NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
Rhiana Hernandez is a Brooklyn-based, American Culinary Federation-certified pastry chef and a culinary cannabis educator (most recently at Kingsborough Community College). They destigmatize cannabis by showcasing how it can be integrated deliciously into culinary and wellness practices.
Known for their business under the name K O K U J I N, Rhiana creates eclectic and unconventional flavor pairings. Their recipes are rooted in their Caribbean heritage and celebrate Asian intricate details, while focusing on providing a thoughtful luxe experience that caters to various diets and palates.
They specialize in incorporating the plant into self-care routines and everyday cooking, teaching workshops on intentional cannabis use and creating recipes for infused goods, as well as in-store cooking demonstrations.
You can find some of their recipes on their substack Edible Nonsense.
Next event(s): 1/29 - Bridge and Tunnel Brewery with Baby Got Back Talk
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity by Solonje Burnett, Weed Auntie. Watch the teaser.
WA = Weed Auntie
RH = Rhiana Hernandez
WA: Can you tell us your name, preferred pronouns, and what you do for work/passion.
RH: My name is Rhiana Hernandez. I go by They/Them. I am a cannabis chef and educator, and welcome to the Sweet Spot.
WA: Our paths crossed through cannabis education and events, both at weed auntie and our time on the CUNY Culinary Cannabis Advisory Board, but never knew what propelled you into infused baking as a pastry chef. Tell me about it.
RH: It was selfishness. I am very picky about the pastries I like to eat. I'm picky about shit in general. I like to experiment a lot and the first edible I ever tasted was horrible and it really bothered me. I remember so distinctly, we put seven grams of flour into a cup of butter or two cups of butter and we threw it into a brownie mix. I just was enraged at the fact that we spent hours going through this whole process making this butter and it was a whole labor of love. We put it in something that just didn't taste very good and then I had such an extreme experience— like psychologically and physiologically. I cried. And it didn't make sense. So I figured there's no reason for this and I should just make things from scratch. It's just butter. Butter goes in everything. I was 19 when that happened and I haven't had a box mix since. Except one where I did – a sponsorship. Except I had to get paid for it.
WA: I love that like me, you are an island babe with your Jamaican and Puerto Rican heritage. Does that influence your creative process and art? What other cultures show up in your creations and flavor pairings?
RH: I learned most of my cooking from my grandmas, on both sides, which I actually just learned recently that my grandmother didn't start cooking for her family until she moved from Jamaica to America and that's when she learned how to make all of these dishes. I'm now the one responsible for keeping track of all these dishes because I do what I do. One of the first couple recipes that I tried learning and showing to my family was how to make infused sorrel and coquito. I learned how to make curry goat and infuse that. Then I'd show her ways to add things to patties— just little accessible things that I already knew how to do that I knew tasted good to just want to add a little magic to it.
Outside of that, I do love Japanese, Korean and Chinese cooking so much. I find that their attention to detail when it comes to their desserts, for celebration or even if it's just a simple strawberry shortcake. The lines are clean. The process is very intricate and detailed. It's almost like a video game in real life. I really like that puzzle solving kind of activity so it scratches an itch that also is really tasty. I get cake after.
WA: Has anyone ever judged you or labeled you for consuming weed whether in your family or professionally?
RH: All the time. It's never stopped. Let me take that back. It’s stopped a little bit now that I made it my entire job. People see I don't do anything crazy illicit but my whole life it's been people asking “why are you smoking weed?” But I always did things very well professionally. I got my shit done and they couldn't really get on me about it. So I would just do dumb shit all the time. I was always high. Now it's lessened because I have this acquired background of education where I can smoke a giant blunt and say, “Here's all the different types of terpenes that will help you go to sleep or help you with your knee problem or help you be more active during the day when you want to take a nap.” Screw off with your terrible opinion — But I just kind of take that pushback as an opportunity to be like, “Well, actually. There's much more to what you assume. And it's better. And you're wrong.”
WA: You mentioned a little bit about how your heritage influences your work and how you incorporate recipes from your grandmother, have you shared infused items with elders and people in the community or was this more for your personal you know edible process?
RH: It was more for my personal edible process for sure. I have given edibles to my family. On a very, very, very cautious basis, just because I don't want to make their experience really bad by having it be very strong and they get overwhelmed, but I also don't want them to think it's not something useful that they can use in their life.
