadvantage people of color because marijuana wasn’t even commonly smoked by white westerners, if I recall correctly). It’s easier to make something a commodity when you already have restricted access to it, and Americans have been traditionally ‘virtuous’ about the law through the government’s own propagandic efforts over decades, so marijuana hasn’t really stood a chance against this timeline. Only when it became more apparent that white (race and economically speaking) people stood to profit off of marijuana becoming legal that there has even been considered a second thought to legalization, but we know that.
My relationship with marijuana started when I was 19, I had been around it from around the age of 16 but never felt compelled to try it until my summer following my freshman year of college. I was in a more open mindspace and I felt comfortable trying it because I came to that decision on my own, not fully from peer pressure. Since then, my relationship has had many shifts with marijuana. I’ve gone long periods without smoking, I used to take six month breaks over the winter to let my mind and my lungs reset. At another point, I was smoking every day, from midday to the end of the day, just to level out and chill, to sort of be removed from the present and be in my own world. At this point, marijuana sits in a space of social interaction + connection and personal relaxation for myself, intention more so in the act of smoking than before with less frequency.
SA
Beautiful to see how your relationship with marijuana has paralleled with a deeper awakening inside of you, emotionally, mentally, physically. I’m excited to see what the next chapter of your journey looks like & also, always here beside you <3 <3
Before we wrap up, can you share 3 – 4 tracks you like to listen to when you’re in a more sunny, stoned disposition? We connected over music (10?) years ago so I feel it would be so special to share that with the rest of our community.
T
Yeah, and I appreciate your encouragement! It’s wonderful to have a close friend’s perception on my journey with weed alongside their own, it makes our conversation and this reflection on the journey feel more thoughtful. If I had to give three or four songs (which is difficult because you know I could give twenty, easily) for the days of being in a sunny haze, I would say…
(because a good weed vibe always has a nice jazz vibe for me)
(because that track feels like a deep meditation into a world of its own, it feels like a track dedicated to love for music, which I also carry deeply)
(I would also swap this with , the common denominator being Madlib, he knows how to bring the high joy out)
(and I would only swap this with , but I love jazz music with movement when I’m high, finding the spaces for melody to carry and to be transported to another world. Dorothy’s song evokes great emotion in a short frame of time that feels really good to get lost in, like you could repeat that song many times. Renaissance is a seven minute journey into a shifting world, every moment kinda unexpected but exciting to see where it goes, and I like the unexpected from a good high music session)
Travis Brown is a multidisciplinary creative currently residing in Brooklyn. He hosts ‘By Proxy’ on Playground Radio & an all-vinyl show on Twitch, “Travis Plays…”; freelances in graphic design, product design, and event planning; and enjoys conversations with friends old and new.” (open to edits!)
travbrown.com, mixcloud.com/sbtravie, socials @sbtravie across