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Let me go ahead and drag myself before somebody else does it with less love and worse edges.

I code-switch.

There. I said it.

I am fluent in “per my last email.”
I can speak “corporate calm” while my spirit is standing barefoot in the parking lot ready to flip a folding table. I know how to make my voice smaller, smoother, less seasoned, less Oakland, less …

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I have been thinking a lot about conflict lately. Not the reality TV kind, though please know I still enjoy a well-timed dramatic pause and a woman walking away from a table with her purse already on her shoulder. I mean the kind of conflict that happens in community. In collaboration. In business. In spaces where people speak the language of healing, l…

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Somebody slid into my DMs this week and asked a very good cannabis question:

“I’m new to smoking. I don’t want anything sleepy. I’m looking for something for focus, clarity, and uplift. Should I get a sativa?”

And first of all, I love when people ask questions instead of just walking into a dispensary and letting a 24-year-old named Kyle sell them somethi…

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Before y’all start squeezing your pearls so hard they turn into dust, relax. I am not announcing celibacy. At 51 years old, that boat been left the dock, hit international waters, circled back for bad decisions and still made it home before brunch. So no, this is not a purity announcement. Please unclench.

But recently, after reading The Great Cosmic Mot…

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I’ve been looking for a writer’s circle that aligned with me & found by divine direction. My writing felt stagnant and surface. I needed prompting that would pull me deeper into transparency and CJ’s group did not disappoint.

So I say all that to say, from a simple prompt I wrote. And baby, I did indeed write. Here goes.

The Weather in My Bones

There is …

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So I left.

No grand announcement. No “I’m choosing myself” Instagram post.

Just me, my feelings, and a quiet little treehouse tucked into the kind of forest that looks…

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Lord! 🤦🏾‍♀️ If you've ever needed proof that politicians will climb ove…

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If you came for soft, go light a candle and lie to yourself in peace. This Full Moon? It’s not here to comfort you. It’s here to expose you.

Let’s not play dumb. That relationship? It’s over. Ya’ll just keep texting out of habit.That dream? You outgrew it, but you keep dragging it around like a security blanket with holes in it. That version of you? Expi…

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Many of us who were raised in religion were taught to believe that God is chronically disappointed in us and that we require harsh correction to make us holy. But it took gardening for me to realize how radically untrue that is because nothing blooms in shame. Only what is loved grows.

From an early age many of us were raised to believe that God is up th…

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Prince Rogers Nelson

Born June 7, 1958

Transitioned April 21, 2016

A Gemini sun with that duality baked all the way in. A man who could be soft and sharp, masculine and feminine, sacred and downright nasty…sometimes all in the same song. And if you know, you know.

Prince wasn’t just an artis…

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Tomorrow morning at 4:51am PST we have a New Moon in Aries and this bitch decided to bring four other planets AND a MF asteroid with her to the party. My GOD today!

You got Saturn like BIG Daddy talkin about slow down, do it right. Neptune over there being dreamy and a little delusional. Mars lit like a blunt at a cookout. An…

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Let me go ahead and say it again, louder for the people in the back:

It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem.

Or at least…that’s what it looks like if you’re measuring me against what this world says I’m supposed to be in relationships.

Because apparently, I’m “toxic.”

And you know what? …I’m not even fighting that label anymore. Because what y’all are calling toxic, …

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I’m gonna start this by saying I’m not writing this to point fingers. I’m writing this because I’m finally at a place where I can sit my own ass down and say okay girl… let’s tell the truth.

And the truth is, the reason my relationships don’t work out has a whole lot to do with m…

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I’ve been sitting outside a lot more lately, just listening. Not to people… to birds.

And baby, let me tell you. Songbirds will humble you real quick.

These little feathered beings wake up every day and just start singing. No audience. No applause. No “let me make sure this sounds perfect first.” They just open…

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Let me tell you something right now: it is a damn tragedy that some of the greatest farmers, herbalists, soil whisperers, and seed savers this country has ever known were worked to the bone and denied the basic right to write shit down. I recently had a conversation with Blackstack creator & facilitator Jacquie Verbal about this very topic which inspired this article.

I think about my ancestors & what they suffered a lot. Usually when I’m out in my backyard, spliff in one hand, compost tea in the other, talking sweet to my leafy greens like they some fine ass man I’m attempting to seduce. Look 👀 my Scorpio stay scorpio’ing even in the garden. But I digress.

The truth is—this thing we call “gardening”? This thing folks treat like a cute little hobby with mason jars and Pinterest boards? That shit is in our bones. And also? We don’t fuck with it like we could. Like we should. And I got theories.

The Knowledge That Never Got a Notebook

Imagine this with me for a second.

What if our ancestors—enslaved Africans who were already master agriculturalists before they were stolen—had been allowed to read, write, and document everything they knew? Not just survival notes. I’m talking full-on manuals.

