The Green Renaissance is Here

Eleven years ago, I coined the term Green Renaissance and began using it as the guiding ethos for SKUNK Magazine. At the time, the Green Rush was a very popular term that people in the industry were using, and I felt that it was incredibly insulting and disrespectful to the millions still suffering under prohibition and those still incarcerated for cannabis. Cannabis, hemp, mushrooms, other plant allies, and entheogens are here to help us heal and transform our world, improve our society and improve how we work with our earthly resources. Business, as usual, is killing our world, so it is incredibly important that we continue to evolve how we do business, evolve how we define success and wealth and how we work with our Earth and her bounty. We must protect our soils and waterways and our human communities that are suffering. We must protect our Mother Earth that has been used and abused for our own profit and gain and knit a better way. This is at the core of what the Green Renaissance is. We are the Earth, and the Earth is us, and it’s time that we start acting like it. It is our responsibility. There is no one who will come to save us. We are the ones writing the culture; we are not just waiting for the culture to be handed down to us. We must take consistent and disciplined action as a global human community to fight for a more just and equitable industry. We must be consistent and unwavering as we have many more decades before us to improve the narrative on the planet.

If we wait for our governments to make the change, it will be too late. Acting as individuals is not enough. We must all unite as one global community. And that just might be enough to elevate our consciousness and society and bring them both to a higher level.

For our Summer 2022 issue, I decided to republish an article that had previously been printed in our Summer 2020 issue, which, as we know, came out right at the beginning of the pandemic. Everything was shutting down, the world was in crisis, shops were shuttered, and we were all in survival mode. Thus, the topic of the Green Renaissance did not get the exposure it deserved. It was two years ago when I first sat down with Brian Applegarth for his column with us, The Cannabis Trail. Since doing the interview, the parallels have only grown, from the last Renaissance that took place to the new one that is now happening.

The last Renaissance was preceded by 20 million souls dying in the Black Plague, which caused a massive shake-up of church and government, resulting in the people being able to gather more upward mobility, capability, and economic power. The last Renaissance took over 300 years to happen. It came after 600 years of a Dark Age when Galileo’s and others’ scientific knowledge was withheld in the name of greed, religion, and the refusal for individuals and institutions to change when presented with new information. We live in a Dark Age in the midst of a second Renaissance, where the evolution of industry–how we do commerce and what we create as enterprise–has been stymied in the name of greed and corruption. It is time for us to find ways to continue serving the global human community and be a part of the Green Evolution, the Green Renaissance, sweeping the planet. It is imperative that we weave an improved narrative and industry for everyone in our collective global human family.

When I did this interview, it was right when the pandemic was beginning to hit. I had no idea that the parallels would go even further. The last Renaissance was preceded by 20 million dying in the Black Plague, and this caused a shake-up of church and government so that the people could gather more upward mobility, capability, and economic power.

The last Renaissance took 300 years to happen, and it came after 600 years of a dark age when Galileo’s knowledge and other scientific knowledge were withheld in the name of greed, religion, and the refusal to change when presented with new information.

We are currently in a dark age and in the midst of a second Renaissance, where the evolution of industry, how we do commerce, and what we create have been withheld in the name of greed and corruption. It is time for all of us to find ways that we can continue to serve the global human community and be a part of the evolution sweeping the planet. It is imperative that we knit an improved narrative and industry for everyone in our collective global human family. We persist, and we continue in this good fight.

ORIGINS OF THE GREEN RENAISSANCE

Q & A with Julie Chiariello, Editor in Chief Skunk Magazine, Interview by Brian Applegarth

A few years back, I met Julie Chiariello, the visionary who coined the term ‘Green Renaissance.’ Hearing her utter these words opened up a meaningful and impassioned discussion between us. She shared her perspective of the overarching positive impact that hemp and cannabis are imparting to the world and civilization at this point in history. She explained, and we discussed the “Green Renaissance’ that we are in the midst of as a global shift that is interconnected.

Renaissance is defined as ‘the revival of art and literature under the influence of classical models.’ It embodies the concept of looking to the past for clues and lessons that serve to illuminate a better path forward. A Renaissance is recognized as a period of time where we grow and evolve collectively as a species. We are indeed in the midst of a Green Renaissance, born out of a movement firmly rooted in consciousness, human rights, and connection to nature.

Brian Applegarth: A: Julie, what has been your life’s most formative experiences, those that most make you who you are today?

