We live in uncertain times, especially during the past few months, which have brought us historic climate changes, adversity in our elections and COVID-19—a new global health concern that is making everyone uneasy.
There are an abundance of “stay-safe” coronavirus guidelines being offered by every news network and the CDC, all of them containing vital information to stay healthy.
Medical professionals report that keeping a healthy immune system adds another level of defense against the virus. They advise us to get plenty of sleep and to avoid stress. Yet, stress is the very thing that keeps us from a sound night’s sleep.
In my mind, sleep and stress go hand in hand. Lower your stress and you’ll get better sleep. Easy to say, yet difficult to achieve. That is until now.
Here are seven anti-anxiety strategies in times of stress:
1. Meditation: Boost your immune system with a double dose of deep meditation every day. Your calm will carry on throughout the day.
2. Self-awareness: Pay close attention to how your body is feeling. Relax your shoulders, soften your jaw and release any tension from your hands.
3. Breathe: The simple act of “deep breathing” can stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, offering instant relief from stress. Breathe in and count to four, then out to a count of six.
4. Eliminate ANTs (automatic negative thoughts): When negative thoughts arise, bring your attention to the present moment. In this moment, practice gratitude. When you feel negative or stressed, think of five things you are grateful for.
5. Create a Calming Affirmation: Take a moment for silence. Then create your unique three-part affirmation. Begin with “I am …” Say the affirmation calmly, slowly and silently.
6. Avoid Unnecessary Obligations: Allow time for self-care and the care of loved ones.
7. Take a Walk: In the ’80s, Japanese scientists found that spending just two hours in a forest offers measurable health benefits. “Forest bathing” has become a cornerstone of Japanese medicine.
Until next time, be well.
Lorraine Alexander is the executive director of DASA Meditation
The latest chapter in the decades-long debate over the ideal use of the Point Reyes National Seashore may come to a close in the coming months as the National Park Service prepares to release an updated usage plan for the park.
The document will determine how the park lands will be split between wildlife preservation and cattle ranching interests in the coming decades. To put it too simply, it’s a battle between cows and elk.
Tule elk were once common throughout California. By the late 1800s, however, over-hunting had severely depleted their population.
Due to a little luck—in 1874, a rancher in the Central Valley spared a few elk sheltering on his property—the elk were saved from extinction. In 1962, the National Park Service established the Point Reyes National Seashore and, in 1978, the Park Service relocated 10 elk from the Central Valley to Tomales Point, a 2,600 acre fenced-in section of the park designated for use by the elk.
The elk began to recover and soon spread out of their designated area onto nearby Park Service lands where ranching is allowed. This resulted in a conflict that has existed ever since: What is the primary purpose of National Parks land, and how should the elk and cows on it be managed?
During the drought years between 2012 and 2014, 250 elk on Tomales Point died, according to a 2015 KTVU report.
“It’s very likely that all of those elk died of thirst during the drought because there are no natural water sources where they’re penned in,” Jeff Miller, an advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, told the news station.
In 2016, the Resource Renewal Institute, a Marin County environmental think tank, sued the Parks Service over its failure to update its general management plan with a new environmental-impact study. The group also accused the Parks Service of “mismanagement” of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
In 2018, as a result of the lawsuit, the Park Service began crafting a new plan to regulate the future uses of the Point Reyes National Seashore lands currently leased to ranchers. In addition to creating the new plan, the Park Service is also required to study the possible environmental impacts of the new plan.
The Park Service’s preferred plan, Alternative B, would, among other things, extend ranching leases for 20 years—current leases are five years long—and require the Park Service to limit the population of adult elk on Drakes Beach to 120 by culling any excess animals.
The agency is expected to release a final version of the new plan in Spring 2020. Once the document is released, members of the public will have 30 days to comment before it is sent to the Park Service’s regional director for final approval.
If you’d like to learn more about the proposed plans, tune into the event below or visit www.nps.gov/pore.
A group of conservationists, biologists, film-makers and local leaders will host a panel discussion at 6pm on April 29. Find more information and RSVP at www.pointreyesrewild.org/events.
Lungs and Limbs did not plan on releasing an album in the middle of a global crisis, but it’s difficult to think of a better soundtrack to self-isolate to than the alt-pop quartet’s recently released full-length record, Great Goodbye.
The record follows the group’s 2016 EP, Big Bang. In that time, the quartet—made up of Karina Rousseau (vocals, guitar), Nick Tudor (guitar, vocals, synth), Kristen Power (synth, vocals) and Matt Power (drums)—have matured, faced personal and professional changes and are now channeling those emotions into Great Goodbye.
