Un Juste Milieu

Our shared quest to find that place of balance—from politics and policies to addressing our health and happiness. Challenging to find that more perfect union in our fractured states of being, isn’t it?

We spend much of our time and energy running in mental and physical circles, searching for those shared but somewhat elusive destinations of peace and joy. Like modern cars that intelligently power down under the weight of our foot on the brake pedal at a red light, we too often need a hard stop—a full reset—to find that balance we so desperately need—that happy medium, that place between love and loss, that place between pain and ease.

So, what do some of us use for brakes when life is not cruising at a safe speed? The brakes? Nope. Not those pedals. We return to nature to use some of its petals. Or rather, we give ourselves the gentle gift and lift that occurs from consuming the Cannabis sativa l. plant via various consumption methods and products.

On the cover of our inaugural issue, we offer you a single rose—much like those reality shows on television. One human handing another a single bloom—the possibility of a budding love connection. Our bold rose is chosen here to illustrate that there is also some hard science to the magical love connection we humans have with the beneficial components of plants that nourish us in ways beyond the needs of the heart.

Zooming into the internal chemistry of that rose, the aromatic terpene inside it called geraniol guides our nose into that familiar lane of recognition of this flower. That delicate, slightly citrusy sweet smell that our olfactory system and brain compute and catalog for us as safe and supportive, giving us no feedback loops to inform us of any danger. Stop and smell the roses. Those are the instructions we feel.

As we follow that small, volatile geraniol molecule traveling up our nose, crossing quickly into the brain across the blood-brain barrier, we realize how quickly that triggers an effect in our Endocannabinoid System. This is the top-level regulatory system that ultimately drives us to health or disease.

We don’t always recognize it, but much of our consumer packaged goods industry uses scents like this to attract us to their products, bees to a flower-style, in the shape and form of anything from skin fragrances and soaps to detergents and cleaning products, even traveling to our stomachs via food additives.

For most, the smell of a rose has a positive effect—a visceral softening. For some, it offers physical pain or even some emotional relief. Critical molecular connections are initiated to create those positive responses we need in the human body. Those delicate geraniol terpenes light receptors up in us like torches marking a path through darkness.
Humans have much hubris when it comes to thinking that we are more clever than Mother Nature. It’s a remarkable moment to experience the wholeness that one can feel once you incorporate gentle inputs into your health, for which Mother Nature has all the patents and blueprints. And that’s where we come in. Meet The North Bloom Magazine, aka Bloom.

Bloom is a cannabis lifestyle magazine with the humble goal of helping you, dear consumer, achieve a healthier state of being. To do this, we’re choosing to meet you where you are—quite literally. We’ll be on your main streets and in your brick-and-mortar stores, supporting you as you support your local businesses in the newly regulated plant sector.

Our goal is to help you manage your health by putting you in the driver’s seat with a little more knowledge of the plant’s benefits, all the while keeping you abreast of the rapidly changing business and legal landscape that supports it. Cannabis, formerly and inaccurately billed as solely a “substance of abuse,” is now supporting a multi-billion dollar business sector in our nation. Minnesota is in a lane to lead in this new economy.

Here at Bloom, we aim to inform, enlighten, and entertain. We strive to be your trusted resource for all things plant medicine, especially as our nation, and specifically the great State of Minnesota, learns to crawl and walk and then supports the running of the hemp and cannabis marketplace.

While businesses in this sector need to learn how to navigate a new landscape, we understand that consumers need an equal amount of support. Many of us have had a lot of unlearning to do after a challenging era of prohibition to reveal the benefits of implementing plant-based solutions in our wellness regimes. These journeys of discovery led many of us to helpful, gentle, and essential health tools we’ll share here with you in Bloom.

In our inaugural issue, we address a topic universally shared - Pain. We highlight the voices of veterans using the plant and running businesses here in this sector, hear from clinicians and healers, visit Indigenous businesses and Mom and Pops, teach you about homegrown cannabis, share recipes, legal, accounting, and parenting tips, dance through various somatic healing arts, as well as pay homage to artists working in the creative arts, as we know how helpful it is for a busy brain to put its hands (or body) in motion so that mind in distress can become at ease.

We aim to guide you along your journey of discovery to incorporate a more holistic approach to seeking this balance, too. Thank you for trusting us with your time as you read the following pages. We hope to help you enjoy every minute of it, learn a few things in the process, and be inspired to unfold into a healthier, happier version of yourself as you flip through our folds within.

From cover to cover, from a single rose to our final ad page closed. We are here with you.

So, from cope to hope. Let’s begin, shall we?

Tenderly,

Angelique Zerillo, CG
Editor-in-Chief
The North Bloom Magazine