Julie Chiariello: I was raised by Cuban refugees who came to this country when my mother was 15, and my grandmother lived in France until she was 13. I was raised to be very politically aware, to fight for the common people, and to consider myself a global citizen of the world, not just an American. From a very early age, I was taught about great writers like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, I was made to read publications like The Nation and Mother Jones, and I was taught to admire people who fought against the establishment and status quo to achieve great things on behalf of the people. Gandhi, Jane Goodall, Rigoberta Menchu, Nelson Mandela, Jose Marti, Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Maya Angelou, and so many great freedom fighters through the years. I was taught about Citizens United, campaign finance reform, the School of the Americas, and the roots of economic warfare. I remember being a very young girl, maybe nine years old, and my grandfather taking me aside and explaining to me about the banana republics and how our country was creating false wars and coups to decimate the populace in Third World countries in order to get cheaper goods, like bananas in Guatemala. I went to a parochial school, which provided me with an excellent education, and I was trained in classical literature and history through time. I was very fascinated with history and culture, the Greek myths, ancient Asia, the Renaissance, and all that had happened to build this democracy at the peril of Native Americans and Black people. I was taught that to be of service was the greatest gift of a lifetime, and Margaret Mead’s words were drilled into my brain, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I was a classically trained ballerina starting from the age of five and have danced and performed my whole life. Being trained as an artist allowed me to see the world through an artist’s eyes; it animated my world with poetry, beauty, and appreciation for all of humanity. I grew up on the central coast of California and was raised out on the land. I learned about the Native Americans from here, their spirituality, and the legend of the Hopi prophecy. From an early age, I felt very connected to the land, felt at home, and felt a deep kinship that nourished my soul and wellbeing.

BA: Interesting, so what drew you to cannabis? Please tell us about your love affair with the cannabis plant.

JC: There are two parts to the story. When I was 16 years old, I tried cannabis for the first time. I knew what it was when I was younger and always wondered about the funny smell.

I grew up during the “just say no” Reagan era, and I was taught to consider cannabis as grouped with all other drugs, so I stayed away from it. When I turned 16, I was a ballerina dancing 5 to 6 days a week, oftentimes with pointe shoes. When I first tried it, it was an absolute revelation! Not only did it ease the pain and body aches that I felt as a dancer, but it was the beginning of me understanding that I could shape my reality and shape who I wanted to be, not who I was taught to be. As William Blake says, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself until he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”

Cannabis, for me, opened the doorways of my consciousness for me to understand the deeper meanings of the universe; from that year forward, I began my study of esoteric thought from great teachers and traditions all around the world.

The second part of my story came later when I was given the opportunity to be Director of Sales and Marketing for a vaporizer company that I took Global, Magic Flight. During my early 20s, I traveled and lived in Europe and was a daily user of cannabis, enjoying the wonderful hash from Morocco when I lived in Spain and getting to experience Amsterdam in the late 90s when it was still bustling with incredible energy and vitality and had some of the tastiest strains and cultivated flower on the planet. When I became a Mother at 25 years old, I began using cannabis much more sparingly. I would use it medicinally every so often for stretching and healing at night. That shifted when I entered the industry almost 16 years ago and began using daily once again and living and breathing cannabis. It was a big moment where I actively had to choose to come out to my family, my friends, and the world at large. It was important that I shared honestly that I was pro-cannabis, that cannabis was scientifically proven as a medicine and that I was an avid user and enthusiast. I began freely speaking and sharing publicly that cannabis was a compliment and healer to my responsibility-laden lifestyle as a full-time mother and a full-time professional in the industry. It forever transformed the pathway of my life, and I am grateful to have heard stories from around the world that have touched my heart and moved me to passionate action to continue to fight against the heinous plague of prohibition.

 

BA: When and how did you become so spiritually connected? Was there a specific moment of awakening you can recall?

JC: As a child, I was raised in the Catholic tradition and was fascinated with the Saints and the Virgin Mary and Jesus’s story of love. In my late teens and early 20s, I began reading and listening to The I Ching, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Gangaji, Ram Dass, and Terence McKenna. I read Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, and his final truth of sitting down next to the river and understanding all of creation from that restful place made a huge impact on me. I also began studying yoga, and many different traditions. I read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Krishnamacharya’s Yoga Makaranda, and eventually studied many different forms of Asana, running a yoga studio and teaching yoga to children. I also studied meditation, Breathwork, Reiki, Dzogchen, Zen, and other forms of Buddhism and sacred texts like the Diamond Sutras. At the same time, I was also studying to become an herbalist in the Western folkloric tradition. I was taught to wild harvest on the land and identify many plants. I made my own medicines and became even more intimately connected with the natural world. Through all of these different pathways, I became what I say, awake within the dream, and through mindfulness practice inspired by Thich Nhat Hahn, I understood that through presence practice in the moment that we are tapped in to our universal source and that we have all we need to move forward on our unique soul path with strength, insight, and grace.

BA: When did you first utter the term Green Renaissance? When was it first a crystallized thought that you shared?

