Natural healing and women’s empowerment: meet the Weed Nuns

HSO: You´re not nuns, aren´t you? Sister Claire: No. The point is that Sister Kate has been an activist for many years. The idea struck her during the time when the USA declared pizza as a vegetable in order to keep it on the menu for school lunches. Her reaction was: "If pizza can be a vegetable, I am a nun". It was a kind of protest. She was wearing this outfit to symbolize her reaction to pizza being declared a vegetable. This was a very powerful message. And so she was eventually recognized as the weed nun. Sister Freya: We are not any religious order, we are spiritual. And so we have spiritual practices: we do pray together, we create our medicine, we make rituals every full moon, we do the medicine according to the moon cycles, we have native Americans that help us with our spiritual ceremonies… Sister Claire: A couple of weeks ago, in California, we were invited by the American Natives to participate in one of the early sunrises. So we wake up at 3am and drove two hours by the mountains into the Yosemite. It was such a wonderful experience. And the following day they returned us the favor and joined us in one of our ceremonies. There is a big influence from them about how our products are made.

HSO: Which is the philosophy of the weed nuns, then? Sister Claire: The nature matters a lot to us. Sister Kate was once spending a long time with the native Indians in the mountains, in order to get connected to their way. And essentially that was her inspiration. In more general terms, we do believe in the empowerment of women. We have a real commitment, first of all, to healing, obviously. As this is our main mission. But how we do that has to do with the empowerment of women. It is not religious, but there is a real sense of identity. We privatize our sexuality, for example, this is something we don´t discuss. HSO: How did all this "weed medicine" thing get started? Sister Claire: Sister Kate, with an IT background, was working in Europe and then she came back to the States, to Central Valley, because her brother was living there. She saw some of the marijuana growing and had the chance to get familiar with it. She wanted to make something related to the healing nature and so explored the opportunities of CBD. Once she realized that the plant itself is a natural alternative to pain medicine, she was really excited about that. At that point she started experimenting with herself and when she create a product working well with herself, she would give it to familiars and friends to have a feedback. It started as a hobby but at some point she committed herself with the business. So in January 2016 she bought a farm and set up an L.L.C. (Limited Liability Company).

HSO: Are you all weed nuns growers? Sister Freya: Our farm is one acre and we do grow our own crop, but we cannot sustain the amount of plants to make products all the year around. So we bring material from Colorado and Mendocino. Sister Claire: When Sister Kate decided to get into this area she had a lot to learn, so she did partner up with some more experience growers. The only difference was that she was only interested in growing plants high in CBD, when they were more interested in growing high THC ones. So she partnered with two other guys: one of them owned the property, and the other was an experienced grower. Then Sister Kate was in charge of security. What she was trying to do was learning from them in terms of growing the cannabis plants. During the first crop, when they were about to harvest, Sister Kate was shot by some individuals who got into the property one night. That´s what she had to go through in order to learn from others and benefit from their knowledge.

HSO: And now you produce medicines from weed. Which kind of products do you make? Sister Freya: We´ve got the CBD Salve, which we can put like a cream in all types of wounds. You can also use it for muscle pain or even on your face as a moisturizer. It also helps with tension headache, or even mosquito bites. And then we have our CBD oils and tinctures, which are alcohol and oil based, and can also be used for fibromyalgia or even small things as headaches. It´s very safe for children or pet use.

HSO: Did you have any medical experience before this? Sister Freya: I´ve been in herbs for many years, but never worked in a laboratory. This is how I got involved with Sister Kate. Because my sister and brother-in-law used to grow for her in the very beginning. Let´s remember than even if cannabis is our main plant, there are also others. We´re working at the moment with skullcap, which can be used for anxiety and also helps to repair the intestines and digestive issues, or even to help you sleep.