Maggie Wilson’s Journey with the Cannabis Plant

By Maggie Wilson

This summer, 2022, we are so excited to be releasing the Metaphysical Cannabis Oracle Deck from Maggie Wilson and illustrated by the wonderful Edge. Speaking with Iris Dorbian for Forbes last year, Maggie explained that “What makes this deck truly unique is not just that it’s a collaborative effort between two talented black women” but that it is “also unprecedented because it’s breaking the mold on what’s expected of the tarot or what’s the norm from an executive at a cannabis company. The deck itself is a love letter about the spiritual journey that so many have found with cannabis who were given relief, hope, joy and trust thanks to the plant.” 

Here Maggie traces her relationship with the cannabis plant and how it has transformed over the course of her life so far.

My journey with the cannabis plant has been something I would have never thought growing up would be what it is today. Growing up in the United States in southeast Tennessee is very different from growing up in other places. In the south, there isn’t a lot of spirituality in the sense that plants have a spiritual significance, especially the cannabis plant, because it is so ostracized and demonized in that area of this country. I was adopted at two days old, and the woman who adopted me was my mother’s girlfriend. In 1989, to be gay and raise a child that is your partner’s product created a taboo. 

For me, there was never any discussion about how I was different from the rest of my family. My mother’s partner was all Caucasian facing, including all of my six brothers and sisters, and I am mixed Nigerian. There’s always a sense of me having a belonging in this family and in society that is rooted in my spiritual purpose. Somehow I always knew I was a part of something much bigger, even though I didn’t know anything about my paternal side of my family until I was 26 years old. I didn’t have my father’s name, so much as a description or location of where my father could be. This also helped shape my experience and spirituality with the cannabis plant. 

“This experience would shape my relationship with the cannabis plant for nearly a decade.”

At the age of 12, my adopted older brother was arrested in the small town that we lived in, where less than 3,000 people reside. He was smoking a joint with his friends in an abandoned building, and he just happened to be caught by the police. My brother, at the time, was an exceptional student, made Straight A’s, and was on his path to being accepted into whatever college or university he wanted. So as things happen in America, my brother got off with community service because of his situation. This experience would shape my relationship with the cannabis plant for nearly a decade. At that time, my mother was very concerned that if I was to take that same route and the outcome would not be the same for me as a black woman, so she decided to tell me that I was allergic to cannabis in an effort to keep me from using the plant. I didn’t have any reason not to believe this woman because I knew that everything that she did was to make a better life for me in the best way that she could.

Sometimes we have expectations of our families that they are supposed to be more than they are. My biological mother, in this case, stated she had no maternal instincts and did not want to raise another child, and that is why her girlfriend ended up raising me and moving away with my older brother and me when we were three years old. This is why we grew up in the south of the United States and also because if my father knew that I was alive, he would try to come and get me. Around the age of 19, I was introduced to the cannabis plant. That night changed my life forever. I knew what I had been thinking, and programming in my head was very harmful to my well-being. I was not allergic to cannabis. It was actually one of my companion plant spirits.

“Creating the metaphysical cannabis Oracle deck was something that I knew I needed to do because I wanted to be able to help more people with the knowledge that I had learned based on my experience.”

Growing up adopted, I always had this feeling that I was a part of something bigger. When I started communing with the cannabis plant Spirit, my spirituality took another shift and propelled me into the healing that I needed and that my family needed. If it wasn’t for the cannabis plant and the things that it has brought the people and me that it has led to me, I don’t know if I would have written the Metaphysical Cannabis Oracle. Now my journey with the cannabis plant has really taken a different shift and has provided me with a new way and quality of life that I would never have imagined as a young child. My spirituality has always been essential to me and has always been a part of my life that I am very proud of and that I am very passionate about.

“Not only did I grow up thinking I was allergic to cannabis, I also grew up in the Jehovah’s Witness organization”

Creating the Metaphysical Cannabis Oracle Deck was something that I knew I needed to do because I wanted to be able to help more people with the knowledge that I had learned based on my experience. Not only did I grow up thinking I was allergic to cannabis I also grew up in the Jehovah’s Witness organization, which some people would label a cult. I remember not being able to speak to my friends because of the rules of the church, where I was not allowed to communicate with anyone who was a part of the world who was not a part of the church, and for me, that was not what I was going to do.

In my heart, I knew that this form of practice was not for me, it did not resonate with my soul in my spirit, and I wanted to leave the church. I asked my mother at the age of 12, shortly after my brother had been arrested, if I could leave the church and not have the brothers and sisters come over three times a week and study the Bible with me. One of the biggest reasons I left the church was because they always left my mother out of events, oh, the study groups, and even made us sit in the back of the church during service because she was what they called quite disfellowshipped. If you were disfellowshipped in the church, it means that you did something the church did not agree with and that you were allowed to still come to the church, but you were not allowed to sit with the community. I felt that this type of Separation was reminiscent of Jim Crow in the South and how African Americans were separated from white Americans simply because of the color of their skin, and this felt horrible for me spiritually.

This is why I asked to leave the church, and my mother, being the powerful and protective woman she is, let me leave the church. But under a few conditions, I was not allowed to watch anything in the house that she claimed would bring the devil in or invite demons into our home; I was also not allowed to have specific items such as tarot cards. For me and my spiritual path, creating this oracle deck not only led me to help others but also to find my father and the entire paternal side of my family. 

Cannabis has helped me emotionally, spiritually, physically, and metaphysically!

The Metaphysical Cannabis Oracle deck is on sale on August 23rd and can be pre-ordered here. 

The deck is designed to help you tap into your intuition, encouraging reflection and opening the third eye through herbal healing. It combines Maggie’s years of expertise with richly illustrated cards by evocative artist Ejiwa “Edge” Ebenebe. These cards will teach you how to open your mind to new programs and let your genuine connection to the universe unfold.For your chance to win a 30-minute reading with Maggie and an exclusive advance copy of the oracle deck, enter the competition here!