For example, one time I made coquito for my grandmother on my father's side. She has a lot of chronic illnesses. I remember I used an infused agave and said, “'Just drink this and go to bed. Don't do anything. Don't touch anything.” I think she ended up knocking out for the first time, cold. And it was good because she has a lot of pains and aches and whatnot. And she was like, “Oh, I really passed out, I slept really well.” It made it accessible for her, and I figured if I did it like that, it would be easier for her to digest. Whereas conversely, I did it with my mom and I gave her a Camino gummy.
She wanted to be cool and say, ‘'Oh, I don't feel anything. It's whatever.” So I made Jamaican curry and put it on some popcorn and said, “Try this little snack.” I don't feel anything. And I give her a brownie that I made. I think at the time, if I'm adjusting for weed inflation or before drug math times, it had to be like 50 milligrams. And I said, ‘Please eat this in eights, cut it really tiny and slow and don't go crazy. It's potent.” She didn't listen. She ate a lot. It is just like a thing that I have with my mom where if you make something too fucking good for her, she'll eat it.
Using that vehicle of food to give back, because it was always a thing with my family, celebrations were around food, big events were around food, gifts were food. I think it's more just the edible consumption aspect of having to give her some— it was a lot.
WA: Getting into dosing. Most make edibles for potency, others like SASS do it for functional wellbeing, what drives your culinary focus?
RH: There's so many different types of consumers these days. The population of new consumers I feel is starting to come to a point where it's outgrowing the seasoned ones, which is fine. I'm really happy about that. When I think about how I dose my edibles, It's always on a person by person basis. Because not everyone is the same. Not everyone wants to take 50 milligrams to the face and then try and go about their day like I'm trying to do because I'm crazy. But some folks may have higher needs than others. I just try to accommodate that because there are so many more people eating weed nowadays. I want to make sure they all have something. Not just trying to either eat an entire container of gummies to feel something, because they have a high tolerance, or they have to cut a single piece of cookie into 10 pieces, because they have really low tolerance. Everyone has your own allocation.
WA: Making edibles has always been a part of Queer history and wellbeing, do you consider your work activism and has anyone in particular inspired you along the way?
RH: I do consider it activism. I find that it's really important that this information is widely shared and not just guesses and suggestions by people who may not have really researched the importance of what's going on. I was lucky enough to be certified by an organization and go through a college course that is unfortunately no longer funded because of unfortunate environmental influences, but I have it. I can share it. It's really easy to get on the phone and be like, “Here's how you do this. Here's the math thing. Just have it.” Because people are gonna consume weed, regardless of legality, they're going to find a way. We found a way to do abortions, we found a way to smoke weed, we found a way to do crack. It just is what it is. If I can just have some kind of hand in making it safe and accessible for people, so they are not having a bad experience that contributes to the negative connotations of cannabis, then yes.
There are some chefs that I've worked with personally that have inspired me. Chala June is a big one. That was my first infused dinner that I made desserts for a larger group of people, but also I like listening to the way that they work around food and the stories they put behind their food. I thought that was really beautiful and it made me change the way I saw my food and what I was trying to explain to people.
Another chef who I was just at his pop-up makes amazing food and I've worked with him as well is PapiTropical. He is another person who tells these incredible stories of family and cultural history through his food, but he also allowed me a chance to fuck around with other cultures and other foods that are also within my culture, within the diaspora of Latine food. And that was important for me. I am grateful for their influences in at least shaping me, making my food more interesting and telling a better story.
WA: How long have you been cooking with cannabis and since your start how have you seen it evolve? What would you like to see that has yet to happen locally and nationally?
RH: Okay, I'm gonna count that very first time I made those fucking brownies and I was 19. Oh wow. A real disgustingly long time— at least like 10, 12 years— not professionally, considerably, but like I've been fucking around with cannabis and food for a long ass time. I will say professionally for five years because that's when I started selling shit out of my apartment and making money for it.
I'm really glad to see it evolve from just “here's how you make butter. You put it in the box mix,” It was always these close-minded ideas. And it's grown into: “Here's how you can make brown butter infused. Here's how you can make chocolate infused, 'Here's how to temper chocolate to make sure it doesn't ruin the cannabis.”