JC: I coined the term Green Renaissance about nine years ago, though I had used the term renaissance for many years before that; it was a particular moment when I was very tired of hearing the term “Green Rush” in the cannabis industry and decided that rather than a rush, we were ushering in a renaissance. I deeply believe that the Earth is propagating consciousness through her plants to inspire millions of us to remember who we are as stewards and protectors of the Earth and to transform how we do business and how we work with our sacred resources on the planet. We are redefining wealth, success, and prosperity so that it always includes caring for the Earth and her people. We cannot prosper and profit as a society through the destruction of our Earth and the suffering of humanity any longer. It is time for change.

From my perspective as an herbalist, I consider cannabis to be the mother plant of all plants. The plant cannabinoids present in cannabis mimic human cannabinoids to assist us in creating healing in the body. Cannabinoids are present in mothers’ breast milk; they are an important part of the building blocks of life that assist us in creating homeostasis in the body. As an entrepreneur, it is incredibly important to me to practice new-style business, not just business as usual with money-making as the sole focus, but to go deeper with our businesses to help create greater levels of education, empowerment, health, and wellbeing within our communities and across the planet. My focus is to help create healing through commerce, to help enrich our world for the better, and I believe that this is the deeper message of why cannabis is present on the planet and what the plant is encouraging us all to do. To heal ourselves first, then to remember who we are as stewards and protectors of the Earth, and lastly, to help usher in a renaissance in business and how we live on our Earth.

BA: What inspired you to use the term Green Renaissance and what does it mean to you?

JC: As a little girl, I was raised with great respect for classical literature, ancient history, and travel. My grandparents had a book on Leonardo da Vinci that I would pore over; my imagination was piqued when I read about the multifaceted nature of his work and his quest to discover humankind’s greater capabilities in many different areas of life and how we could evolve and deepen our understandings as human beings. I was utterly fascinated with that time period in human history. I knew that the last Renaissance took 300 years, but for 600 years prior to that, during the dark ages, Galileo’s science had been withheld because of the church’s greed. I knew that millions had died in religious wars and that while millions woke up to a new way of being on the planet, millions still remained lost. A renaissance is chaotic and messy. It doesn’t run in a straight line; it just keeps evolving over time. Looking around at our current state of affairs, I noticed the parallels, and they were astounding.

Here we were for the last 125 years under cannabis prohibition, with science being withheld in the name of greed, while on a broader global scale, green and sustainable practices have been held back even though reform is desperately needed in every industry that functions in our world right now. It is time to move away from big oil, factory farming, big banks, the war machine, big pharma, the chemical industries, Monsanto, etc. Many technologies are currently being withheld in the name of business as usual, but business as usual is the disease that is killing our world. About this time, nine years ago, a lot of people in the cannabis industry were using the term green rush, a term I feel is insulting and disrespectful to the millions who have died and to the millions who continue to suffer under cannabis prohibition. As a long-time lover of counter culture and free thinkers in this past century, I feel that a renaissance began in the French salons with Gertrude Stein, Alice B Toklas, Hemingway, Picasso, then into the zoot suiter’s, the Jazz and Blues, the Beats, Ginsberg, Kerouac, then into the hippies, and it continues today in a different form but still moving forward in a time contrasted with great darkness.

We are at the pinnacle of the fight to transform our industries towards being green and sustainable or suffer the consequences as a collective human race for what the greed of the few is demanding. This is why it is more important than ever to do what we can within cultivation in the cannabis industry to protect our soil and our waterways and create clean medicine for those who we service in whatever capacity. On a deeper level, I also feel, as an herbalist who has studied plant medicine, that the Earth has been propagating consciousness with her plants in order to usher in this Renaissance and inspire these people back in the French salons up to the fight current fight that we all share now to decriminalize cannabis, mushrooms and many other forms of plant allies and medicines that would help humanity thrive. In this way, I coined the term Green Renaissance as a contrast to the idiotic Green Rush that we were constantly hearing everyone talk about. I feel that the cannabis industry has a particularly important position in helping to heal people’s bodies, their minds, and their hearts so that many more can be inspired to innovate and create improved ways of doing business and proving that you can have success in business with these improved values.

The Green Renaissance is very intimately tied into and inspired by Native prophecies. Many different indigenous cultures spoke of this time, from the Cree, Hopi, and Sioux Indians, to the Mayans and Aztecs to the Australian aboriginals and the Hindus. From these wise perspectives, it appears that it will get much darker before it gets better in order to push the change that we so desperately need. Right now, in our world, the shadow is everywhere we look in the crumbling systems that are out of alignment with universal law and earth consciousness. We are being pushed into the dark of the womb. We are being flung into greater darkness, flung into the chaos that is currently ruling our world so that new, more aligned systems can be born.

