Sounds familiar yet ancient to the ear; Or perhaps a bit country with a southern twang. I say it again: Tah∙NAH∙see.
I grew up on the shaded footpaths of the copperhead trails and the raging white waters of the rock lined rivers on the West side of the Appalachian Mountains. At a young age, friends and I roamed these trails and rivers discovering arrowheads and other Native American artifacts. I was overly fascinated to learn about the deep Native history of the Cherokee Nation that surrounded my hometown.
Tanasi was an Overhill Cherokee village that stood as the Cherokee capital for the short time of 1721-1730 before moving the capital north. Tanasi is in present day Monroe County and was the namesake for the state of Tennessee. An amazingly rich history lesson for most, if you ever get to read into it. I feel most people living in North American have forgotten that Native Americans lived in America before us with different beliefs and history that has been mostly lost. Out of love and respect for the Cherokee Nation back home I go by the name Tanasi.
I didn’t enjoy school in Tennessee. From small things like having my shirt (that was two sizes to small) untucked, I seemed to be writing verbatim definitions out of a dictionary rather than learning the curriculum. After pleading with my mom to drop out and get my GED, she agreed, as long as I enrolled into college courses that following semester at the community college. May 2004, I got my GED and that fall I was enrolled into the community college. I learned upon completing that semester that college also wasn’t for me, and I would not be going back.
I had been working at a pizza shop since I was 16 and had moved up to manager. I stuck this out for a year and didn’t see my future in food service. When I was a rebel of 19 strong, I left home in search of catching the feeling that I was meant to go on to do more than stay in my hometown. In January 2006, I made the fast and dramatic exit by joining the U.S. Army Infantry. Five months later, while my graduating class was going to prom, I was finishing Airborne School at Fort Benning, Ga. By mid-May, I was on my way to Fort Bragg, NC to the 82nd Airborne Parachute Infantry Regiment. The All-American unit.
Ah, what a powerful and chill giving unit to be a part of. Alpha Company 2/504th Parachute Infantry Regiment 82nd Airborne Division. Hooah white devils! The history of this unit throughout the wars has been some the most intense and unbelievable stories that are comparable to the best. The journal of a dead German officer in Italy was found during World War 2. The journal read: “American parachutists…devils in baggy pants…I can’t sleep at night. They pop out of nowhere, and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems like the black-hearted devils are everywhere.” This gave the 82nd airborne the name The Devils in Baggy Pants. America’s First Strategic Response Team. The 82nd can have boots on the ground anywhere in the world in 18 hours.
I spent 3 years at Fort Bragg, NC living the grunt life of training to kill, tactically clearing buildings, or airborne shuffling (slow run) 10 miles hung-over (yet slightly still drunk) on a constant never ending farris wheel. In the middle of those 3 years I went to Iraq in June 2007 to July 2008. Never have I been higher than being on mission in full battle rattle in 145F degree heat. That doesn’t come with a tree for shade. Between the IED that hit my Humvee, combat, and the many concussions from learning how not to land after cannon balling out of a C130, I was blind to what I was doing to my body.
Sixty days from being back from Iraq, I was being interrogated by ATF and Army CID (Criminal Investigation Command). I got into an incident while visiting family back home on leave a few weeks ago. I was eventually charged after 8 months of military hell of being tasked to do all the shit jobs and pull staff duties. This ended my military career and got me a general under honorable discharge for misconduct. That was the end of the army, but the start of a 5 year ordeal with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I was looked lightly on by the judge and only had a short time in the Fed system. I didn’t take it for granted and kept my eyes open and listened. I had now seen the good military side of the government that let you have more freedom than normal, to sit in federal prison and see the ugly, hateful, misery side of government that had a different type of yelling in my face and orders.
After prison, times were not much better for me. I was back in Tennessee. I had nothing really to fall back on. The army infantry skills I had learned didn’t transfer into much for civilian life. I was back at the pizza shop as the store manager when I got a call from an uncle running a new fabrication shop. He told me to “stop wasting my time”, and come down there. He put a tig welder in my hand and taught me how to run tig on stainless steel round pipe. “We are building combustors for the oil fields”, my uncle explains. I learned to weld the burner rings and bolt them up in place. I worked in the shop for a year, then I was asked to join the field service team in North Dakota to do installations of the combustors. Hell yes! That was the break I needed.