“I don’t want to say it’s a negative album, but it’s definitely a reflection of feeling worn out by the reality of human society,” Rousseau says. “The timing of having the album come out and having all this happen with the pandemic felt apropos.”
“I think the world is at a point where we have to say, one way or the other, goodbye to the way everything has been,” Tudor says. “I don’t know what that looks like on the other side, but I don’t think it’s possible for the world to continue plodding along and for us to expect things to work out.”
“It’s an acknowledgment, too, of appreciating what we do have while we have it, not knowing what the future looks like,” Rousseau says.
Lungs and Limbs’ signature electro-pop sound has also matured, with layered synths and electric guitar riffs interweaving themselves into melodic backdrops for Rousseau’s ethereal vocals.
“We start with a simple idea, or beat, or guitar part; and Karina writes lyrics post writing the melodies, so there’s a lot of weird sounds during the demo process until we get a theme,” Tudor—who also engineered the record—says.
Kristen Power also reveals that the demos always have a cheese-related element in the title to help the band remember which demo is which.
Despite all the electronic elements in the music, the band stresses the human element, noting that the tracks are played live and 80 percent of the synthesizers on the record are made by instruments, not the computer.
Now that the album is out and everyone is stuck at home, Lungs and Limbs are doing what most bands are doing; trying to figure out how to move forward.
“I make all sorts of crazy ideas for the future in my head,” Tudor says. “I’ve run every simulation, from good to bad, and so many seem equally likely.”
‘Great Goodbye’ is available online now. Lungsandlimbs.com.
Anyone who now denies we are one interdependent human species across borders on Mother Earth is not alive to the moment we share today.
It’s time to mean it when we speak of the sanctity of life. When people across the globe are working to save lives, we must end this country’s habitual practice of endangering and killing people who are “not like us.”
President Trump declared a “war footing” to combat the “foreign enemy” coronavirus. It might be said that all that unites the U.S. is military spending, our culture wallowing in violence and nationalist fear mongering.
A culture that bankrupted itself on foreign wars while enriching the global One Percent is not a sane or healthy society. The Abrahamic religions teach that ethical behavior and money making don’t go together. We’ve lost this distinction. Let’s demand a global cessation of hostilities. Let’s foster sustainable communities and give space for the world to heal.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an immediate global ceasefire saying, “End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world. … That is what our human family needs… .” Let’s make this more than a pause and rethink the ways in which we interact as people and as nations.
Let us reevaluate our unsustainable way of life. The rule of the One Percent has confronted us with the destruction of our planet. Our prejudice toward war is being revealed. Political-theorist Hannah Arendt wrote, “In every historical crisis, it is the prejudices that begin to crumble first and can no longer be relied upon.”
It should not take a pandemic to awaken us to our interdependence, but now that we are here, let’s make the most of this opportunity.
Jack Wikse
Faculty Coordinator, SSU Extended & International Education
Susan Lamont
Former Board Member and Coordinator, Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County
When raising a glass to toast Earth Day reaching its half-century mark, wouldn’t it seem apropos to fill one’s glass with a thematically on-point wine? Something green, maybe? Is there such a wine? Reds, whites and occasional orange wines, we’ve heard of, yes—but green? Do they exist and who would drink such a wine besides a Dr. Seuss character?
It turns out green wines are everywhere—that’s, of course, “green” in the eco-friendly sense of the word. Some are even sparkling. In fact, the éminence grise of sparkling wine, Champagne (that’s with a capital C, mind you), the eponymous sparkling-winemaking region in France, is at the forefront of the movement to take an environmentally-responsible approach to their craft.
They had to—the changing climate directly impacts the Champagne region. Harvest seasons now regularly arrive early and winemakers have adapted accordingly. To wit, nearly 20 years ago, Champagne was the first wine-growing region in the world to implement a plan to address the changing climate.
“Climate change is a reality that Champagne growers and houses increasingly must take into account,” says Jennifer Hall, director of the Champagne Bureau, USA.
Located in Washington, D.C., the Champagne Bureau is the U.S. representative of the Comité Champagne, France’s trade association representing the region’s grape growers and houses.
“As such, the region is committed to sustainable development and seeks to do its part to reduce its environmental impact and protect the unique terroir of Champagne,” Hall says.
