Rooted in the Flood

By James Bridges, Publisher, Herbage Magazine – 420 2025 Issue

I want to tell you a story.

It begins somewhere in the swelter of the equator. You’d miss it if you blinked. There, tangled in the brackish in-between of saltwater and soil, something wild survives.

Not a beast.
Not a machine.
A tree.

But not the kind you think of when you picture strength. Not a towering oak or a perfectly trimmed pine. This thing is chaos. It’s crooked. It’s low. Its branches look like the knuckles of old fighters. Its roots don’t dive into fertile ground. They reach out, grasping at anything they can wrap around—mud, rock, the roots of others. They hold on.

It’s called the mangrove.

And it is the only thing standing when the water rises.

See, the mangrove doesn’t get to choose calm. It lives in the tide. Every day, swallowed by seawater. Every night, exposed to air. Twice a day, the world tries to drown it. Salt tries to kill it. Storms try to rip it from the earth. But it survives.

Not because it’s lucky. Not because it’s strong. But because it’s connected. Each root joins the next. Each tree is bound by unseen hands. It’s not one plant. It’s an entire system of survival. No ego. No billboard. Just silent resistance, rooted in the flood.

That image haunted me after I watched a documentary about these strange trees. I couldn’t shake it. Not because I care that much about botany. But because, if I’m honest…

It felt like us.

Patients, growers, artists, advocates, hustlers, healers…we’ve been living in a flood for years now. A flood of overregulation. Of shifting laws. Of press releases that don’t speak our language. Of silence when what we needed was a damn shout.

This isn’t the golden age of cannabis. Not yet. This is the mud season—the place between the dream and the death of it. The water’s still rising. And a lot of folks have been washed away.

But not you.

You’re still here.

We’re still here.

Because we’ve started doing what the mangroves do. We hold on to each other. We lean in. We build with roots, not resumes. We don’t scream about our worth—we show it, one small act at a time. One more issue. One more patient helped. One more artist featured. One more story told that no one else dared to write.

This magazine? It isn’t perfect. It doesn’t pretend to be. But it’s here. It’s another root in the network. Another limb holding the tide back just long enough for someone else to breathe.

So if you’re holding this issue in your hands or reading it on your screen… just know: this is more than content. It’s more than weed. It’s more than lifestyle or culture or any of the buzzwords. It’s survival. It’s the connection that keeps the whole damn system alive.

You’re a part of this. And we’re stronger because you are.

Let the storm come.
Let the tide rise.
We’ve seen this flood before.

And we know exactly what to do.

—James