Be Rooted Botanicals

For this season two celebration of 4/20, I’m shining the spotlight on CBDs with my friend Molly Hildenbrand’s business “Be Rooted Botanicals.” Being the creatrix of my own podcast, I get to decide when I’m going to release episodes. This is the second year in a row that I’m excited to add an extra special episode to showcase some of the cannabis crew that I know and love here in Northern California.

Because podcasts can be created whenever and then published whenever, there’s sometimes a big gap between the recoding of the thing and the release of the thing for you to hear. Life is big and full, and it can’t always be helped. However, this episode is actually pretty current, because I’m slipping it in on the sly, in addition to the new moon, full moon, solstice and equinox line-up. 

The first time I ever celebrated 4/20 was as a college student at UC Santa Cruz. Hundreds of students and folks rolled up on a grassy meadow of the campus to congregate in honor of our friend cannabis. When 4:20 pm arrived, an atomic size mushroom cloud of smoke rose into the ethers that honestly kind of blew my young mind.

Consider also that I had come from Mendocino County, a place known internationally for its cannabis culture –so I was no stranger to weed. But, this was in the early 2000s and pot was still illegal-ish, and this was a very, very public display of people and their paraphenalia.

It was left an impression on me, although I have to admit that I have not celebrated 4/20 quite so devotedly since then. My gestures have been smaller, at home, or with a few friends. I’ve even forgotten the holiday for years at a time, because while I am definitely a huge fan of cannabis plant medicine on all levels, I’m not in college anymore. 

Fast forward to the present day. I was just visiting Santa Cruz last month when I met up with Molly to make this CBD themed podcast. My next several novels take place in Santa Cruz, and it felt appropriate to get some of the writing of them in while visiting my friends in the area.

My first novel was entirely about weed, written as an homage to the small scale, outdoor, homegrown farmers of yore. The book “Wildfire Weeds” is saturated in context and specificity that all my pot grower friends have applauded me for creating —a kind of memorial to a lifestyle that, while I never grew weed myself, I picked up on through osmosis in the Mendonesian soup. And, for many, that was a reality for many decades. 

Plus I managed to tie in a whole layer about environmental politics and the racism that has fueled the massive wildfire storms that we’re having in California, merging cli-fi (or climate fiction) with some hard truths about why we’re in the mess that we’re in. A lot of rural cannabis farms are now plagued with fear that everything they have created will prematurely go up in smoke. That debut book was written as very recent historical fiction, marking the end of the era of illegal pot. 

Now, I can openly go interview my friend Molly about her CBD business. We’re making history day by day. And, while I feel mixed at best about legalizations ramifications, I also celebrate that Be Rooted Botanicals was born through the initiation of cannabis medicine into the mainstream market in the last handful of years. 

Whenever I come to Santa Cruz, and I try to come down here a lot, because Santa Cruz is one of my favorite adult playgrounds, I aim to meet up with Molly and her sister Kate to go for a hike and enjoy some cannabis together in the redwoods, at the beach, or hanging out at their place. It’s been a delight to see their enterprise become a success, both because I love them whole heartedly, and because they are a small, local, roots, women owned and operated business.

We sat down to record this special episode at Be Rooted’s headquarters. After giving hugs and saying hello to everybody, Molly and I retreated to her office, sipping CBD infused rooibos chai. We had a lot of fun riffing on what she’s created here in Felton, California.

I hope that you’ll enjoy our conversation and I strongly recommend you get yourself some of her Be Rooted Botanicals line to truly understand what we’re talking about. You can also check out this video teaser to the “Be Rooted Botanicals” podcast episode.