Champagne’s milestone achievements are worthy of popping a few corks themselves. Since conducting a carbon-footprint assessment in 2003, Champagne’s sustainability efforts have resulted in a 20-percent regional carbon-emissions reduction. The hope is that, by 2050, carbon emissions will be reduced to 75 percent of the 2003 benchmark. Presently, 20 percent of the region’s vineyards hold an environmental certification, a number they hope to raise to 100 percent by decade’s end.
Interestingly, a change that resulted in an emissions reduction of 8,000 tons of carbon dioxide (or the equivalent output of a fleet of 4,000 automotive vehicles) wasn’t achieved through mitigating some aspect of the winemaking process, but rather by subtly changing the bottle that contains the finished product.
In 2010, after five years of experimentation, the Champagne region lightened the weight of each bottle to limit the impact of packaging and transport-related CO2 emissions. Working with glassblowers, they shaved 65 grams off the weight of the formerly 900-gram bottle, which is basically imperceptible to everyone—except maybe the earth.
Week of April 23 ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the future, when the coronavirus crisis has a diminished power to disrupt our lives, I would love for you to have more of the money you need to finance interesting new experiences that help you learn and thrive. Now is a good time to brainstorm about how you might arrange for that to happen. For best results, begin your meditations with vivid fantasies in which you envision yourself doing those interesting new experiences that will help you learn and thrive.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Renowned Taurus composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) completed his first symphony when he was 43 years old—even though he’d started work on it at age 22. Why did it take him so long? One factor was his reverence for Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer who had such a huge impact on the development of classical music. In light of Beethoven’s mastery, Brahms felt unworthy. How could any composer add new musical ideas that Beethoven hadn’t already created? But after more than two decades, Brahms finally managed to overcome his inhibition. He eventually produced four symphonies and scores of other pieces, and left a major mark on musical history. For you, Taurus, I see the coming months as a phase comparable to the time when Brahms finally built the strength necessary to emerge from the shadow that had inhibited him.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A Gemini friend sent me and three of her other allies a poignant email. “This note is a tender apology to those of you whom I’ve hurt in the process of hurting myself,” she began. “I want you to know that I have been working hard and with great success to eliminate my unconscious tendency to hurt myself. And I am confident this means I will also treat you very well in the future.” I received her message with joy and appreciation. Her action was brave and wise. I invite you to consider making a comparable adjustment in the weeks ahead.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The Ojibwe are indigenous people of North America. Professor of Ojibwe studies Anton Treuer writes that in their traditional culture, there have been men who act and dress like women and women who act and dress like men. The former are called ikwekaazo and the latter ikwekaazowag. Both have been “always honored” and “considered to be strong spiritually.” Many other Native American groups have had similar arrangements. Transcending traditional gender behavior is not unique to modern Western civilization. With that as inspiration, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to explore any inclinations you might have to be your own unique gender. The time is ripe for experimenting with and deepening your relationship with the constructs of “masculine” and “feminine.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes,” wrote Nobel Prize–winning poet Czesław Miłosz. Wow! If a highly respected genius like him has spawned so much nonsense and ignorance, what about the rest of us? Here’s what I have to say about the subject: Each of us should strive to be at peace with the fact that we are a blend of wisdom and folly. We should be tenderly compassionate toward our failures and weaknesses, and not allow them to overshadow our brilliance and beauty. Now would be a good time for you Leos to cultivate this acceptance and perform this blessing for yourself.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Helen Traubel (1899–1972) was best-known for her opera career, although she also sang in concerts, nightclubs and musical theater. But in her autobiography, she confessed, “Opera bored me.” She reminds me of Georgia O’Keeffe, famous painter of flowers. “I hate flowers,” O’Keeffe said. “I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.” Now of course most of us have to do some things that we don’t enjoy; that seems to be a routine part of being human. And since the coronavirus arrived in our midst, you may have been saddled with even more of this burden. But I’m happy to inform you that the coming weeks will be a favorable time to brainstorm about how you could do more of what you love to do once the crisis has abated.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): What’s the current state of the relationship between your ego and your soul? Is there an uneasy truce between the ambitious part of you that craves success and recognition and the lyrical part of you that yearns for rich experiences and deep meaning? Or do those two aspects of you get along pretty well—maybe even love and respect each other? Now is a favorable time to honor your ego and soul equally, Libra—to delight in the activities of both, to give them plenty of room to play and improvise, and to encourage them to collaborate in ways that will further your well-rounded happiness and health.