Culture raises us… not just the geography or wombs we come from and through. It is in the soul of our community, through shared rituals, root folklore, and of course, resistance.

Though born and raised in the East SF Bay Area, I immersed myself in everything “Emerald Triangle” as an adult: Trimming, brokering and connecting — from Trinity County, Mendo, and Humboldt, down through Sonoma to Santa Cruz and LA. And I let that culture not just teach me, but inextricably shape me. 

The stories out there weren’t seen through the lens of ‘compelling marketing copy;’ they were code to “Protect your plants, protect your people, and honor the elders.” 

That level of storytelling, forged under pressure, was what gave me the journalistic urgency I carry today. When I see the media watering down that expression, I get a little nervous… Not for me alone, but for the culture that built us (and that we owe everything to).

With roots squarely planted in progressive causes, I have always admired the strong spine and causes that activists and media heads like the Beard Bros hold, and how they mirror that same instinct around protecting where we come from. 

When media centers real people, grassroots stories, and messy truths (not cleansed narratives wrapped in branding, like so much cannabis content out there), they stay grounded and rooted in fact, while the rest just chase clout and fleeting canna-trends.

This is why I LOVE to talk about mycelium as a metaphor for cannabis storytelling ‘underneath the mainstream surface:’ Mycelium is invisible and intricate, supporting entire ecosystems in silence. It moves resources, sends warnings, shares nutrients. It is THE DEFINITION of a network (and net-worth)

Stories do the same. Community stories and brand lore carry cultural DNA. They connect, resist, nourish in a sharing economy of internal wisdom that flows outside the algorithms and sexy sheen of “legalization” (which we know is just commercialization).

When we tell stories that way, we rebuild that underground network… where media becomes the soil. 

Here is how I see it working:

We can acknowledge our heritage without sanitizing it. I see far too many cannabis stories that flatten legacy culture into pastiche—the “hazy mystic past” or “exotic relic.” We owe it to people—mostly Black, Brown, Indigenous movers killed or imprisoned through prohibition—to keep their narrative alive. That means centering their words, their struggles, their knowledge—raw and unfiltered.

Use platforms that actually give a damn. It’s not enough to post a quote. Platforms like Beard Bros actively curate culture over commercials. They spotlight community, policy conversations, real hero’s journeys. That’s fertile ground. If you don’t feed your narrative into places that defend integrity you get hollow amplification instead of regrowth.

Treat media like movement instead of product placement. When you hold story in service of culture rather than commerce we can change the axis. Can we fight erasure by planting real histories in media, and resist corporate extraction? I think so… and that’s how storytelling becomes sovereignty (not just soundbites).

Everything goes back to mycelium: That ‘mushie urge’ to connect, nourish, and spread spores. As storytellers, educators, advocates it’s our job is to build that network through raw, intersectional, unfiltered storytelling. 

Yes, that means writing, recording, posting, resisting censorship (!!!), and choosing platforms that respect the underground… not foreclosing it.

This is my invitation to you, kind reader, to tell your story like a network. In spore form, not click-baity headlines. For the culture, not the commodity. 

Can we share how the plant saved you, grounded you, connected you to communities and hand those stories to platforms that actually get rooted in justice? ‘Cause if we don’t seed truth into the earth, the next generation will inherit a barren, sterile forest floor without roots.

If media is mycelium, the the movement is the mushroom… visible only because we built what’s underground, together. So, naturally, together we will rise.