The Flower Brings Me Solace

The darkness comes easily for me.
My entire being demands it at the
times I’m most vulnerable.
Vicious and Cunning the process
seems to be as it quickly takes away
all my drive to defeat it.
Alone.
Even in a room full of love. Trapped.
Even though my love is
Unconditional for them.
The flower brings me solace, peace,
Strength and contentment.
At least for a little bit.
Enough time for me to quit my fear
and loathing and quickly go to a
place where I can be me.
For them.

“I see the word truth. And the turtle in sharing circles represents truth. And then just being truthful with the medical team, and letting them know that you want them to be truthful with you as well, and that it’s a two way street... My doctor is a great support for me, and she’s supportive in my cannabis use and encourages it.”

“There is a level of like care around motherhood and parenting that is missing right now anyway. Like it’s very fragmented. And mothers are like not taken care of, and we’re not...we’re often very alone anyway. So to try to find like other cannabis moms without the stigma is really hard.”

“At the end of the day I need a little fresh air.

Some green flowers are my way of self care.”

“I’m literally facing the opposite towards information that should be accessible, that is not accessible, and no one feels really safe to communicate with because of the stigma tied to the use of cannabis.”

“So for me, the rainbow in the middle of the grey sky is a metaphor for the role that weed played in my pregnancy and postpartum experience. I felt like everything was very dark and cloudy around me. And when I was able to indulge, I felt a sense of relief and hope, that I could see the beauty through all the bullshit. Weed gave me time to breathe past my physical, mental and emotional hardship.”

“There’s mixed messages and mixed stories… So I think the message of this photo to me is regardless, like people might share their experiences but that’s what that is. It’s just their experiences. And we don’t have to take those as the end all, be all. We can interpret it how we want to. And we could choose to like dabble in whatever we want to do when it comes to this... The broken telephone to me signifies not speaking about cannabis use at all.”

“When people learn that I use cannabis in PP and while nursing, I think people assume I’m being negligent towards my baby’s health. On the contrary, here are ALL the supplements I use. Do you think I would spend all this $$ for nothing?”

“It was actually my midwife and I who had come up with a cannabis plan for me to keep me off of drugs and alcohol during my pregnancy. And then we actually formulated a plan after to keep me sober throughout. Because we don’t consider smoking weed not being sober. It’s a medicine. It’s always been a medicine in our home.”

“During my third pregnancy, there was literally two options to either sit in front of that toilet all day, every day and throw up, even water, or smoke that beautiful, cute little bud and be able to get on with my day and take care of my other children that needed me. I chose to take this picture in black and white because it was really only one or the other option. I had the most terrible morning sickness with my third child...I was taking two pills four times a day [of Diclectin], and it was not helping. So I decided I would rather take the natural route and smoke a little bit of green, and carry on my pregnancy and mothering my other children.”