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio author Voltaire (1694–1778) was a crusader for freedom of thought and civil liberties, as well as a key player in the Enlightenment. He was very prolific. In addition to producing 2,000 books and pamphlets, he carried on such voluminous written correspondences with so many interesting people that his collected letters fill 98 volumes. Would you consider getting inspired by Voltaire’s approach to cross-pollination? According to my calculations, the next phase of the coronavirus crisis will be a favorable time for you to intensify your communication via the written word.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I like musician David Byrne’s views on what constitutes meaningful work. It’s not just the tasks you do to earn money. “Sex is a job,” he says. “Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job.” In other words, all the activities he names, to be done well, require a commitment to excellence and an attention to detail. They are worthy of your diligent efforts, strenuous exertion and creative struggle. I encourage you to meditate on these thoughts during the coming weeks. Identify what jobs you want to get better at and are willing to work hard on and would like to enjoy even more than you already do.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): At its best and brightest, Capricornian love isn’t frivolous or flighty. It’s not shallow or sloppy or slapdash. When Capricornian love is at its highest potency, it’s rigorous, thoughtful and full-bodied. It benefits anyone who’s involved with it. I bring this up because I expect the coming weeks to be a Golden Age of Capricornian Love—a time when you will have the inspiration and intelligence necessary to lift your own experience of love to a higher octave.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I hope you’re not one of those Aquarians who regards stability and security as boring. I hope you don’t have an unconscious predilection for keeping yourself in a permanent state of nervous uncertainty. If you do suffer from those bad habits, you’ll be hard-pressed to stick to them in the coming weeks. That’s because the cosmic energies will be working to settle you down into a steady groove. If you cooperate, you will naturally enhance your ability to be well-anchored, calmly steadfast and at home in your life. Please don’t resist this opportunity.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I foresee the likelihood that you’ll be having brilliant and evocative conversations with yourself in the coming weeks. Your heart and your head may become almost blissful as they discuss how best to create a dynamic new kind of harmony. Your left side and right side will declare a truce, no longer wrestling each other for supremacy, and they may even join forces to conjure up unprecedented collaborations. The little voices in your head that speak for the past will find common ground with the little voices in your head that speak for the future—and as a result you may be inspired to formulate a fresh master plan that appeals both.
Poet George Sterling called San Francisco “the cool, grey city of love.” Journalist Gary Kamiya borrowed Sterling’s phrase for his book about San Francisco titled Cool Gray City of Love, which offers 49 views of what must be one of the most beloved peninsulas on the face of the earth.
In Alia Volz’s new book, Home Baked, San Francisco boasts all the colors of the rainbow. It’s also a city of love between brothers and sisters, brothers and brothers, and sisters and sisters. San Franciscans can’t seem to read too much about their hometown, though it has been written about lovingly for more than 100 years. Volz’s mom baked and sold 10,000 marijuana-laced brownies a month to citizens of the City. Her enterprise was called “Sticky Fingers.”
Volz’s mom—“the Brownie Lady”— is not to be confused, the author explains, with “Brownie Mary,” a San Francisco legend who gave away brownies laced with marijuana, most notably during the AIDS/HIV pandemic and was arrested trying to do good. Probably only in San Francisco could there be two non-competitive women engaged in the same enterprise.
Volz takes readers through a familiar landscape with familiar figures including Dennis Peron, Harvey Milk, Dan White and Cleve Jones. But by telling her story through the eyes of a child and a young woman she makes the familiar new and adds a vital historical perspective. Home Baked is an unabashed paean to pot. It’s also an indictment of state and federal governments, and national and local law enforcement agents who made raids, cuffed and arrested millions of Americans for possession of small amounts of weed.
For a time, Volz and her parents lived in and around Willits, where they did not fit in. That’s strange given the fact that Willits was, from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, at the center of the cannabis growing industry. Apparently, rural cannabis has its own culture. Home Baked is mostly urban with descriptions of landmark San Francisco locales such as the Castro District, North Beach, the Condor strip club with Carol Doda’s “neon nipples,” and the Mabuhay Gardens, which appears in these pages as the “heart of an intense demimonde.”
The author has written a book for people who were there and who did all or most of the things that could be done. At the same time, Home Baked is for those who weren’t on the scene.
Volz’s hot-blooded memoir honors hippies and hippie culture and reminds readers that for decades Northern California refused to adhere to the All-American paradigm and kept alive the best non-conformist American values and customs.
‘Home Baked’ by Alia Volz; published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 432 pages; April 20, 2020; $27. Available at CopperfieldsBooks.com.
In February, before the economic house of cards began to tumble down amid the coronavirus pandemic, a few dozen young people gathered in Santa Rosa to plan a 20,000-member march on April 22.
