It Won't Beat Us.

I believe it is a fine time for us all to sit down on our embroidered cushions and have a bit of a pow-wow. Light some candles, take a deep breath, center ourselves, ground our psyches, etc etc etc.

It is a mystery, how we, as humans, continue to subject ourselves to the things that rob us of our joy, contentment, and peace. It isn't like we are ignorant to how these things present themselves or where they come from, right? Comparison, feeding into the vast distraction that is social media, stress, resentment, just to name a few.

However and whenever darkness falls around our lives, it is ESSENTIAL that you understand how to battle that darkness from within yourself. It is so much less about your surroundings, and more about which shelf you reach for in the library of perspectives within your mind.

Hopefully this comes off as encouraging for whoever is reading these words, but you are 100% in control of which perspective is your filter.

I would not hop up onto a top shelf in the Jonesboro Public Library and invest my time in a novel about vampires if I needed a resource for business strategy.

It is what we do though!!!!

And that's about how much sense it makes. Truly. "I need ingredients to make fruit salad!" *buys pasta, toothpaste, and a plunger*

WE HAVE GOT TO STOP BUYING PASTA FOR OUR FRUIT SALADS, PEOPLE.

Two weeks ago, when this virus prominently started showing its tail and making its way downtown... walking fast... faces pass and it's home-bound...

I had a fantastic little panic attack.

What-ifing myself into a stroke. What if it dominates Jonesboro and I contract it? Will my sugars hold up? Can I fight it off? Is that 40% mortality rate of diabetics with COVID-19 true? Am I washing enough? Cleaning enough? Praying enough? Sanitizing enough?

The stress was legitimately going to kill me. A stress bound body is so much less likely to fight off viruses. Stress can actually trigger inflammation. It will ruin you. It is like a fire burning hot inside your mind, where good/authentic emotions and responses are scorched and turned to ash.

In this very moment, I want you to close your eyes. Drop your shoulders. Stretch your arms upward as you inhale as deeply as you can. While your breath is inside your lungs, gather the worries, stresses, and the outcomes that are entirely out of your control inside that breath.

And EXHALE THEM.

You can only do what you can do. Whether a pandemic was on the rise in our country or not, my guess is that there would still be SOMETHING yanking the puppet strings of your soul and depicting your entire attitude about this life. There would be some destructive bomb of inconvenience, pain, or disappointment that you would focus in on. You would be chewing on it like old gum 'til it made your jaws sore and triggered a god-awful headache. It's time to stop giving it your time.

It's a bad season, not a bad life. Okay?

It's about my response, not my circumstances.

If I have learned anything from this (because that's what this should be; a very valuable lesson) it is that the things we give so so so much of our energy to, oftentimes do not give it back. Worry and obsession with control are not profitable investments, understand? You will NEVER land in the red from pouring yourself into good, wholesome, soul-loving things.

Make these moments count with your kids and your family. Make it something they will share with their husbands/wives/kids/grandkids some day. Can you imagine?

Picture this. It's the night of your kids' first snow day of the school year. You've played in the powdery dreamy mess all day. You've had dinner. Hot chocolates in hand, and sticky marshmallow faces. Fireplace crackling it's own little tune behind you.

"Okay, okay. I'll tell the story! Back in 2020, my parents were staring a very strong, angry giant known as COVID-19. It blazed all over the world and took jobs, and even lives! We were all confined to our house for two whole weeks! But we spent hours playing monopoly, watched an old movie called 'Finding Nemo'" *the kids side eye each other, confused* "and we even memorized each others' birthdays and made plans for the following year. We laughed more than we breathed."

A bad season, not a bad life.

We love you all, and wish you so much peace and good outcomes for you and yours.

- Emerald's Triangle LLC.

bon voyage, 2019.

I want to begin this one with a question, if you guys don't mind: How do you measure your year-end success? Are we talking revenue growth? Networth? Likes and shares? Human connection? Economic impact?

These things take a slot on the priority list in a small business, sure. They're good things to take into account, no lie about that. But here's where we're at. I would be lying if I said 2019 wasn't just an all-around wEiRd year for all of us. Between a new store-front in Harrisburg, taking on a new project with Hot Wired, to completely diving in head-first into our new Print Shop, and now the E.T. fam is expecting a perfect baby boy in January - we are so stoked about that one, we can hardly sit still.

Having your hands in multiple small businesses in NEA is a massive hat to wear. But I think I speak for everyone involved when I say, there's no one we would rather gather behind during the storms and quakes of this business. Ralph Emerson once said, "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail." Rich, unknowingly went off the path when he opened Emerald's Triangle in Brookland. And he shamelessly invited us to follow, and join him in leaving that trail behind us.

And here we are, so privileged. Dude... it's been a ride.

A rough one at times - from all of our own personal messes to just the day-to-day of retail & manufacturing struggles. But man, has it been worth it. I personally can not foresee a day when it isn't worth it for us.

No matter what obstacles meet us at the door each day, I believe our community provides us, endlessly, with the opportunity and privilege to serve it. The impact within the walls of these shops is much too great for me to even begin to put into words. One day, it may be a desperate Momma who wants migraine relief for her 11-year-old son, because no child should have to endure that kind of pain and she's tried everything else under the sun.

The next, it may be a college student with crippling anxiety and she has presentations the following week.

