Twenty years ago, shortly after Tina Gordon moved from San Francisco to the enchanting hills of Southern Humboldt, she awoke one night to a voluptuous, cobalt-blue moon. She was transfixed. She made a cup of tea and stepped outside into the graden, bathed in a brilliant sea of blue moonlight. She sat in her cannabis garden, and it hit her:

”How is this magical moonlight affecting these photosensitive plants?”

Gordon, the founder of Moon Made Farms, decided right then she would explore lunar farming to grow better flower.

“I became obsessed with how the night cycle transforms plants—because while everyone’s aware of sunlight during waking hours, the real magic happens at night while everyone’s sleeping,” she said. “No photosynthesis, just pure vegetative and root growth under the moon's reflective light cycles.”

That first year of lunar farming was a full sensory awakening, with lots of trial and error. Finally, she began tuning into nature’s frequencies and recognized that “life is dependent upon interacting living systems; it’s all related.”

WAXING, WANING, AND PULLING

Lunar farming adheres to a 28-day overarching cycle, orchestrated by four distinct moon phases that influence water through gravitational pull. It moves oceans and every drop of water in our bodies and in plants. The phases include waxing, waning, full, and new. This farming technique has been used since the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Sumerians.

“Full-spectrum lunar farming includes the night cycle in perfect balance with day,” Gordon said. “This natural symphony produces a cannabinoid and terpene profile that’s infinitely more complex than any indoor expression can achieve. This complexity affects all your senses.”

For instance, the big difference between full-spectrum sun-grown/moon-grown and indoor is in the flower’s aroma. Lunar farming seems to produce endless layers of bewitching smells. Gordon believes every bud is a gem, and that full-spectrum, regenerative lunar farming produces a longer, more balanced gem of a high—and is a lot healthier for your body, mind, and soul.

HELLA PINK FULL MOON

I decided to try Moon Made’s award-winning Hella Jelly during the April Pink Full Moon, while walking Malibu Beach. The first hit was a cloudburst of tangy citrus, luscious strawberry, and sweet soil. Then came the creative, out-of-this-world bliss, slowly making its way up my spine and into my brain. Not a rocket ship blast to the stars but more of a languid, moonlit tugboat ride.

However, Gordon gave me the heads up: Hella Jelly will take you to the astral plane eventually. And it did, I think. Guided by the pink light rays splashing onto the ocean like plasma paint, I felt positive and inspired, with a mouthful of delicious jam. I had a heightened awareness of my surroundings—and possibilities. Walking the beach with my dog, Pax, I felt as if I was strolling in between time and worlds, sorta like a very lucid dream. Or another dimension: a place of pink-hued optimism, an ebbing tide, childlike wonderment, and not a care in the universe.

Gordon texted me: “How are you doing? Hella Jelly is an absolute dream to cultivate… the mysterious earthy under-funk will make you scrunch your nose.”

Although I wasn’t scrunching my nose, I did feel like I was walking toward the gargantuan pink-swirled marble hanging in the distance and would, in fact, attempt to board it. It seemed so close, sitting right there, silent, in a basin of purple cottontail clouds, not unlike the plump, neon-green Hella Jelly buds gloriously coated in reddish-pink hairs and starry white crystal trichomes.

If I could only make it to that dazzling, ruddy object before the sun came up, anything was possible.

The moon has long occupied a place in the human imagination that is far greater than science, myth, or spectacle. It conjures memories—at once familiar and mysterious. Antediluvian priests, hidden mystery schools, farmers, and ancient bloodlines understood that the moon played a role within larger patterns of movement, frequency, geometry, timing, influence, and communication.

And now cannabis.

As I walked and puffed, a nest of dark figures encircling a small fire appeared. One said: “Mmmm...you smell good.” I stopped and partook with the fellow moon watchers. Not only did they love the berry jam taste, most felt a renewed energy, focus, and creativity. After a big drag, one of them gave me the skinny on the full Pink Moon:

This full moon gives us the opportunity to restore harmony in our lives and open our hearts to new adventures, new beginnings, and heightened awareness of the possibilities. But most importantly, it’s even more powerful than the Wolf Moon, Snow Moon, and Worm Moon when it comes to manifesting.

Wolf Moon? Snow Moon? Worm Moon? I continued on my way.

The sativa-dominant hybrid has a generous 33% THC and a symphony of tropical aromas. The dominant terpenes—caryophyllene, myrcene, humulene—are bold, spicy, and analgesic.

Pungent. Dreamy. Relaxing.

In fact, I’m so relaxed that if a snarling, fire breathing dragon emerged from the moon and came my way, I think I’d be more intrigued than scared. While that didn’t happen, and I never made it to the lunar boarding dock, I sat on the beach and took it all in: a magnificent, moody, kaleidoscopic tableau of pink, purple, and bruise-blues, soft waves lapping the sand, a pack of coyotes shrieking in the darkness of the hills, and the cherubic, cherry-citrus plumes of Hella Jelly perfuming it all.

I sat there wondering: Will Tina Gordon be the first person to grow cannabis on the moon?

CANNABIS ON THE MOON

A few days later, I checked in with Gordon. She was over-the-moon about my experience. She asked a bunch of questions and then said:

“I think of the moon as our guide, our source, the ultimate elder. I do not believe there would be life on the planet without the moon. Therefore, we are all.... moon made.”

To be sure, it makes sense that Gordon is creating some of the most vibrant cannabis strains using regenerative lunar farming (she uses only rainwater). Gordon’s always had a deep, unrequited love for the moon. All her life, she would catch flirty glimpses of full moons, a sort of energetic seduction, or calling, that’s grown over the years, culminating in Moon Made Farms.

“I thought the moon was fun and sexy but the only awareness I had of the moon’s effect was pulling all-nighters under full moons,” she said. “It has been the relationship to cultivating cannabis that brought me into the awareness and tangible daily effect the moon has on all of life.”

Moon Made Farms’ sun-grown, moon-blessed flower has been dubbed: out-of-this-world small-batch regenerative craft cannabis.

I’d say that is pretty accurate.

And what about growing cannabis on the moon?

“Who doesn’t dream of getting high on the moon and bouncing around in low gravity?!” Gordon says with a laugh. “But growing it? I’d rather bring Moon Made flower to the moon than try to recreate Earth’s perfection up there.”

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ERBA Pico, 12320 W Pico Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90064 ErbaMarkets.com

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Rise Pasadena, 908 E Colorado Boulevard Pasadena, CA 91106 RiseCannabis.com

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Green Goddess Collective 1716 Main Street Venice, CA 90291 GreenGoddessCollective.com