Members of the Sunrise Movement’s Sonoma County hub, one of dozens of local Sunrise groups spread around the country, helped to organize several marches in the past year, including one event which drew about 2,000 people to downtown Santa Rosa. But, Sunrise members indicated the next event would be different.
Not only would the march take place on Earth Day’s 50th anniversary—April 22, 2020—the environmental movement needed to be reinvigorated.
Throughout 2019, 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg toured the world, attempting to shame policymakers into taking action on climate change. Some elected officials in the United States even signaled support for a Green New Deal, a policy proposal intended to combat economic and environmental issues at the same time. But, by April 2020, the hope for immediate action through the electoral system seemed to be dashed.
On April 8, Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate endorsed by the national Sunrise Movement, suspended his campaign. He soon endorsed Joe Biden.
In recent weeks, while cities and states across the country ordered residents to stay home due to the coronavirus, Sunrise worked to take its plans for a mass mobilization online.
Instead of organizing a traditional march, the group has now collaborated with other groups to organize a series of online events scheduled between Wednesday, April 22, and Friday, April 24. Other organizations are also hosting online events around the Bay Area throughout the week.
But, despite having livestream capability, no one in the Sunrise Sonoma group seems to expect 20,000 people to show up to their online events this week.
That’s unfortunate for Sunrise and its sympathizers, but fitting for an activist movement competing for attention in a world plagued by a pandemic and related economic fallout.
Fifty Years Ago
On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, an estimated 20 million people—about 10 percent of the United States’ population—participated in events across the country.
Following that event, President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and signed additional environmental protections, including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.
While never perfect, the EPA and the new regulations provided environmentalists and marginalized communities tools to push back against corporate negligence and repeat polluters.
But ever since, environmentalists have fought to protect the regulatory agencies they won in the 1970s, as organizations that oppose those regulations gain strength and public support of the environmental movement wanes.
An Earth Day celebration at the University of Michigan in 1970. Photo: University Of Michigan School For Environment And Sustainability/Flickr
In an interview with the Earth Day Network, a group organizing online Earth Day events, Denis Hayes, who organized the original Earth Day as a 25-year-old graduate student, commented on what seems to be a pendulum-like swing in the American environmental movement.
“The 1970s was a very pro-environment decade, when we were almost unstoppable for 10 years,” Hayes said. “That led into the 1980s and people whose names are synonymous with anti-environmental zealotry.”
While Hayes hastened to add that the pendulum swing in favor of the environmental movement is not inevitable, the renewed conversation around the urgency of climate change over the past year may give environmentalists hope that another shift in public sentiment is underway.
Meanwhile, despite an increase in media coverage of the unfolding dangers of global warming, President Donald Trump’s administration continues to gut regulatory agencies, including the EPA. In late March, the administration announced further roll backs of EPA regulations as the coronavirus pandemic spread.
Even if they do elect an environmentally-friendly president, the modern environmental movement faces fierce odds. Because of the global nature of climate change, any solutions will need to be implemented on a global scale, Hayes notes.
That’s something even the first Earth Day didn’t accomplish.
“If there is a lesson, it’s this: That first Earth Day was a very big tent with a broad set of values that underpinned it,” Hayes says. “The tent has become narrower in ensuing decades, and while remaining firm in our values and goals and objectives, we need to be more welcoming.”
Members of the Sonoma County Sunrise group seem to agree with that assessment. Five members of the group interviewed this week mentioned that part of the appeal of the group is its support of proposals that aim to tackle economic, social and environmental problems at the same time.
Ema Govea, a 16-year-old Sunrise member, says she became interested in social justice issues when she was 10. When she began researching climate change she was struck by how it intersects with so many other worldwide issues.
“The climate crisis affects every single one of these struggles and it makes every single problem worse,” Govea says.
To Paulina Lopez, a 25-year-old Sunrise member who hopes to involve more Latino people in climate change activism in Sonoma County, climate justice includes immigration rights and housing rights, not just advocating for lower emissions.
“Some of the immigrants (coming to this country) are trying to escape the climate crisis,” Lopez says.
Intersectionality
The intuition that many problems in our globalized world are connected seems to be borne out in the mind-numbing number of apocalyptic headlines emerging from the coronavirus pandemic. In short, the pandemic has highlighted and worsened pre-existing problems.
As of April 11, 20 million American workers had lost their jobs, and weekly unemployment claims had overtaken any rates seen in the first 50 weeks of the 2008-2009 recession, according to the Tax Policy Center. On April 9, the National Multifamily Housing Council reported that only 69 percent of renters had paid rent by April 5. In the period in April 2019, 82 percent of tenants had paid their rent.