When I was researching originally, I would still always find these pockets of people who were doing these experiments and playing around with food like this. I've also seen those people grow into what are now some of the bigger names in cannabis, like Chef Nikki and Chef for Higher. All these people have a legacy. And now, in the current market, you've got butter with infused ghee and infused cookie butter and you have infused coconut oil and vegan gluten-free gummies and chocolate. I saw a sour gummy rope the other day and I was like, oh shit, this is great. It's starting to grow in other states. You see different types of snacks being created and I'm happy about that. I'm also glad to see other infrastructures built that can allow for cannabis bakeries like you see in Chicago.
I'm glad to see that there's more more of a focus on conscious consumption, not we're gonna get fucked up and we have to get it all to the face right now as quickly, as efficiently as possible. It's like, no, you can have this really cute strawberry cheesecake swirl and it's 50 milligrams. You can split with a friend and you can also have an infused tea with it and a joint. The freedom is what I'm looking forward to. The freedom and the creativity for James Beard level restaurants, hopefully. Nah, I'm just going to put it out there. I would love for there to be James Beard level restaurants that are either centered around cannabis or involve it or at least teach something that is good with it.
WA: Who are your fave folks at the intersection of cannabis and culinary arts?
RH: Okay. Big fan of Chef Miguel Trinidad. He was also on the board of the program that I took and taught at. I've been to his restaurant Marie's. We used to do our final classes there. I definitely described him as a JoJo character because he is very humble, so full of knowledge, but you also know that because he's full of knowledge, there's this level of like [exclaims in fan girl], so it's very interesting to listen to him speak. And he makes an infused lamb ragu that is delicious. Delicious. It was the best part of the end of the class. I do need to get to his other restaurant because Marie’s isn't around anymore. But I look forward to that.
Another person I like is Christina W. From Fruit and Flower Co. She has a great substack where she posts information about different pieces she uses, cannabis consumption, wellness, and she gives a lot of information about like cultivation out in California. She also makes these really cute cookies. I actually, I feel like I have an interesting parasocial relationship with her because we've shared a couple comments and we follow each other's substacks. And she had a post where she was talking about a new book by Kat Liu, who's making a new cookie cookbook specifically. and I asked for it as a Christmas gift and I know she got it and she started posting her substack and I'm like, 'I wouldn't give to be in California to just try to just talk about this for 10 minutes. So yeah, we bond over cookies a lot. I hope we get to share one, one day.
WA: Professional pastry chef, educator, influencer, musician — tell me a bit about that last note? Baby Got Back Talk!
RH: Baby Got Back Talk. The most moisturized punk band since 2017. That's actually a funny thing because we are really all moisturized. Whenever we go on tour, every single one of us has at least two, like, lotion, Vaseline,, sunscreen. I bring a lot. In our gig bags. We really care about being pretty. I've been in Baby Got Back Talk for oh my god, like at least 10 years. We've traveled all over this country. I've been in the Midwest. We do at least a tour or a mini tour every year, and it's a pop punk band.
We're a pop punk band that I met the main singer through a childhood friend, and our other guitarist through Craigslist. And we just bonded. We sing a lot about social justice issues, about issues plaguing minorities. Living in a society burning down while also holding down a job or being a baker. And it's really fun. It's really important to me to be surrounded by people that can know about me on a personal level and also call me out on my shit in a way that's constructive. And you do that really well when you're in a music group because you’re constantly expressing yourself with music and it helps you form good relationships really well.
So I love them and one of them's having a baby and I'm very happy for them because we're all having these growing life experiences all tied to music. I've played two instruments with them. I started playing violin and then I picked up the synthesizer. So I just be doing noodley shit all the time.
WA: We love a creative baddie. All day. What’s your preferred way to consume cannabis and how does it affect your craft?
RH: I love smoking. I love rolling it. I love the whole click click click. I like everything. It's all a whole process that every step seems the same and it's really nice. Maybe it just appeals to the arts and crafts thing I enjoy. I especially love using pretty papers.