• What to plant with what

• How to read the soil like a Bible

• Which herbs heal what, and how much before it turns from medicine to “call 911”

• Seed saving techniques passed down by aunties who didn’t play

• How to grow abundance out of straight-up struggle

We’d have volumes. Libraries. Whole damn agricultural universities rooted in Black knowledge instead of us having to “rediscover” shit on YouTube in 2026 like it’s new. We wouldn’t be Googling “how to grow okra” like our great-great-grandma didn’t have that on lock in 1843.

But they didn’t get to write it down.

So what happens when knowledge gets forced into silence? It doesn’t disappear but it fractures. It turns into whispers. Into habits without explanations. Into “my grandma used to do this” without anyone knowing why. And eventually? It turns into distance.

Why So Many of Us Side-Eye the Soil

A lot of Black folks don’t mess with farming or gardening like that and it’s not because we’re lazy or disconnected or “don’t care about health.” It’s because the land was weaponized against us. Working the land wasn’t a peaceful, grounding, “connect with nature” experience. It was violence. It was control. It was generations of forced labor with no ownership, no rest, no reward. So now you tell somebody, “You should grow your own food.” And somewhere deep in their nervous system, their spirit goes:

“Didn’t we just escape that shit?”

And listen I get it. Because trauma doesn’t always show up as fear. Sometimes it shows up as avoidance. As disinterest. As “that’s not for me.” And if nobody ever reframed the story? Why would you run towards something your lineage was brutalized through?

But Here’s the Plot Twist…

Our ancestors didn’t just suffer on that land. They outsmarted it. They grew their own food in hidden patches. They cultivated medicinal herbs behind overseers’ backs. They brought seeds braided into their hair across an ocean. They made something out of nothing, over and over again.

That wasn’t just survival.

That was brilliance.

That was resistance.

That was a masterclass in land stewardship under the worst conditions imaginable.

So the question isn’t:

“Why don’t we garden?”

The real question is:

“Who benefits from us staying disconnected from something we were historically powerful at?”

What If We Had Kept the Blueprint?

Now let’s dream a little. If we had preserved all that knowledge—fully documented, passed down, respected, what would we look like today?

We’d be a force.

• Food deserts? Not on our watch.

• Community gardens on every block, not as charity—but as infrastructure

• Herbal medicine normalized, not “alternative”

• Kids learning soil science before they learn long division

• Black farmers not as a rarity—but as leaders

We wouldn’t be asking permission to participate in sustainability—we’d be defining it. And more than anything?

We’d have a different relationship with the land. Not one rooted in pain. But in power.

So How Do We Get Back There?

Alright. This is the part where I get bossy. Because this isn’t just theory, this is what I do every day.

We don’t wait for permission.

We don’t wait to feel “ready.”

We start small, we start messy, and we start now.

1. Reframe That Shit

This ain’t slavery. This is sovereignty.

You choosing to grow your own food is not “going backwards.”

It’s reclaiming something that was stolen and flipping it into freedom.

2. Start Ridiculously Small

I’m talking:

• A pot of herbs on your windowsill

• A tomato plant that may or may not survive (RIP to many of mine)

• Some green onions in a jar of water

We’re not out here trying to be farmers overnight. Fucking Relax.

3. Learn Like It’s In Your DNA—Because It Is

Every time you figure out how to keep a plant alive, something in you lights up. That’s not random. That’s recognition.

4. Build Community Around It

This is not meant to be a solo mission. Trade seeds. Share harvests. Talk shit over raised beds. Because community is the real fertilizer.

5. Let It Be Healing, Not Perfect

Your garden will humble you. Quickly.

Plants will die. Bugs will show up uninvited. You will overwater something you swore you didn’t touch.

Good. Stay with it anyway. Because this isn’t about perfection.

It’s about reconnection.

Final Thoughts From Your Substack Garden Auntie

We may not have the written records our ancestors deserved to leave behind. But we have enough. Enough memory. Enough instinct. Enough fragments to rebuild something powerful. Every time you put your hands in soil, you are not just growing food. You are continuing a story that somebody tried real hard to erase. And you’re saying:

“Nah. We still here. And we still know some shit.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go check on my kale and roll another joint. Because healing is work. But it can also be a vibe.

Love ya’ll

@Lazy&Golden🌱

Also! FYI! I started a Seed Swap Co-op as a way for us to build community through seed archival. You can learn more about it & get involved by visiting my website:

www.CalidadBotanica.com

And smash that good subscribe button while you’re at it.

Subscribe

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We are all guilty. Me included. You have a rough day so you call your bestie to vent. And really that’s healthy. We need to let off stream.

AND…. we all got that one relative, co-worker or friend who got some shit to complain about every time ya’ll speak. Or maybe … that …

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