Many of these problems may be worsened by other trends. For instance, labor analysts at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, predict that labor automation will increase at a faster pace during the coming economic depression as employers seek to lower labor costs.
It’s too soon to tell if the federal economic stimulus efforts will be enough to save workers, small businesses and the overall economy. But, so far, things don’t look good.
Crystal Ball
So, how does all of this poll?
According to a February report by Pew Research, 85 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Republicans said that “protecting the environment” should be a priority for the president and Congress.
In 2008, only 65 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of Republicans gave a similar answer.
That said, views on the issue could be shifting along age lines. A separate Pew poll found an increasing difference in opinion on climate change between Republicans based on age. About half of millennial Republicans, those born between 1980 and 1994, said the government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change, compared to only 31 percent of Republicans born before 1964.
It is likely that only a relatively small percentage of the overall population will ever be passionately involved in any given issue. Indeed, a Gallup poll conducted in February found that only 18 percent of respondents had attended a meeting concerning the environment in the past year. In 2000, 20 percent of respondents answered the same way.
In January 2019, Varshini Prakash, Sunrise’s executive director, told Vox, an online news site, that the group aims to mobilize a relatively small group of people—about 3.5 percent of the total population—to demand immediate change.
If Sunrise and its environmental allies are able to mobilize the same number of people who participated in the original Earth Day, that amount of turnout might be possible—though probably not this Earth Day.
For Govea, the 16-year-old Sunrise member, the hectic early days of the coronavirus pandemic highlight a stark choice: Either we move forward and create a new world, or we go back to the way things were and continue to pollute the environment.
“What is expected to happen is that we will just keep drilling to get the economy back on its feet,” Govea says. “We’re just going to drill more and extract more fossil fuels and go right back up to normal. But we also have the opportunity to really think about what it is about ‘normal’ that we want to keep, and what it is that we don’t want to keep.”
“What about normal do we want?” Govea asks. “Because this could be a great opportunity for change.”
Everyone wants to wear face masks this season. Toilet paper (even single ply!) has vanished from shelves across the nation. And the legend of the once-scoffed-at hand sanitizer grows daily. Is cannabis next?
“We saw sharp daily increases in sales, number of transactions and ‘average’ transaction amounts for the five days prior to Gov. Newsom’s statewide shelter-in-place (SIP),” says Eli Melrod, CEO of Solful, a Sebastopol-based dispensary. “During that time there were many municipal and county-issued indicators that an overarching SIP order might be coming. We were not sure how to interpret the increased demand but, in retrospect, we attribute it to folks stocking up because they were not sure if they would have a dependable supply under a broader SIP mandate.”
It’s been a little over two years since weed became legal across the state of California. To date, commercial cannabis sales have raised more than $1 billion in taxes. The recreational cannabis market—one that was launched to much fanfare and with sky-high expectations—became big quickly, but never quite reached the level many predicted. Brutal competition between the legal cannabis industry and the thriving black market continues to contribute to semi-sluggish recent growth and the oversaturation of some key markets.
Now, thanks to the coronavirus, the Golden State is experiencing a cannabis resurgence. Many California dispensaries have reported record growth in recent weeks—in some cases, numbers not unlike the first day of recreational sales. But this spike might just be a COVID-19-inspired blip.
“There’s a weird mass hysteria going on now,” says Cole Hembree, owner of Curbstone Exchange, a Felton-based dispensary. “In the wake of the shelter-in-place order, we literally doubled our numbers. People are freaking out about COVID-19 and ordering more—in a stockpile-type scenario. We’re doubling our orders from all of our vendors just to keep up with demand.”
Curbstone, known affectionately as “The Curb” by the cannabis dispensary’s regulars living in and around Felton, has experienced record-breaking business this month.
“People are getting freaking nuts,” Hembree says. “We’re seeing everyone stocking up. Even the people who’ve been with us for a long time. They are buying more than usual. People are buying the same things they usually do, just way more of them.”
Bruce Valentine, a budtender at the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance, also noticed a distinct change in purchasing habits in March.
“People who are coming into the shop are definitely stocking up,” Valentine says. “Just like with water and soap. There definitely has been consistent traffic throughout the day. Roughly the same amount of customers, just buying way more. Some people come in with gloves and masks on. It’s a huge change.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may have inadvertently encouraged this rise by strongly recommending the general public have at least a month’s supply of their medication. And then the shelter-in-place order came.