How does that affect my work? I don't smoke when I cook, that's definite, but I do try to consume whatever I'm putting in my food first, so I know what to expect. That helps a lot, especially if it's something that may come with an additional flavor. Which I learned the hard way when I was working in a bakery and we had a distillate that was watermelon flavored. And we didn't realize the watermelon flavor would carry into the actual baked good, which was cinnamon rolls. It was a cinnamon roll bundt cake. And you know what? I will be so honest. It worked! It was the most eclectic piece that we had made, but it definitely taught me that sometimes things have extra flavors and you gotta just check them occasionally.
What I also do is keep adjacent to what kind of edibles are out there, especially the vegan ones and the gluten-free ones, because I like to make sure there are gluten-free options. So I try and taste what is available and see what flavors they're doing but also to see what the effects and aftertaste is like. For example, there are some gummies where I'll have them and the next day, I feel like they just have an interesting taste in the end. I think about that when I cook. So when I test it, I try to have my food usually when I go to bed so I wake up and see, does it have that weird after taste? Is it the same? Can we edit? Paranoid. Everything I do makes me, gives panic.. Smoking gives me paranoia. It all gives me anxiety.
WA: Nah, just testing and perfecting. Testing ‘til perfection. Love it.
RH: Haha, testing and perfection. Yeah!
WA: Speaking of smoking, getting NASA, who would be in your dream sweet sesh? Queer icons, people who are living, deceased, whoever.
RH: I have gone over this question so many times and I think I think I've got it locked down. Niohuru, who is in the Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, but I'm bad at seasons, so you can't quote me. But, incredible artist Bianca Del Rio because I want her to read me for filth and I think we'd have great jokes. Sylvia Rivera. I would definitely want to have some tea with Sylvia Rivera. If we're also, I'm not sure if you're smoking, also so I'm just going to assume these are all adults. I would also say Pim from the Smiling Friends, because I want to have that big, giant blueberry, because I can imagine that it must be great for pie. Mako Mankanshoku from Kill La Kill. She's obsessed with food. She's super funny, and at the end she asks the main character out on a date, which was one of the first like queer relationships I saw in anime outside of Sailor Neptune and Uranus. Oh my gosh. HAHAHAHAHAHA I like one.
WA: What’s your favorite thing to do high?
RH: Ooh. Apparently, I love to either pass out for the entire day or I fill my entire day with so many things. That I don't stop. It's one or the other. I'll either be high and think. Okay, I kind of have energy or I'm zoning out. Kind of wait, let me rephrase. That's not that's not logical at all. I'll get really high. and I'll be like, I need to be productive to make this high feel good and not fall into some laziness or whatnot. I need to do a good thing. I need to be a good person and do stuff. And then I'm busy the entire day filling my shit with nonsense and I've gone on 20 side quests and Yeah, sometimes it's fun.
WA: Your favorite thing to do high is go on a SideQuest? HAHA!
RH: Yeah! Go on SideQuest. All the fucking time.
One of my best side quests I ever did was I went out to get well, we went, I went drifting with a friend and then we ended up getting ramen and I met a vendor who was vending at a weed event nearby and I showed up at that event and then I ended up getting work.
We love a side quest that ends in money.
WA: Money is always good. We love to partner with you, and we're excited there's a recipe that you're going to share with us. Can you tell us about it?
RH: So I have a couple different recipes. I'm doing this one for a holiday party and I'm super excited about it. It's a mango chamoy bar, like mango chamoy curd bar. I'm making a pie just to see if everything can be stable, because I like to do a test. But what it basically is, is a lemon bar structure that I show how to make a homemade chamoy and how to swirl it in, like one of those mango natas like you find in Mexico. It's cold now. I like to have warm flavors or at least pretend I'm in a tropical place when it's 30 degrees. Just manifesting for the summer.
Recipe by Rhiana Hernandez
WA: Beautiful. What do you have coming up that you want to share with the community? Any workshops or events where people can find you?
RH: You can always book me for classes online if you want to learn how to do infused recipes, how to change one or make something new to fit a different dietary restriction or lifestyle. I play with my band a lot, and I'm doing a show at Bridge and Tunnel in January, I believe, on the 29th, but I'll send you a confirmation. I'll make sure the right date is out, but we will be at Bridge and Tunnel next month. And I'll also likely be doing some workshops with The Travel Agency. Their workshop program is growing. Hopefully, I'll be in your living room if you want to book with me. Thank you.
