Lovers & Leftovers // Minotaurs and GMO Fruit // Reiki, Incense and End of Life Legacy Work with Thinh 'Tawn' Le
Plus: Everyone in California is a dirty MFer because it’s on fire
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Hey, you. Consider this your hodgepodge for the week. I am sending this on a Saturday so you have it for your Sunday morning coffee.
We’re about to enter Virgo season on the 23rd, which means all the signs are getting for a little OCD housecleaning. Water signs, it’s time to pack up that emotional baggage and LET IT GO. Goodbye! In the words of Jay Z, “Onto the next one.” By the way, a lot of a good financial advice in that song. I’d really love to see a collab with Jay Z and Suze Orman talking about chickens like on her Calm app sessions.
I don’t want to say that I’m a psychic, but I also don’t want to say I’m not a psychic. That’s because word has it that there is going to be an “activation” of some type by a certain unnamed cannabis company in Salem, Massachusetts this Halloween, which means weed witchery peak season will be unlocked this fall. Picture it: Spooky stoned foliage walking tours to get paranoid and start talking to ghosts. Adorable edibles in the shape of spiders and ghouls. The smell of burning cinnamon broom whisks for infused cider as a gentle reminder to visit the Salem Witch Museum to be grateful how far we’ve come since then. Yikes!
On that note, here’s hoping the word “activation” to reference an event never resurfaces in this newsletter again. Sorry to sound like such a cynic, it’s just the PTSD of agency life that haunts me from the absence of boundaries and emotional abuse over spreadsheets.
Admittedly, my body is here, but my brain is elsewhere. Years ago, I went in on a pilgrimage to explore the hippie caves of Matala, where we climbed the rocky cliffs and explored alien varietals that rarely saw light outside the Mediterranean. Today, we’re blessed with adventurous terroir making its way into tasting clubs and wine bars across the country, offering a small glimpse into a much bigger world we can look forward to exploring someday.
Just outside Heraklion is Knossos, home of the Minotaur—a half man, half bull—Labyrinth famously erected by ancient Cretan ruler, King Minos. The terrain is larger than life, shedding light on how those pre-Biblical stories used metaphor that could only be explained by gods and goddesses how this small island in the Mediterranean could be a natural wonder and kingdom of fantastical beauties and beasts.
Going to Crete sounds pretty nice though—who’s in? While the Delta variant breeds memes as fast as CDC cases keeping many of us landlocked trying to imagine a post-COVID globe, in the meantime, we can just have dream of taste memories through bottled wine, olive oil, and infused thyme-honey four and twenty pies with rusk crusts.
Presently, I am enjoying African music at the Open Boulevards in Prospect Heights, a project to bring live music to New York City in an attempt to revitalize the boroughs after a horrible year. The music is positively infectious and uplifting, backed by a fresco of street art overtaking the barricades. It’s beautiful.
During the height of the pandemic, one of the things that upset me the most was being separated from art. I’ve done a lot of legitimately crazy things in my life, but I distinctly remember needing to go to the Met around this time last year when New York looked like a bombed out wasteland and I heard they had reopened.
The Upper East Side was mostly empty, and I was a shell of a human just trying to get to the Egypt wing to confirm the presence of blue lotus as part of the third eye in fresco reliefs as part of a mending-a-broken-heart elaborate love story that brought me to learning about blue lotus as a mild psychotropic.
This is where therapeutics turns into theatrics.
En route, the Proud Boys decided to join up with Jews For Trump to go fight BLM in the middle of Times Square. They started blasting “The Final Countdown” and “Born in the USA” and I let out the most primal scream (not unlike the Primal Scream Therapy I write about in Vol. 24). There was this urge to release my inner batshit crazy lady. I was tired of being polite and taking the high road. I screamed back. It was embarrassing and cathartic.
Of course, because this is New York, no one was fazed by this horrible display of a parade, and yet they were somehow more entitled to scream their opinions than I was. I felt like a small dog barking up the wrong tree after months in silence.
Shortly thereafter, I walked to the Met, where I was shaken by this surprisingly unchill move and had to tell someone. It felt very Confucian—if a Carly screams on Fifth Avenue, but it didn’t go viral (thank god), did it happen? (It did). Then I walked directly to the Egyptian wing, where I found exactly one fresco that matched the one I had found on the Upper West Side a few months before. The three employees at the Met validated me with a shared laugh and anyone who feels like they needed to live vicariously through someone, that’s all that matters. Give me art or NYT Death! Pulp fiction.