“Following the statewide SIP mandate, sales dropped to well below pre-crisis numbers,” says Solful’s Melrod. “Over the past seven days activity seems to be gradually trending up but is still below pre-COVID-19 levels.”
This is the first real crisis and economic downturn the United States has experienced in the age of legalized cannabis. Even in the face of widespread unrest and uncertainty, many involved in the local and California cannabis space are sanguine about the future. Marijuana is widely believed to be “recession proof,” and like other “vice industries” (including alcohol and tobacco), should be equipped to weather difficult times of crisis and economic uncertainty quite well.
Everything Has Changed
On Thursday, March 19, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a sweeping COVID-19 shelter-in-place order for California’s residents. To mitigate exposure to the coronavirus, and to curb the spread of the pandemic, only vital and “essential” businesses (or service providers)—like grocery stores, gas stations, banks, pharmacies and media—were allowed to continue daily operations.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the shelter-in-place order would affect cannabis dispensaries, or the cannabis industry as a whole. As officials rushed to interpret what really constitutes an “essential” business in counties across the Bay Area, dispensaries found themselves in a tense state of limbo. Because dispensaries serve both medical and recreational clients, there was ample room for interpretation.
“The City of San Francisco’s initial designation of essential businesses did not include cannabis dispensaries, which caused immediate concern and confusion for the industry,” Melrod says, adding that San Francisco was leading the thinking around responses and other Bay Area counties were generally following its lead.
Indeed, on March 16, San Franciscans woke up to the news that the Department of Health had declared: “Cannabis dispensaries and cannabis delivery services are not essential businesses.”
The announcement concerning the imminent closure, starting March 17, of all San Francisco dispensaries caused widespread public backlash, minor panic, mob-like hoarding of cannabis and block-long lines.
“Many San Francisco cannabis-dispensary owners and industry representatives contacted the city to voice their objections and, within hours, dispensaries were added to the official list of essential businesses,” Melrod says.
Mayor London Breed quickly caved to immense public pressure and deemed medical cannabis essential. Today, San Francisco cannabis shops are busy and San Francisco-based delivery service Eaze had its number of first-time deliveries and website sign-ups double almost overnight.
Another Option
Since the shelter-in-place order went into effect, delivery and curbside pickup has also blossomed locally. Mill Valley’s Nice Guys Delivery is a licensed California delivery service, ditto Marin Gardens. Likewise, Cotati-based dispensary Mercy Wellness delivers throughout most of Sonoma County. Likewise, Solful now delivers in Sebastopol.
With curbside ordering, customers place their orders online or over the phone, and a dispensary employee meets them outside the shop to hand them their cannabis and take their payment. No browsing, perusing, smelling, handling or in-depth consulting is involved.
“Solful patrons can order ahead using our website menu at home or place it when they arrive in our parking area,” Melrod says. “Additionally, they can call us to order by phone or make a consultation appointment with one of our Health and Happiness Consultants via our website, where we offer a customer-driven appointment calendar. This ‘Solful By Appointment’ service also allows our patrons to ask questions and receive guidance from our highly trained and knowledgeable team, as if they were in the physical store.”
Overall the new programs have been a success for Solful, though Melrod is quick to acknowledge that his company is among the more fortunate ones during the COVID-19 lockdown.
As Mercy Wellness’s CEO Brandon Levine told the local daily newspaper, those companies that didn’t already have an established customer base will likely struggle due to the pandemic lockdown, “and some of them won’t make it out of this”—a sentiment Melrod echoes.