Stay in touch: Instagram | Substack
MAKING SPACE TO CREATE A MINDFUL LIFE
Tara Rook grew up immersed in Tibetan Buddhist practice, surrounded by teachings that emphasized compassion, awareness, and the art of being present. Over the years, she has continued to learn from a wide range of teachers, traditions, and life experiences. She began sharing her practice through leading guided mediations, hosting & participating community wellness events & retreats around the world, creating immersive visual art and ambient music as engaging tools for your meditative journeys.
Love Land, Tara’s virtual mediation studio, was born from her wish to create a space where all of that wisdom could meet—a sanctuary not tied to any single religion or philosophy, but open to everyone. A place where mindfulness, creativity, and community come together to nurture peace, alignment, and connection. Love Land is both personal and collective: it’s the sanctuary Tara longed for on her own journey, and now it’s here for you too.
This is a full transcript from a live interview for The Sweet Spot. It has been edited and condensed for clarity by interviewer + community healer, HIERO. Watch a part of our interview.
H = HIERO
T = Tara Rook
H: Tell us your name, preferred pronouns, and what your calling is.
T: My name is Tara Rook, and my pronouns are she/her/hers. My calling in life is to help as many people as possible, whether that's through meditation or the arts, different types of forms of healing like body work, energy work, and to help people be in the present moment. I hope to guide them out of their daily suffering. Whatever that means in their life, to bring them to a moment of peace and calm and presence.
My meditation studio, Love Land, is a place to create a mindful life. My music, Just Milk, is an electronic music project where I produce and compose electronic music. I sing over both ambient and experimental beats. I curate DJ sets and curate gatherings as well.
And then finally, I have my artwork, which I either use for the different elements I have, like the meditation studio, meditation offerings, designing things to help my mission. And I also sell art prints and have commission-based work.
Tara at COMMUNE, where she hosts a monthly Meditation Club
H: What were your family’s views on healing practices outside of the Western context and specifically plant medicines?
T: That's such a good question. This is something I've been thinking about a lot in terms of healing. I wasn't raised to think of meditation as healing. I was raised to think of it as a practical tool in your daily life; as practical as brushing your teeth or drinking water. It’s something that you just do–every day. However, there are definitely healing benefits to meditating and different styles of meditating. But growing up was never seen as a healing element.
As for my family, we didn't really practice a lot of alternative medicine growing up. I would say we had a lot of very nourishing food in my home. We weren't really allowed to drink a lot of soda or eat really unhealthy foods. I had a diet of vegetarianism, which was my own calling as well. Influenced by my two older sisters, I started at age nine. But I would say just being exposed to alternative modalities of, maybe it's healing, or practical practices like meditation already just naturally expanded me. Growing up Tibetan Buddhist, I was always around it.
It's really hard to even think of any sort of difference that my life would have been if I hadn't. It just exposed me to this different world in general, this different alternate reality than we have in Western society. That it's really hard to even see a separation sometimes of how body and mind work together.
H: What advice do you give to people who say they “can’t meditate”?
T: When someone says they “can't” or “don't” meditate. Yeah, I feel like I “can't” is more of the word that I hear. I really try to encourage them to practice for like two to three minutes because a lot of times meditation is not what people think it is. It's not even what you might think it is after doing it a couple of times.
The act of meditating is the time you choose to sit and train your mind to be present. Sometimes you get these moments of clarity or bodhicitta, an enlightened mind, which is essentially a flash of stillness or a flash of being completely awake. You might start to enter the state of samadhi, or bliss, but the actual meditation is the time you spend training your mind to be present in whatever way you choose to train that in. Whether it's focusing on the breath or focusing on a part of the body while doing a body scan or focusing on a sound.
So if you can just sit for two minutes and focus on your breath, even if you have a thought that comes up during those two minutes, that's okay. Just come back, focus on the breath. There, you meditated.
H: Why do you think so many people feel that meditation is inaccessible to them?
T: I think a lot of people are just scared to sit with themselves.
I think a lot of people are used to being distracted. You know, this isn't something that's new. It's not because we have more technology now. No, this is why meditation has been around for thousands of years, because humans have always been distracted by something. This isn't like a new phenomenon. This is a practical tool for any state of where our society is, whether we have phones to distract us or not. But I think ultimately, we are really scared of being able to sit with ourselves, to sit with the thoughts that come up, the feelings, to not react to things. Even an itch on your body, to choose to sit through that and sit through the discomfort is such a big challenge that people don't want to face.
