About Us

Introduction

What would many happy citizens and trustworthy officials have become but unruly, stormy innovators and dreamers of useless dreams, if not for the effort of their schools. In young beings there is something wild, ungovernable, uncultured which first has to be tamed...How well little Giebenrath had come along! He'd given up playing games and running about on his own accord...he had even let himself be persuaded to abandon his gardening, his rabbits and silly fishing.

Hermann Hess, Beneath the Wheel

I suppose, whatever the source, I've always felt somewhat an outsider. Maybe it's the simple fact that I'm a left-hander, a member of that 10 percent minority whose brain is wired differently than the rest. Conventional measures like the Myer's-Briggs might say I'm the personality type that is introvert-intuitive-thinking-perceptive, though the thinking aspect very easily interchanges with the feeling part. More esoteric measures explain and describe me as Aquarius, a free-spirited independent thinker and dreamer extraordinaire.

While all these categorizations are accurate to a certain critical degree, such fixed classifications suit me less and less the older I get, especially when quick labeling construes limitations and creates unwarranted prejudice.

Yet I can't deny, I've had a problem with conventional authority, whatever its source or face, for as long as I can remember. Why? I'll be the first to admit there's a deep personal component to this, but it would be a gross error to think it ends there. The history of inequality in religion and society and human-contrived hierarchy throughout the ages...forced dominion and subjugation since the dawn of civilization...a general imbalance in human affairs and business, both in the past and present...a profound lack of intercultural, and interspecies, mutual respect, mounting since the human brain's first (mis)conception that it was absolutely above the rest of Creation and culminating today in humankind's various conflicts and inescapable predicaments within its own species and with Nature at large---such authoritarianism and contrived hierarchism, completely out of proportion to the natural order, and the demeaning divisions this leads to, is, I think, the primary source of the vast majority of human conflict we see today. But that's another story that will, however tangentially, be addressed as a basic theme throughout this book.

In any event, I do seem to think differently than the majority. A bit of a geek or freak, growing up I've rarely felt completely comfortable in the everyday human world, that is, with the busy society always on the move....so regimented...so planned...so fast...so crowded...so routine...so everything. And yet somehow, in a certain critical respect, this modern-day world seems profoundly lacking to me. So naturally, feeling a person out of place, this has created a fair amount of discord in my life. I suppose in many respects, like the man without a country, I've felt one without a culture, feeling either abandoned or the runaway, this rebel without a clear cause in a culture without real purpose.

Naturally, I've spent much of my life trying to either change myself to fit into the modern world or change the modern world to fit me. Neither effort has proved very successful. At best I've reached a compromise or coping mechanism of simply letting both sides be, however much we might differ or disagree. And yet this approach too seems somehow unsatisfactory. Because it is not just me that has to let things be.

For there is after all the flipside of the coin, where the system or society or individual, or whatever authority there is, has over the years---upon seeing I was out of the majority or not within their notion of conformity or popularity---attempted to change me. No need to go into details here, for we've all had our trials. But one event most telling and poignant, occurred when an old second-grade teacher---out of her own misguided upbringing---forced me to write right-handed. Needless to say, I felt stupid and awkward. Fortunately no damage done, as she was only a temporary substitute. (I can't help but wonder however, if my right-brain inclinations aren't the source of my misfitting in this predominantly left-brain world.) Regardless, thank goodness for progress, especially that which embraces the virtues of diversity and acceptance.

In this regard, if I had not been blessed with the relatively open environment that easily flowed from the countercultural 1960s to the 70s, I might not have had the opportunity to explore this realm of self and society as I have done, and do now herein. Born any earlier, in a more repressed environment, and I may have been an outlaw...or maybe just ended it all. Born any later, and I may have ended up on Ritalin or Prozac, and then who knows what, I might still have become an outlaw or ended it all. (By the way, increased risk of suicidal tendencies, especially in young adults, is now a black box warning---ie. equivalent to a flashing yellow light---on the package inserts of prescription anti-depressants. So heads-up down that road too.)

So I've been very fortunate. And to count my blessings---without putting too fine a point on it---a number of them have allowed me to get to the ripe old age of 47 with, I think, a respectable amount of success: hardy Sicilian-Mediterranean stock; an environment (familial and otherwise) where the pros outweighed the cons; something akin to faith-hope-optimism or just divine curiosity (perhaps resulting from a combination of the first two blessings, or something completely separate); Nature (notably the Colorado outdoors and high desert canyon country of southeastern Utah); and finally, cannabis.

While the first three blessings could be analyzed and defined and reanalyzed and redefined countless times until kingdom come, the last two are simple and straightforward. If it were not for Nature, clean and pure, surely I would not be here, even with the strength and grace of all else. It is after all, the well from which all other blessings spring. And just by itself, Nature offers so much---beauty, wonder, quietude and solitude, expansiveness and so much that cannot be defined, including an energy or spirit that replenishes, invigorates and validates my own.

Now for some, Nature alone might be enough, just as I imagine others have their own ways of dealing and transcending, be it church or karate, pheasant-hunting or wine-tasting. But in my case, cannabis has been a companion almost from the start, at least since the beginning of my serious investigations and contemplations in the Western forests and desert canyons. And as the years have passed cannabis has come to be a sacrament of sorts, a vehicle of communion if you will...very real and tangible...undeniable.

What about cannabis by itself, that is, without the benefit of the great outdoors? I think that has its place too, at least to a certain extent. But after awhile, for me anyway, cannabis becomes like any other sacrament or sacred practice done exclusively within the confines of the indoors...it loses its greater meaning and reason for being...it loses connection to that something beyond, the tangible Creator-Creating-Creation right before the eyes, the Divine outside the self, especially the human self and the walls it builds.

So that's the skinny behind my journey, a little something about myself I wanted to share, some psychic backdrop for the sake of context so that you might catch a glimpse where I'm coming from, a peek where I'm at, and a hint of where I'm going. Now, as I get moving along on this journey, before I do anything else, I have to ask: Where do I want to go... and what do I want to do along the way?

A Year of Miracles, A Healing Journey From Cancer to Wholeness

Susan Wolf Sternberg