“Others have been slow to respond and may be suffering financially,” Melrod says. “Some local dispensaries have adapted quickly and well to the new—hopefully temporary—normal.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries artist Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) got started on his life’s work relatively late. At ages 25 and 26 he made failed attempts to train as a pastor and serve as a missionary. He didn’t launch his art career in earnest until he was 27. During the next 10 years, he created 860 paintings—an average of 1.7 every week—as well as over 1,200 additional works of art. For comparison, the prolific painter Salvador Dali made 1,500 paintings in 61 years. During the coming 12 months, Aries, you could achieve a van Gogh-like level of productiveness in your own chosen field—especially if you lay the foundations now, during our stay-at-home phase.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Most authors do their writing while sitting on chairs in front of desks. But long before there were sitting desks, poet Rainer Maria Rilke and children’s author Lewis Carroll wrote their books while standing up. Novelist Henry James had eight desks, but typically paced between them as he dictated his thoughts to a secretary. And then there have been weirdos like poet Robert Lowell and novelist Truman Capote. They attended to their craft as they lay in bed. I suggest you draw inspiration from those two in the coming weeks. It’ll be a favorable time to accomplish masterpieces of work and play while in the prone position.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): While sleeping, most of us have over a thousand dreams every year. Many are hard to remember and not worth remembering. But a beloved few can be life-changers. They have the potential to trigger epiphanies that transform our destinies for the better. In my astrological opinion, you are now in a phase when such dreams are more likely than usual. That’s why I invite you to keep a pen and notebook by your bed so as to capture them. For inspiration, read this testimony from Jasper Johns, whom some call America’s “foremost living artist”: “One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.” (Painting flags ultimately became one of Johns’ specialties.)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) was a renowned author who wrote The Good Soldier, a novel that has been called “one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.” Yet another very famous author, Henry James (1843–1916), was so eager to escape hanging out with Ford that he once concealed himself behind a tree so as to not be seen. You have astrological permission to engage in comparable strategies during the coming weeks. It won’t be a time when you should force yourself to endure boring, meaningless and unproductive tasks.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I hope that during the coronavirus crisis you have been entertaining wild truths and pondering the liberations you will initiate when the emergency has passed. I trust you have been pushing your imagination beyond its borders and wandering into the nooks and crannies of your psyche that you were previously hesitant to explore. Am I correct in my assumptions, Leo? Have you been wandering outside your comfort zone and discovering clues about how, when things return to normal, you can add spice and flair to your rhythm?
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I like this quote by the author Jake Remington: “Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’” Although this passage is more melodramatic than necessary for your needs in the coming weeks, I think it might be good medicine that will help you prevail over the turbulence of the coronavirus crisis. Getting yourself into a storm-like mood could provide you with the personal power necessary to be unflappable and authoritative. You should also remember that a storm is not inherently bad. It may be akin to a catharsis or orgasm that relieves the tension and clears the air.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran rapper and activist Talib Kweli says, “You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to know when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft.” You Librans tend to be skilled in this artful approach to life: activating and applying the appropriate attitude as is necessary for each new situation. And I’m happy to report that your capacity for having just the right touch at the right time will be a crucial asset in the coming weeks. Trust your intuition to guide you through every subtle shift of emphasis.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio artist Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) enjoyed a colorful fate. One of the few female Cubist painters, she was a prominent figure in the Parisian avant-garde. She was also the muse and romantic partner of renowned poet Guillaume Apollinaire. But there came a turning point when she abandoned her relationship with Apollinaire. “I was twenty-five and he was sleeping with all the women,” she said, “and at twenty-five you don’t stand for that, even from a poet.” Is there a comparable situation in your life, Scorpio? A role you relish but that also takes a toll? Now is a favorable time to re-evaluate it. I’m not telling you what you should decide, only that you should think hard about it.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was a prodigious, inventive creator. One scholar wrote, “What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture.” He designed and built public squares, fountains and buildings, many in Rome, which embodied his great skills as both sculptor and architect. Unlike many brilliant artists alive today, Bernini was deeply religious. Every night for 40 years, he walked from his home to pay a devotional visit to the Church of the Gesù. According to my reading of the astrological factors, now would be an excellent time for you to engage in reverential rituals like those—but without leaving your home, of course. Use this social-distancing time to draw reinvigoration from holy places within you or in your memory.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): As I understand the current chapter of your life story, you have been doing the unspectacular but yeoman work of recharging your spiritual batteries. Although you may have outwardly appeared to be quiet and still, you have in fact been generating and storing up concentrated reserves of inner power. Because of the coronavirus crisis, it’s not yet time to tap into those impressive reserves and start channeling them into a series of dynamic practical actions. But it is time to formulate the practical actions you will take when the emergency has passed.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian poet Jacques Prévert (1900–1977) offered a variation on the famous Christian supplication known as the Lord’s Prayer. The original version begins, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” But Prévert’s variation says, “Our father who art in heaven: Stay there.” Being an atheist, he had no need for the help and support of a paternal deity. I understand his feeling. I tend to favor the Goddess myself. But for you Aquarians right now, even if you’re allergic to talk of a divine presence, I’ll recommend that you seek out generous and inspiring masculine influences. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will benefit from influences that resemble good fathering.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): How skillful are you in expressing what you want? Wait. Let me back up and reformulate that. How skillful are you in knowing what you want and expressing the truth about what you want to the people who might ultimately be able to give it to you or help you get it? This is the most important question for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. If you find that you’re fuzzy about what you want or hazy about asking for what you want, correct the problems.
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