I actually never quite finished my exploration into the tinctures or efficacy of blue lotus because my work had been interrupted. I had been contacting the one lab that had done some research on it, but overall, it’s still a bit of a mystery and I think that’s why I like leaving it open-ended as a mythical thing. Like the minotaurs and labyrinths.
Trying oh-so-hard to have faith in humanity making small changes in our carbon footprint and trying to uplift the good initiatives. Greta Thurnburg is tired, y’all, and she hasn’t even lived long enough to be exasperated by the planet. The fruit at the supermarket looks terrible and I’m not even going to romanticize that. Are we being punished for a bad pharaoh?
Anyone else kind of bored talking about Weed? I know. How can someone dubbing themselves The Weed Witch get tired of talking about Weed? Well, there is also sometimes too much of a good thing. I am more interested in your rituals. There is still so much to learn about this plant, which has cannabinoids and terpenes still being discovered, along with Frankenstein hybrids haunting me like GMO fruit that made me curious about these heirloom weeds in the wild.
You want be seduced by the enormous strawberries and squash, but then you hand-harvest some berries in Ireland, try growing tomatoes, find a U-pick patch in Michigan or bundle apples in upstate New York, and realize there is just no comparison to the sun-ripened varietals.
Presently, there are so many products and also so many of them not here. The educational dance videos mainly just make me want to sober up and go hiking. The constant anger and threats surrounding this virus mean I’m just looking at videos from California and still being fed this “Cali sober” lifestyle in New York City—a place distinctively not like California. And the rest of it is just business—the type of networking done with individuals I had zero interest in sharing a joint with anyway.
Still! I am extremely positive about all of this. It’s just that I don’t quite share the same excitement for celebrity-endorsed rollies as I do about their perfumes at Macy’s: just not my bag, but very happy for their continued success.
Meanwhile, the legacy market is already starting to feel the effects here and it’s making dealers unhappy. One source told me that while business is good, restrictions have somehow tightened with the legal permissions. Funny how that works. So long as the taxation is being pumped back into schools and infrastructure, I’m assuming New York will adopt a similar mentality to the Dutch, where it might be legal to smoke in Amsterdam but it’s a bit passe to do it outside designated smoking coffeeshops.
Most of the smoking culture is in the East Village and LES, where scrappy candy shops, bars, St. Marks, and Washington Square are expected hotspots for college-aged parties. Underground parties are already starting to re-emerge with the 99th Floor and Cannaclusive. Instagram continues to relentlessly tear everyone down, including legal dispensaries, while you know the employees out in Palo Alto are probably getting Eaze delivered to the office, so who knows.
Admittedly, I am more inspired by action happening in the world at-large, and also wanting to take time to dive in with other writers, artists, alternative thinkers and slowing down to create a comprehensive editorial plan. Can you believe this is issue 31?
Sustainability is on my mind again, particularly as I’ve been treating Beacon’s Closet like an extension of my wardrobe. Cannabis production is becoming hugely problematic and growers are seeking solutions to water and electricity usage. New Mexico, in particular, is unsure if they have enough water to produce cannabis. Katana Dumont offers four ways to make cannabis more environmentally friendly.
Quality has gone down on foodstuff so that I haven’t felt compelled to show off my cooking. I can’t help but eye roll certain food writers talking out both sides of their mouths expecting a green labor revolution while also touting expensive herbs and spices that the average person on EBT can’t afford.
Manual labor vs. horse-powered automation means energy and fuel are coming from somewhere, it would just be better to have universal income and benefits to build on top of things. It’s hard to tell how much is choices and how much someone can do within their power when the resources are so bad to begin with. Grimes is talking up nuclear energy, which might be fine so long as we don’t have another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or nuclear families (!).
In other news, fellow universal income supporter Roxanne Gay, who operates a very good Substack, posted a blog on “Who Gets To Be Dirty?” which has generally been blowing up as a racial and ableism issue. I actually don’t have any hard opinions on this except that I assumed that Kristen and Mila were “extremities only” bathers because California has been on fire for the past five years or more, so it is commonplace to “shower with a friend” and not eat carbs.
Have you even seen Seth Rogen lately? He looks like he’s been blazing harder than in Pineapple Express. I don’t know his bathing situation but his hair and everyone else’s looks fried. Somehow it seems more ethically responsible to be skipping a shower rather than loading our bodies with acrylics and plastic, but then again, I just saw Paris Hilton has a cooking show where she wastes food for fun so who knows.