I moved up fast and was running the show as foreman for the company in North Dakota. I was the go-to guy for the whole Bakken oil field for a couple years. In 2013 the company opened a new office in the Denver Basin oil fields. I was the golden boy to take the reins and make it take off. I moved to Denver in 2013. I was living downtown for 6 months, and it wasn’t until dinner with an army buddy that he said “weeds’ legal, don’t you know? You can grow your own”. Boom! Talk about mind blown. He had to have seen the lights of green shoot out my eyeballs like a disco ball. I knew this is the path I would take and haven’t turned back.
I have been a ganja toker since I was 16 years old. I have had the “don’t do drugs talk” with family; but weed, I was always drawn to it. Smoking weed relieved the stress and tensions of my daily life, especially after the 82nd and prison.
I was turned on to YouTube from a friend that told me to check out Subcool’s TV Morning Show. At this point, I had been growing for about a year using Bio-canna and Vegamatrix. With a billion light bulbs turning on at once, I had found the nuclear knowledge source for a novice grower! I was the ultimate weed nerd, weed nerding out episode over episode with a spiral notebook and pen taking notes. It only took me two weeks of binging to catch up with the current episodes he was doing. This skyrocketed my grow skills quickly. After a few more years of growing, I was confident I wasn’t a novice anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning something every day from growing. Always learning.
Sweet Tea, a strain grown by Tanasi at his home in Fort Collins, Colorado. He’s been perfecting his grow skills since moving to Colorado in 2013 to help remedy his symptoms of PTSD he suffers from after serving multiple tours overseas in the U.S. Army Airborne Division..
I didn’t know about PTSD or TBI while in the Army. No one ever spoke of it. No one talked about having too many concussions. I have had 3 army buddies, friends, brothers, take that final act of courage and end their lives. It took me years and years after leaving the 82nd Airborne to understand PTSD and TBI. The scars I took home with me are an important aspect of why I’m doing what I do today. I have been treating myself with psilocybin and THC for about 5 years now. I have made a complete transformation on my outlook on life and how I get along with others. My anger was once so far out of control, I was constantly destroying my house in rage. To stop the destruction I concreted a post in the back yard that I would go to and beat with a pipe to calm down. Finding the benefits of psychedelics and marijuana have helped me gain control over my life again.
My passion and aggressive will to learn has gotten me to live an artisan life that is dedicated to the organic cultivation of all plants, cacti, and fungi. This is nature’s medicine, and I have spent the last six years of my life on my own path of therapy and health using these medicines and understanding them. As a veteran, I find that cultivating your own medicines is more therapeutic than you can fathom. I have progressed into sharing my knowledge about what barriers they help break down. I now help teach what I know and spread the knowledge of organic cultivation with explanations on how to use them. From sharing my super soil recipe to helping someone understand micro-dosing mushrooms, I will forever help the mission to over grow the world. These enthogens are here for a reason and it’s about time we start to open the doors.
Be true to your own spirit.
Find me on Instagram, YouTube, and Cannabuzz at TanasiGardens. I have weekly post that go into detail about growing. I am a panelist on the Youtube channel Embracing Organics every Thursday night at 9 p.m. Est, 7 p.m. MST. A weekly grow show with special guest, dabs on dabs, bong rips, joint rolling smoke seshes. Grow with us as we learn together.
Home mushroom grow kit sold by Tanasi through his company Sacred Three Mushroom based in Fort Collins, Colorado.
I am also the owner of Sacred Three Mushrooms, which is a Denver based company that makes mushroom grow kits. One more step in growing your own meds, I have a complete kit that makes growing mushrooms easy at home. Follow along on Youtube and Instagram Sacredthreemushrooms for how to videos and knowledge on mushrooms. Go to www.sacredthreemushrooms.com to order kits and use the coupon code: SALTBAKEDCITY for 10% off your order.
