Most people I know have had their first beer or alcoholic beverage in their teenage years, but I only started drinking at the age of 21 or 22. It must have been out of stubbornness or some inner belief – but I remember those parties with my friends where everyone was quite loaded while I drank soda. My first tipsy encounter was when I sipped a glass of red Martini with my parents. I wish I could say the same for my first joint.

In Luxembourg where we come from, weed is still an illegal substance. Debates about legalisation have started, but I have the feeling that it will take a while, as it is widely demonized. Although most people have tried it at least once, and although anybody’s worst experience with it could never compare to the lethal consequences of other, widely available and permitted vices – there’s definitely a weird relationship with it. It’s kind of immoral. Kind of taboo. Kind of shitty really. It all comes down to a huge lack of knowledge around the topic… and a whole lot of cannaphobia.

I’m happy to admit that I have a problem with that. I am just as allergic to it as I am to homophobia. See, they both come from ignorance & denial, they hurt and they just don’t make sense.

If somebody is interested, I could sit down for hours and state some facts. Explaining why weed is not worse than alcohol (the most available hard drug in the world), or even sugar or coffee (which we may use in moderation but apparently can’t live without), why nobody has ever died of cannabis overdose, what are the many health benefits of this natural substance and why the entire economy would benefit from it. There never seize to be people who need to be a little more enlightened on the topic. But the internet is already full of such resources.

Today I want to use this controversial opportunity to talk about how cannabis has benefited us as human beings in search of creativity & expansion.

Lighting Up To Heighten The Senses & To Create

There are plenty of stereotypes around weed. The most common is often pictured in American comedies: weed smokers are never too far from a massive bong, chilling on a couch and doing nothing but eating junk food & watching animal documentaries, in a total state of idleness. It’s a kind of funny stereotype we often think about, but in other ways it has educated many of us to associate weed with being useless and unproductive.

Yes, weed can be extremely relaxing, so it’s great for down time. The first interesting thing to notice is how it can make you shed layers of inhibition/stress/anxiety and therefore just allow you to be your true yourself. Lighting one with a group of good friends can be a great way to have a great evening of hysterical laughs but also awesome, deep conversation. I will also never forget how we once shared this experience with Linda’s parents (I know, best parents in law you could ever wish for, right?). That evening had brought us even closer together.

Like most of us though, I haven’t lived such a similar experience with my own parents. I sure hope for it to happen some day, as it might open up some great doors or at least make us all spend a hell of a funny moment!

However, amongst all of this, and all of the funny anecdotes some of us may have around weed, it’s important to take note of its true purpose. There is a way deeper reason why the cannabis plant exists and why it has even been considered to be sacred for thousands of years.

It is a herb that can expand your consciousness in many ways. By doing so, it heightens your senses. It makes everything feel so intense, so beautiful and so present. Not because it wasn’t there before. But because your mind has been cleared off all noise and therefore you can truly take notice and soak it in. This is a state of mind that we particularly love to experience when we go outside in the nature. There are times when a simple walk through the forest can feel so special, that we want to tear up so much we feel connected to the universe. Of course, you can reach this state of mind just by being meditative, but we all know that sometimes in this modern life this is not easy or possible. No wonder why cannabis has then been used since ages for that euphoric aspect.

With a heightened awareness & senses, you can of course connect deeper within you, your own work and your intuition, which like we mentioned in this article, is immediately connected with our creative inner selves. Linda and I have recently been intentionally using it for this very purpose, to explore creativity and to discover layers of it we didn’t even know existed. I can’t even begin to describe how all creative aspects of our lives have evolved with it.

This is not something that we do every day, and in fact don’t have a necessity to do, because we believe that we have an inner teacher within us already present in our normal state – otherwise, I guess we would have not been able to do the many things we’ve done with Kinlake and the way we live our lives so far. We also definitely avoid it during admin tasks which need more of a “left” brain focus or when we need to interact with our clients and to make fairly logical decisions for design projects.

When we do use it, it’s for an entirely personal purpose. It feels like a temporary expansion of what we have inside. An awakening. Any previous boundaries that might have been there get pushed and there are fascinating consequences to that.

When brainstorming around a new project with an awakened mind, some unexpected ideas come to the surface – and instead of pushing them away for fear of being unconventional, we might welcome them in and dig even deeper. Perhaps even uncovering some eye-opening personal discoveries and realisations while at it. Then, organically, we feel rushed to just CREATE and make it happen. When doing photography, I find a thousand ways to compose my image while my whole perception of the subject becomes extremely focused yet open for interpretation & experimentation. Or I simply notice how I use some options in my camera that I would probably never do in a “normal state”. Some interesting creative tryouts (including photographic ones) have happened this way.

It also applies to our personal creative journey, such as Linda’s illustration/art and my music. When I explore sounds, I can hear & focus on many details and this helps me to then develop my own. Which makes me wish I had discovered cannabis way sooner instead of feeling so blocked, for so long. I’ve spent more than 27 years doing mostly solo projects and that’s probably my biggest mistake. With a seriously creative band there would have been at least one band member who would have introduced me to that… and I would have progressed a little faster.

Enlightenment & Other Discoveries

Reflecting back at certain times in my life, such as my very first relationship, I often realize I was a completely different person who thought that life was based on so many things, miles away from what it is all to me now. Most of what I’ve learned so far came out of true dedication. My knowledge in music happened because I was convinced it was “the” only thing I was born to do. Mistakes helped me grow a lot as well, and like I always like to say:

If I had to, I would do it all over again.

But then came by thirties. I hate that dumb cliché, but let’s say it’s a pure coincidence when I have to point that my whole life really started making sense in my thirties. Coincidentally too, that’s also around the first time I ever touched cannabis. And the first time I ate a cheeky little space cookie that opened up the most amazing life sensations ever. I’ve seen myself floating, controlling my life from above, connecting spirals and the meaning of numbers in a vast universe. Curiously blended in with the OCD and Synesthesia that I have since my early age. As scary as that sounds, it has been awakening to me.

I’ve since then constantly worked on some personal visions made of patterns representing memories, stages, objects or people in my life. As if I could almost control my memory and dig into the earliest thoughts of my childhood and deeper. I’ve recently started sketching and writing down these ideas in my little side bed notebook and they became quite complex and interesting. Some recent beliefs are stronger than anything I could have ever read from a book or heard by someone, which might simply be the essence of all I am.

I’m in a quest of being true, on a journey called life. I only have one shot for it, so I try to extract as much knowledge as possibly available. I will always fully credit cannabis for this enlightenment in my life.

It saddens me that such an incredible herb as this one is criminalised in most of the countries around the globe – it almost feels like a conspiracy to forbid people from unlocking parts of themselves.

We don’t want to encourage the over consumption of this substance, neither the purchase from an unknown source. Just like anything, it requires common sense. But I personally hope that our experience with it was an interesting read and that it may encourage you to give it a try as well for these purposes. If you do so, we’d love to hear your thoughts and your experiences.

We would love to see more creatives sharing their personal journey with cannabis, to shed light on the topic, to break the stigma and really expose what this wonderful plant can bring to one’s awakening. There is such a movement that’s slowly happening, and even blogs about the topic (in other words “conscious cannabis”) like this one.

On another note – we have many more interesting discoveries in the same spirit as well as upcoming collaborations with projects that are in this mission. I won’t tell you much more about these for now, but we’ll make sure to share them with you in the future! Stay tuned.