MEND Season 1 - Episode 15

MEND

Looking Back to Find What's Next..

As I was sitting down to draft an introduction to this week’s chat, these words from Dante Alighieri went flashing through my mind:

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. …...I cannot rightly say how I entered it. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way. But when I reached the foot of a hill, where the valley, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked up and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every road. …...It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was,.....but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.”

Anne & myself have chosen to take this week to re-group to some degree.

A moment to step back and look at where this shifting narrative has taken us thus far, but also to try to regain the larger thematic thread toward which we’re aiming overall.

To that end, we sat down, on opposite sides of the country and asked each other some questions.

*Stuff like -

What is the larger story we are trying to tell?

Have we succeeded thus far?

What are some of the voices we have yet to hear from and that we feel, are needing to be heard inside this story?

And... After all is said and done… is this really about Pot at all??

We re-cap some of our favorite episodes to date.

And talk about the process of trying to share a larger, Universal story with a message and a deep, pulsing heart - using the syntax of the humble everyday.

Can the personal truly reveal the Universal, as they say?

We talk about Commercialization - both in this industry and beyond - and the effects it has.

About what we’ve lost. And hopefully what we are un-earthing still.

We talk about the underbelly of this story. The dark, shadowy bits we had hoped to move away from - and how they’re part and parcel to this whole tale.

And ultimately - we come back to: Who is this For?

And begin to shift our focus from the past - of what has been - and invite in Voices that are beginning to pave the way toward our collective Future - whatever that may hold.

Enjoy.