Editors's Note
One year ago, The North Bloom Magazine sprouted from a simple intention: to gather stories about health, harvest, and the wisdom that grows when we tend to ourselves and each other. Today, you're holding our first birthday edition. This past year has been rich with possibilities in shaping a new conversation on healing. We're celebrating our trip around the sun and looking forward to spending 2026 with you, with more stories of people using plants in purposeful ways.
Our cover honors Turtle Island—the name Indigenous peoples have long given to North America, rooted in creation stories and a deep relationship with this land. The wood turtle's underbelly, revealed in this image, invites us to look at something from all angles before we understand it fully.
In our work at Bloom, this is essential. We don't see the whole story from one perspective. We must turn things over. Examine what lies beneath the surface. This is especially true as we incorporate old plants into new paradigms for our health. As autumn deepens, wood turtles enter brumation, a reptilian state similar to hibernation where their bodies rest, conserve, and prepare for renewal. The turtle is our slow and steady reminder to keep foraging and forging on for the information and resources we need to both survive and thrive.
This quarter, we've centered Indigenous voices—not as guests, but as the teachers and keepers of knowledge they've always been. You'll find teachings woven through ceremonies and whole-plant medicine practices—stories about landrace preservation and the fierce work of protecting both biodiversity and cultural heritage, the introduction of tribal cannabis dispensaries across Minnesota bringing Native governance into the mainstream, and the practical wisdom of rituals that transform cannabis from something we "use" into something we have a relationship with. Even in our recipes and business cycles, there's an undercurrent of reciprocity: taking only what we need, returning what we can, honoring the generations before and after us.
These aren't separate threads. Healing and sovereignty are woven together. Harvest and rest. Work and stillness.
But growth is never finished. It's cyclical. We're already thinking about what comes next, how we scale without losing our roots, how we lift our community as we expand. That seven-generation lens isn't just poetry for us. It's how we're building this. Like the turtle, we're moving slowly, intentionally, with our foundation always beneath us.
Next year, Bloom is evolving. We're planting new seeds. We're listening harder. We're making space for more voices, more stories, more ways to heal together.
Subscribe to our digital edition. Follow along on our socials. Share what resonates. Tell us what you need. Because you're not just reading a magazine—you're growing it with us.
Here's to another cycle of roots, blooms, and real work ahead.
With gratitude,
Angelique Zerillo, CG
Editor-in-Chief
The North Bloom Magazine
@dazerillos
Subscribe to Bloom: https://www.thenorthbloom.com
Follow us on socials: @thenorthbloom
