Pride, Presence, and the Courage to Be Yourself
June is Pride Month, a time to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, honor those who fought for visibility and equality, and recognize the ongoing journey toward freedom and authenticity. As I sat thinking about what I wanted to write this week, I found myself reflecting on some unexpected connections between Pride and cannabis. Beneath the surface, they share something profound. Both tell a story about what happens when people are forced to hide vs what becomes possible when we choose to live openly.
For generations, LGBTQIA+ people were told that who they were was wrong. They were forced to conceal their identities to protect themselves from rejection, discrimination, or violence. Cannabis has its own history of secrecy. For decades, people hid their use of cannabis for fear of judgment, criminal charges, or losing their livelihoods. Countless individuals quietly used cannabis to ease pain, anxiety, trauma, insomnia, and illness while society labeled them irresponsible, criminal, or morally suspect.
While these experiences are obviously different, they share a common thread: shame. Shame tells us to hide, to shrink. Shame tells us that acceptance is conditional. Whether it is a person's identity, healing practices, body, beliefs, or their story, shame thrives in secrecy. Pride invites us to step into the light.
The more time I spend in nature, the more convinced I become that authenticity is sacred. The Earth is not asking us to become someone else. It is inviting us to become more fully ourselves. Nature consistently teaches us that diversity is not a flaw. Walk through a forest, and you will never find two trees exactly alike. Look at a garden and every flower blooms in its own color, shape, and timing. Even cannabis itself expresses this truth. Every cultivar carries its own unique profile of cannabinoids, terpenes, aromas, colors, and effects. Nature does not strive for uniformity. Nature celebrates variation. Why should humanity be any different? For many people, cannabis can help access that kind of deeper wisdom because it helps quiet the noise, expectations, conditioning, fear, and stories we've inherited about who we should be. When all of those voices soften, we can begin to hear our own.
This Pride Month, I honor the LGBTQIA+ community and the countless individuals who have bravely chosen authenticity over acceptance, truth over silence, and visibility over fear. Their courage reminds us of something essential: Freedom begins the moment we stop abandoning ourselves.
Whether your journey involves your identity, your healing, your spirituality, your relationship with cannabis, or some other hidden part of your story, may you remember that you were never meant to become a copy. You were always meant to become yourself. And that is something worth celebrating.
Amy Olson
The Cannabis High Priestess