If I was going to guess, I get the impression that the Kunis/Bell units smell less than Jake Gyllenhaal as an individual making up for two whole families, though I have not met any of them and prefer not to judge. I will say that bathing and personal hygiene are basic human rights, and there are many reasons why some bathe more than others or not enough. I prefer natural products inside and out, and find that it changes the way my body produces oil or regulates because our skin is a living and breathing thing that requires moisture and protection. Then again, I also run an Instagram about broads and baths so clearly I am biased as I believe in bathing. Preferably in luxury and without bullshit interfering in “me time.”
Everything isn’t terrible, even though I often feel like I am living in hell just on account of this heatwave. Michael Pollan has a new book out called “This is Your Mind on Plants” that I am super excited to read. I am still reading Alia Volz’s “Home Baked.”
Now a word from our sponsors
Product of the Week: A Bike That Folds As Smooth As A New York Slice
On a housekeeping note: Thank you to ZiZZO bikes, who just sent me this orange folding bike that’s so hot I’m terrified it’s going to get instantly ripped off. Which would be sad because it’s a free bike and I’d like it to continue to be mine. Please don’t steal my bike.
Objectively, I don’t want to complain about this bike, but it mainly feels a touch too cumbersome to lug around when Citibikes are so abundant to make me lazy as I dock to and fro the East and West Villages. I miss the sturdiness and weight of a steel road bike—particularly the one that was stolen for its sentimental value, so that given the choice, I’d choose the classic. That said, I do appreciate the inventiveness of a bike that folds up so compactly. Just like a New York slice (something you are also arguably not supposed to fold, according to locals).
Marketing people send me a lot of product to try, but it doesn’t pay my rent unfortunately! If you like what you read here, please consider taking advantage of this deal I’ve thrown together for August with 20% off subscriptions until the end of the month.
Fun fact: If you’re a publicist, work in any leisure industry, or are media, you can write this off on your business expenses on your taxes as research! You have been influenced and informed!
Quick Weed Witch Garden Tip:
Neem oil plus Dawn dish soap fight fungus safely in the heat. Thanks to non-binary garden influencer Mika LaRay for this hot garden tip!
From The Happiest Hour in the East Village Back to ‘Breity
On an unrelated note, should you find yourself in the East Village, check out A10 Bar. They have a great blueberry margarita and strawberry gin & tonic happy hour special for $5 each 5-7 p.m. Yowza! I am a bit more interested in non-alcoholic beverages these days, but between the Loire Valley wines treating me to a tres chic wine crawl and these two happy hour classics, really missed the flavor. I don’t miss drunk people.
Over here, I think I may be on my last break and going back to ‘breity because I could use a break from the calories. The last few times I tried drinking, I realized I just don’t have the same relationship with booze anymore and am a little tired of the weight gain. That said, when I drink, it’s to remember things and how they taste. I don’t need the extra thimble full to get drunk—I just appreciate swirling it around my mouth, closing my eyes, trying to take in the fruit, smoke, minerality, or anything else that provides a sense of place and time, and hold it tenderly. If anything, I’m probably drunk on emotions sometimes and don’t need alcohol for that.
There are many reasons to take a break or stop entirely with alcohol. Have you done this? How did it make you feel? Drop two cents in the comments.
Unconventional Paths: Reiki, Incense and End of Life Legacy Work with Thinh 'Tawn' Le
On 8/8—the Lion’s Gate to infinity and beyond, as well as a beautiful Sunday for National CBD Day—I was given a gift from the universe: an interview with Reiki practitioner, incense maker, and End-of-Life legacy work consultant, Thinh ‘Tawn’ Le.
A few years ago, we met at a workshop hosted by BreadxButta where she was graciously sharing her craft on incense making and I was taken in by her bright smile and gentle spirit. Like many in New York City, she’s a transplant—by way of Houston—who found herself in Woodside, Queens, where she operates an Etsy storefront selling small-batch Reiki-infused hand-rolled mini-incense, and online and in-person Reiki sessions out of Astoria.
When the pandemic hit, and I started this newsletter, I reached out to her because I felt she was one of “healers” within a sea of dealers. When the world needed positive vibes, she was tasked to take care of her family while stepping up to support other communities.
Like many of the individuals I was meeting through plant medicine and wellness space—the spiritual yogis and ritualistic healers bringing ancient practices from around the world while carving out their own paths with multi-divinational methods—I could tell she had a good heart.
