On the Road Again: Like a Band of Gypsies (A Move to Minneapolis)
When Emily and I started Hampton Park Healing Collective, our mission was rooted in education. As grassroots community organizers, we worked alongside various elders, artists, and community members to create spaces for cultural unification and interpersonal integration in Charleston.
Our dream is continuing to expand. Our journey took us to Saskatchewan, followed by visits to Denver, San Francisco, Vancouver, places that have all served as hubs of innovation, pivoting legal concerns surrounding possession of entheogens, altering the national discussion on policy related to these materials. Now, we are living in Minneapolis, a city that served as a major inspiration for our next step. In 2023, Minneapolis became the first city in the United States to decriminalize entheogenic plants via an Executive Order 2023-01, signed directly by Mayor Jacob Frey. There has been no major pushback against this reprioritization of police funds. There are no stores selling entheogens, and there are no news stories of increased problems with these plants.
Our next chapter has been catalyzed by witnessing this model. We are now excited to announce the launch of our Lowcountry-based chapter of the national 501 (c ) (4) nonprofit Decriminalize Nature. More on this to come, including a new website.
Emily and I have been planning this for the Lowcountry for a while. We are ready and excited to advocate for conscious expansion amidst a landscape of mass consciousness suppression dominated by a multi-billion-dollar alcohol industry, a multi-million-dollar Big Tobacco, an entrenched culture of social media fixation, and a billion-dollar pharmaceutical industrial complex in our state. The highly debated and potentially evaporating and recondensing adult-use hemp market in South Carolina is already a billion-dollar-plus industry. Young adults are exposed to advertisements for these substances through television shows, commercials, magazines, music, social media, and interactions with their peers. They have now been exposed to advertisements for entheogenic substances via the same mechanisms for years.
If we continue to ignore the reality of changing dialogues nationally around healing trauma, preventing recidivism, and eliminating addiction, we are wasting precious time in cutting the Imperial chains still hanging around our necks. These laws prohibiting the exploration of the self are remnants of colonialism and represent the power of imperial chains still restricting our daily lives.
If we decriminalize plant medicine and make these modalities available beyond clinical trials, only then will we see a phase shift in society, swinging the pendulum back towards wholeness. While private retreats are happening in South Carolina, educational talks remain primarily targeting one demographic of potential consumers. Decriminalize Nature offers a different path: a model that focuses on the needs of everyone.
For a couple from Charleston, after living in Saskatoon, Minneapolis is the perfect Big (little) City for us. The Foshay Tower was built in 1929, right before the stock market crashed
Our move to Minneapolis has been inspirational in a number of ways, artistically, musically, and culturally. In moving to Saskatoon, our minds were expanded socio-culturally in ways we did not imagine when we planned to relocate. It wasn’t only our time in Saskatchewan that led to this expansion, but also the proximity to all of Western Canada, which allowed us to experience MB, SK, AB, and BC on cross-country road trips that were awe-inspiring and consciousness-expanding. We were also fortunate to explore Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, interfacing with what felt like the last bastions of frontierism still shaping cultural identities on the land in these States and in Saskatchewan.
After surviving those beautiful but intense Canadian winters, Emily and I feel that our new Harrison neighborhood is the best place we’ve ever lived. The West side of downtown Charleston was my home for 5 years, but with everything we now have right at our doorstep, Minneapolis already feels like home sweet home.
The cultural vitality here is unmatched. Within our first week, we saw one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Daniel Romano. By the end of the month, we had seen several artists who never come to South Carolina, including a 99-year-old piano-playing living legend, Cornbread Harris, whose story is instrumental in activating Rock N Roll locally in Minneapolis. We even managed to meet MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger (who does come to SC), and Joseph Arthur. The brief conversations I had with these two musicians have motivated me to delve back into my music and refine my voice. I’m planning to record some songs in the near future and get my music out into the ether in its fullest form yet.
Prince Celebration 10
If you want to support Decriminalize Nature in the Lowcountry, please stay in contact with us as there will be volunteer opportunities soon and more ways to share your voice and contribute to our cause of decriminalization, making the cultivation, possession, and use of entheogenic plants the lowest priority of law enforcement in Charleston, North Charleston, and the tri-county area.
Peace & Blessings,
Will & Emily