And then there are days like today, when a young man steps through the threshold to share his father's diagnosis with pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to the liver.

If the very least we can do is make someone feel better or improve the quality of life for the healthy person, or the person with cancer, nothing else matters.

If the need is met, and exceeded, that is where we rest our worth.

How does Emerald's Triangle LLC. gauge it's success? Lives changed, milestones met and toppled over, connections formed, positive impact, soulful conversation, challenges overcame.

Our hope is that you launch your 2020 with an attitude of confidence, kindness, gratitude, and most importantly, full of hope. Look around us! There is so much more positive change than what is being shared or reported. For crying out loud, cannabis could be legal on a federal level soon!!! And in ARKANSAS, at that... that's big, pal. We have made leaps and bounds beyond so many struggles as a nation, and simply as human beings all together. That's where I'm personally resting my laurels; improvement, hope, and pressing forward with so much grit and resilience, that I'm unrecognizable.

Our wish is that you chase so relentlessly after your goals and dreams.That you look for every opportunity in the mundane day-to-day life to bless others. I promise it will light your soul on fire and fuel you to press on to the next day.

We understand how daunting a new year can seem sometimes - a new set of goals, a new mountain of possibilities that could be for better or for worse. But we assure you, YOU GOT THIS. No matter what comes, it will also GO - so learn from the dark moments and relish in the bright ones.

After all, "There are far greater things ahead than any that we leave behind." - C.S. Lewis.

Godspeed, NEA.

Let's make it count.

- Emerald's Triangle LLC.

An Important Reminder to Our Beloved Cancer Community

First, a message:

Here at Emerald's we are WARRIORS for our cancer sufferers. Ya'll are the real MVP and we get our hands dirty and our minds messy because of a common goal. You guys face monsters and fear straight on every day, with a smile and a vengeance we have yet to experience anywhere else. And for that, we will always fight for you. Always.

If you are here and you don't support the use of cannabis and access to such for cancer patients, this isn't the article for you. Or maybe it is... who knows. But what we DO know is that there is GNARLY evidence backing the benefit. Proven over and over and over again. If the only thing cannabis could do for people is make them feel better (it isn't), then that's still worth something.

If you can't relate to watching or feeling the relief that comes with having cannabis at arms reach during the battle of cancer, you may not be on board with this.

But.

Not only are we on board.

WE ARE STEERING THE DAMN SHIP.

The physical, internal, emotional, spiritual, and mental turmoil that wreaks havoc on a person during what happens to be one of the hardest uphill battles of their lives, it is time to set politics aside and get the real cannabis infused tea here.

First, to laugh, to escape from pain and anxiety, to step outside one’s self and experience a moment of peace, or bliss, or both—what could be more healing? I don't have any clinical research to back this particular claim at the moment. But when you watch your best friend, dad, and comforter need to comforting and relief, and cannabis brings that for him? I don't really care about siting a source as far as that's concerned. I, among others, have witnessed the good it does for cancer sufferers all over the spectrum.

I'm done preaching. Here's some cold, hard, evidence.

The first ever study to show that cannabis exhibits anti-tumor properties was originally designed to demonstrate the plant’s dangers, specifically harm to the immune system. Funded by a grant from the American Cancer Society, research published in 1974 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute showed that mice who had tumors surgically implanted and were then “treated for 20 consecutive days with THC” had reduced primary tumor size.

The government immediately pushed the offending study down the memory hole, and pushed on with the War on Cannabis, but three decades later, Dr. Manuel Guzman, professor of biochemistry at the University of Madrid, managed to follow up on the original 1974 experiments, with similar results. In the March 2000 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, Guzman reported that cannabinoids (like THC) not only shrink cancerous tumors in mice, they do so without damaging surrounding tissues.

A year later, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine for the first time demonstrated the efficacy of THC for nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy.

“A day doesn’t go by where I don’t see a cancer patient who has nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, pain, depression, and insomnia,” Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of hematology-oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco told Newsweek for a 2013 article headlined Marijuana Is a Wonder Drug When It Comes to the Horrors of Chemo. “Cannabis is the only anti-nausea medicine that increases appetite.”

More recently, in 2017, the International Journal of Oncology published a report showing that cannabinoids produced naturally in a cannabis plant possess anti-cancer activity whether used alone or in conjunction with chemotherapy. While according to research by Yale Cancer Center, a majority of pediatric cancer providers now endorse the use of medical cannabis for children with advanced cancer.

Our best advice, whether you are mostly interested in cbd oil offered here at Emerald's or if you decide to begin your own cannabis dosage (with a MMJ card), the key is to titrate your dosage and start small, to get an accurate feel for what is most effective for you. Here is a link to more info about obtaining a medical marijuana card in Arkansas:

https://arkansasprogressivemedicine.net/

Lastly, I would like to take you guys back to why we are even involved to begin with. Why you find MY work among the Emerald's Community. My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in July of 2016. A devastating reality check wrecked through our lives like a high tower of Jenga pieces. Cannabis not only extended his life (as we believe) but made the memories we were so happy to make, endearing and heart-swelling. His good days were better, and his bad days weren't as bad. So here we are, heavily passionate, invested, and in love with the potential of cannabis and cannabinoids all together. Join us in the movement, and feel free to share this content with your pals who may be facing this diagnosis.

All love,

Emerald's Triangle LLC ~Haylie