When I think of the ‘weed witches’, it’s not just about weed or witches, but those who live on the fringe doing powerful things. Meditation and the forging of Eastern and Western rituals are practices that transcend space and time. Healing crafts don’t always neatly fit into the mold or are necessarily quantifiable, even when Western medicine and scientific techniques of data collection like EKGs can prove that these practices—breath work, meditation, massage and bodywork, music, art, and other unconventional thinkers—might be onto something.
Do you need data attached to every experience, or are you willing to place trust in the unknown?
As you might recall from Vol. 20, qi gong was the catalyst that helped Jamie ‘Trannabis’ Wollberg during his transition, along with the use of cannabis as plant medicine, which has been continually documented in Chinese medicine for approximately 1800 years.
A Korean artist I recently went on a date to The Met with showed up late because he was entrenched in a Mexican shamanic breath work exercise (not something I schedule in-between dates, but this is New York City so you can’t be surprised at the detox/re-tox time slotting). He was surprised at his own transcendence and I show him a knowing look. Welcome, my friend. Namaste.
Reiki, a Japanese energy healing practice, is argued among scholars for its efficacy as a pseudoscience like many alternative healing practices as a result of its measurability against the placebo effect, even where the outcome still has a positive effect. The same folks who might not see value in shamanic sacred cacao ceremonies that do not have hallucinogenic effects, but can still activate transformation. (Full disclosure: I was sobbing during my cacao experience as I was healing from a broken heart. It made me so sick that I finally understood why Xian, my Chinese medicinal practitioner I met in Ireland, said, “Crying is the body’s way of healing itself.”)
Hardened skeptics of any wellness practice will always exist, while those who lean into spiritual reckonings have found comfort in the same way as color theory. Think of it like looking at a famous painting: there’s no real substitute for the tremendous spatial comfort of entering an art gallery versus looking at a photo of a painting online.
Many weed witches have come forward about using cannabis as part of their Reiki practices—though it is not necessary to partake or not partake. Just because an herb or ingredient is available, doesn’t necessarily make it prescriptive to the individual who is being healed.
As the legal landscape changes in cannabis, I wanted to see where it was folding in and realized it was more than just one plant—it’s plant medicine among many other forms of holistic remedies. The misunderstanding of plant magic means the term is a little…bastardized, to put it politely.
I wanted to check in with Tawn to hear her perspective.
Who are you?
My name is Thinh but all my friends know me as 'Tawn', and I'm an Incense maker, Reiki healing practitioner, and an End of Life consultant dealing specifically around legacy work.
When was the last time you had cannabis?
It's been awhile, it would be January 2020.
How does plant magic factor into your work?
Plants connect us back to mother nature, it connects us back to our true selves, and it connects us to those we can't see like our ancestors, guides, and other benevolent beings. It has the ability to move between worlds and carry our thoughts and allow us to receive messages.
For me, I use plants when I make my incense for ritual purposes and/or burn them for ritual purposes.
Why do you do Reiki and can you tell us about that as a practice?
I initially started learning Reiki as a coping mechanism for myself - it was another tool that I could use just like journaling or meditating. But in the last 2+ years, it has taken a big turn for me where I now do Reiki sessions as a service to others and help folks along their healing journey. Reiki has the capability to restore physical and emotional well-being.
People come in for Reiki sessions for a number of reasons, but usually people initially reach out to see me during trying and tender times often seeking relief and/or clarity for the most part.
During an in-person Reiki session, a client is fully clothed and will comfortably lay reclined on a massage table. My hands are then placed just off the body or lightly touching the body. Clients are more than welcome to request not being touched if they don't feel comfortable or have certain injuries. Once the session is over, we'll briefly discuss their experience and what I also felt energetically with them.
But then the pandemic hit.
Reiki, in general, can be performed without the client being physically near you. It's just energy - and energy knows no bounds in time and space.
But I really didn't think people would be down for doing a virtual Reiki session (also called Distanced Reiki) because I thought people would be weirded out with the fact that we weren't in the same room, space, and/or even time. I was wrong.
People were more open than I thought, and I've actually gotten new clients doing Distanced Reiki+Intuitive Tarot session with me. In a virtual setting, we'll get on Zoom, I'll chat for a bit with the client, and then we'll get into it. I normally start by having them get into a comfortable position - most choose to lie down on the floor or their bed - and then we start. I'll guide them verbally at the beginning, let the magic happen in the middle as they listen to soft music if they'd like, and finally I'll guide them back out.
At the end of session, we'll have time to discuss and reflect on our session, and I often use the Tarot to guide us to more clarity if it's appropriate.