During the last dark age, science was withheld for 600 years in the name of the church now; science has been withheld in modern times in the name of greed by factions that currently rule our world in the name of money-making, not the health and wellbeing of the planet or the people. This is why I’m always speaking of a Renaissance because a new renaissance has been pushing for the last hundred years to be fully born, and we still have much more track to cover. The last Renaissance took 300 years. However, with the pressures of climate change, we do not have that much time. Under Judeo Christianity, the feminine principle was cast out and demonized, as were all the things that characterize the feminine in our world. Now the feminine principle seeks balance with the masculine principle once again; come hell or high water, the entire Earth is being recalibrated to come into sacred balance. This has nothing to do with gender-specific and has more to do with the forces that animate our universe eternally. As it says in The Kybalion, “Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes.”

Under patriarchy which was developed some 6000 years ago, the feminine and everything about it was made dark, negative, scary, and dirty. It was something to fear, it was something to guard against, it was something to control, it was something to oppress, but never something to revere, honor or hold sacred. This was pushed overwhelmingly onto the feminine gender even though all human beings contain both masculine and feminine energy, as does the entire universe. Science is catching up with these notions but is still far behind, using many outdated terms and understandings.

In this Renaissance, the feminine principle and the masculine principle are to both be seen as sacred and equal, not because of personal preference or opinion but because it is Universal Law. Both forces are inherently balanced in our world always. It’s just us humans that are out of balance with the natural world and disconnected from the universal laws hence the destruction that we see playing out in our world at this time. We see that the powers that control our world right now inherently disrespect the feminine principle in everything they do by taking, raping, using, and abusing our earthly resources in the name of acquiring paper money and power over others, which shows just how far this idiocy has taken us down a path of irrevocable destruction.

And yet the Earth, in her infinite wisdom, in the wielding of her shadow, is pushing for change by providing the necessary contrast to hasten an evolution on a global scale. She works like water, wearing away rock over time. She works like the cannabis plant herself, hearty like a weed stretching her roots out and building her strength to meet any adversity. She is masterful in propagating human consciousness through her plant allies and waking millions of beings up at this time, reconnecting us to ancient hermetic principles and universal laws and marrying them with modern technological understandings. In this way, we are living embodiments of the union of the sacred masculine and feminine principles within ourselves. We are the evidence. We are her warriors; we are her stewards meant to re-knit and re-weave the sacred connection back into our world. As darkness rules, remember that the union living within you is the greatest gift that you can give the world at this time. As the Principle of Correspondence states, “As above, so below, as below, so above. As within, so without, as without, so within.” And the more that people become living embodiments of this union, the more that we will see a sustainable renaissance take hold and be reflected in our world.

BA: Tell us about SKUNK Magazine and the role it has had and continues to play in the cannabis movement?

JC: SKUNK Magazine is a 16-year-old publication that has been devoted to organics, sustainability, and highlighting the top cannabis genetics in the world throughout our existence. We have taught millions of people all around the world to grow organically at home as hobbyists, and many have gone on to have exciting careers in the industry. We are a multimedia platform that offers opportunity for engagement through print, online, video, social media, and strategic introductions and partnerships in the global cannabis marketplace. We bring the best minds and companies in the industry together to speak about the green Renaissance. Whether it’s through organics, permaculture, the leading edge of technology, farming, genetics, philanthropy, empowered consumerism, sustainable business practices, or green ethics, we are a platform that shows that we are being the change that we want to see in everything we do. We are a Global vendor alliance of innovative companies, change makers, activists, scientists, educators, professionals, and thought leaders, standing in solidarity, protecting our shared vision and the type of cannabis culture that we want to see.

BA: What does the term’ cannabis movement’ mean to you?

JC: To me, when we use the term cannabis movement, we are speaking about a global fight for our collective human rights. Every single human being on the planet has an Endocannabinoid system. It is a scientific fact that has been suppressed in the name of greed. In my 16 years in the industry, I have come to understand that cannabis prohibition in the 100+ years it has endured is one of the largest genocides in human history. This movement is about human beings uniting and fighting for free and easy access to cannabis to nourish the health and wellbeing in our lives, in our families, and in our communities.

BA: What is your hope for the cannabis industry?

JC: To me, what the green Renaissance stands for is new-style green and ethical business practices flourishing on the planet. This, to me, is what the invitation and potential are for the cannabis industry to lead in this important evolution. My greatest hope is that along with doing well in business that the top priorities become to protect and rehabilitate our soils, our waterways, and our communities with clean organic medicine that brings health and wellbeing to the planet and the people.

This interview was originally published in the Summer 2020 issue of SKUNK Magazine.