About Us
The Crones
Andi & Toni
On a personal level we’d like to share with you that we are old enough to proudly call ourselves crones. Crones were the matriarchs of most human communities, prior to patriarchy, that were revered for their wisdom and experience.
It was their role to help educate their human communities as well as to support the natural world, our mother earth. That’s precisely what we are doing. We are grateful to have been sought out by our elder green beings and to share their gifts with you as generously as they have shared with us.
Cannabis was the impetus for our personal journeys that have led us to each other and now to Terra Mater Farma. That would have been enough, but she has done so much more. She encourages playfulness and connection and helps us let go of the to do lists in our head. She brings humor into our everyday dramas. She is a master amplifier with a propensity towards joy and appreciation for life. She helps open our hearts, which is the journey we all must take if we are to awaken to our authentic selves.
About Andi
For nearly two decades I’ve been growing awesome fruits and vegetables and herbs. It’s not me - it’s my soil that should be given all the credit. It is loaded with compost and nutrients that feed a subterranean network of microbes that nourish the plants. Then there’s also the multitude of beneficial plants that grow alongside the crops. Those plants invite teams of insects, birds and bees. They also help me take care of pests and diseases because I would never use synthetic pesticides and other chemicals on my babies. After all, it is my children who consume what I harvest so I am particularly motivated to nourish the natural world that helps me provide.
But in 2018, it was the cannabis plant that called me back off the farm into the political arena once again. In response, I founded NY Small FarmA (NY Small Farm Alliance of Cannabis Growers and Supporters) to educate legislators and the public of the importance of welcoming back this sacred plant and the need to grow her outdoors under the sun, conscientiously and lovingly tended by small farmers, and of the need to put an end to what was becoming a horribly polluting multi-state business: industrial indoor cannabis cultivation.
On behalf of this plant I went to Albany, met with legislators and the governor’s office, drafted proposed legislation (I’m an attorney as well as a farmer), lectured at colleges, wrote policy papers and Op Eds for local papers. I was convinced that once Albany understood how important this plant was they too would want to ensure its integrity. I urged that the Cannabis plant establish the paradigm for how all plants should be grown: without dangerous pesticides and without ripping up the earth with regular tilling.
I appeared on podcasts, gave interviews to the press and traveled around the state in what I affectionately called Canna Curious Community Chats, speaking to the public about the beneficence of this plant and the seemingly miraculous list of human conditions she could heal.
One of the greatest benefits I’ve received from working with cannabis has been to my emotional and spiritual well-being. In our spiritual practices we seek to enter into stillness and open our heart perception. Cannabis can amplify our ability to do that. She is not a substitute for a spiritual practice, but she is one of our tools for doing the work of tending consciousness. Cannabis helps me to take time out and see things from a different perspective: one that is grounded in the aliveness and awareness of the present moment.
Cannabis has been my inspiration to share all that I’ve learned with other New Yorkers as prohibition was finally coming to an end. This is my next chapter in sharing.
About Toni
Cannabis and I became fast friends in college, where my world was opened to different ways of living and being and believing. My heart was opened. When I became pregnant I stopped using cannabis for almost 20 years. My life was busy raising two boys and working.
In 2016, for a period of two and a half years, I lost my mother, father and brother. I was with each of them as they passed. Also during that stressful period, I was also one of the primary caregivers for my father as he battled cancer. I was completely stressed out, so sad and so worried all the time. I did not sleep through the night. I was drinking more and starting to go through menopause.
In 2017, I started experimenting with CBD. I felt immediately happy after taking it and started sleeping again. I have always loved making things and started making my own tinctures and experimenting with adding THC to the mix. I was reminded why I loved cannabis so much in my young adulthood. I felt safe and free again. I wanted to learn everything I could about this plant. Powerfully she was calling to me.
The past 4 years, I have immersed myself in learning about this plant. I have toured farms, taken classes, including a life changing one by master herbalist Tammi Sweet, author of The Wholistic Healing Guide to Cannabis. I served as a board member at NYSmallFarma, met with State senators and Assembly members, grew and grow my own, helped harvest amazing plants and used myself as a guinea pig to learn everything I could about how this plant makes me feel and how she could help others. I am a people person and if cannabis helped me, it could help others and I wanted to help. I have learned so much along my journey and I would love to share that knowledge with you.