A lot of my clients report that it's very subtle energy and feeling relaxed for the most part during our session together (it's also very normal for people to sleep, have a surge of emotions arise, and/or cry). But the really cool part is that about a week or so later they'll start noticing shifts in their lives or very profound revelations. In the end, it's all them - the Reiki energy just helps you start getting into balance so that healing begins and/or positive actions can be taken (and by positive I don't mean that it's always going to be sunshine and rainbows).
Currently, I'm offering both online and in-person services for Reiki sessions!
Do you do anything with color theory/healing as part of your energy practices? I know there are these candles that I’m always seeing have the spectrum of energy light sources, and I was really into buying them when I was going through a hard time.
In terms of Reiki and Light Practice, some people do it and I think it can definitely work together in the way that Crystal Healing and Reiki works well together. I don't know too much about the science behind Light therapy, but I do know because it uses energy of wavelengths, I do believe it to work.
There's also an indigenous practice that I know of called 'Light Language' which I feel is the pre-science of light therapy. Again, don't know too much about it but a colleague, Ashni, does practice it and may be a great person to talk to!
What do you have to say to the skeptics of Reiki?
Coming from the world of tech and 'data-driven' decisions, I definitely understand the skepticism of Reiki and basically things that are deemed 'woowoo' in nature because it makes no f-ing sense from that standpoint. I never want to persuade folks away from critically thinking for themselves and making decisions that are best for their well-being. So if you're a skeptic, fine. If you're a curious skeptic, I'd invite you to try it and determine if it's something that may be beneficial for you.
From a more 'academic' stance when it comes to complementary and alternative medicine, Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine and Digestive Center has deemed Reiki as a way to “...create deep relaxation, to help speed healing, reduce pain, and decrease other symptoms you may be experiencing.” Their program is still garnering more research, and I think this is a start.
Also, as a volunteer at a local hospice, the hospice and palliative care models of operating are quite beautiful (I've attached a model to this email) -- they look at the patient at the center and engage with medical staff, social workers, therapists, volunteers, spiritual counselors, etc. who are able to work together to provide compassionate care. When I look at what I do and my practice, I'm one part of a person's well-being team...it's spiritual in nature and while it's not measurable by data points, it can be measurable by qualitative data provided by the person receiving it.
Final question: what do you think a Weed Witch is?
To be honest, no clue, but I'm thinking it's someone who uses weed as part of magick.
There you have it. We’re both magicians.
Lovers and Leftovers
Summer is coming to a close, with Analog August bringing into focus this heat wave that made me resistant to any excuse that keeps me sequestered, reminders of this virus, and feeling landlocked. I wrote a poem about letting go. I haven’t shared any poems for awhile, so fortunately this is tucked at the end for those of you who are not into poetry. It’s about protecting the wholeness of 🧠, 👁, and ♥️.
Lovers and Leftovers
Last night, I reached for love and was blamed. Not allowed and never again. I was told that he was never taught how to love. I was taught love is Love: a restrained and conditional thing. Love with a capital L. I wasn’t taught it; I learned it the hard way. He, she, they. All of them love. None of them in it.
I thought about the girls in the window, offering Love. The puppy in the window, begging for it. I thought of my steps on the pavement and the arteries of the City.
I thought of the space and time between us.
I thought of the moon and the stars.
I thought of you, and I thought of love.
I thought of love and the connectivity of two hearts.
I thought of love because I lusted for it.
I thought of love because part of me died for it.
I thought of love because it must always be benign to be a healthy love. The passion cannot exist between two, it is an energy life force that requires a home and a vessel. It’s not Love. But I wanted it to be.
I thought of you, and I thought of love.
Have you learned it? Did you shed your skin?
No one would see it because I saw you at your most naked, even for just a moment. To see someone inside and out, to call it Love.
It was not Love. Nor a lost cause. Just because I’m a rebel, baby, and I wanted it to be Love.
What a beautiful terrible thing to want to reject: to resurrect a rejection. Ouch. Straight through the heart.
Which will you choose? The body, brain, or heart? Or do you choose all three? Only one was offered. Winner takes all.
That’s how I know fear and primal urges that couldn’t be tamed. A wild woman. She belongs to no one. Love is love is Love 💗 and love.
I love you and I haven’t even met you yet. I love you because we were lovers in another life. I love you because you want to be loved. To be Loved. I Love you. And I hate you. I don’t know you. We’re savages. Strangers. Lovers and leftovers. ❤️
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