Why would we face that? Because ultimately, when you are able to sit through the pain and suffering, you can cultivate a life of more joy. You can cultivate a life of more love and kindness, which are not things that don't magically appear. They're always there. You just have to get through the gunk to let them shine out.
H: Although oftentimes, our biggest inspirations and realizations come from a place of boredom, how do you engage people enough to get them to see the value in sitting through a 30-minute meditation session?
T: It's really important to guide someone through things like how to sit correctly, and how to land into their body. Having that somatic relationship is so important. Integrating things like more mindful-based practices like walking, meditation, or yoga, or movement, or even a little bit of dance can help. It's a huge somatic bridge to get someone to settle their body into meditation. Art is like a key because there is a lot of visceral and somatic reaction to artwork and music. Whether you're super tapped into that or not, it's already there. And I think healing modalities like Thai body work or energy work are really on that bridge.
Having a guide or a teacher is so important in that sense of being able to remind people you can stay here, you got this, you can settle your body right now. Accessibility is one of the things that I hope to grow in the space with my virtual studio. I know that the people who show up regularly to practice don't have that community around them where they are. You don't even need a computer. You can use a phone and, like, put on the meditation and settle in.
H: What is your relationship with cannabis? Has it evolved?
T: I've gone through phases in my life where I use it more, whether it's for specific intentional purposes or just consuming it more for fun or leisure. And I've used it topically a lot as well, especially for like physical ailments. I have found that as I get older, I tend to lean away from cannabis in my day-to-day.
Other plant medicines are something that I'm exploring more and more every day. Like right now, I'm cutting caffeine out. I love using what I already know with plant medicine and my relationship with it in the past, which is learning from trying different plants that something might energize me more.
A lot of it is understanding where I'm at in my life and if I know it's going to help or hurt whatever my situation is. So yeah, I would say my relationship with plant medicines is always developing and always growing where I can integrate them more into my life for different purposes. With cannabis, it's the same.
H: Does consuming cannabis hurt or aid in your meditation practice?
T: I find that, not that it hurts, but that it's not necessary. I think that this also goes back to my childhood roots with meditation where I was taught to not combine any substances with meditation. So for a very long time, for I guess it would be like 16 years of my life before I first started using cannabis, that my meditation practice never incorporated that. Since that time I was starting to use cannabis socially as a younger person into my adulthood and also not getting the best quality of cannabis at that time, maybe not really knowing much about what I was using. It just never was something that I weaved together.
However, I have found there have been times where I've used cannabis and have gone into amazing, deep relaxation states that have been so transformative. While that's not like a sitting meditation practice, it is a time where I have found really, really transformative experiences by using cannabis, being still, focusing on my breath, doing body scans, and just going really deep.
H: What other plant medicines do you reach for to go deep? What is your favorite way to consume plant medicines for daily practical use?
Similarly to cannabis, with mushrooms, whether that's psychedelic or not psychedelic, I’ve had experiences that do really help me to drop in. I've explored tea ceremonies or like cacao ceremonies where you're really able to sit with the plants and feel that shift. Plants can help with that bridge and that integration as well.
But, yeah, I love brewed stuff like cacao, tea… Oh, capsules and tinctures I like a lot too.
H: Who would be in your dream elevated meditation sesh? People who are living, deceased, whoever.
T: Georgia O'Keeffe, David Lynch, Jeff Buckley, Bjork, David Bowie, Frank Ocean. Mm-hmm. Honestly, my family, I would love them, like my parents and my sisters. Debussy would be cool too, like Claude Debussy, like what's his mind like? You know, being able to sit with someone like that.
H: So you’re an ambient sound DJ, a meditation guide, a visual artist, a community leader, and so much more! What is the thread that you believe ties all of these paths together?
T: The thread is connection. Let me just say, if I could only do one thing, it would be to teach meditation. So, that is the thread. Helping people to connect to themselves, to let go, to be present, to grow, to expand.
H: What are some challenges you’ve faced in bringing your offerings to life? What are some ways that you've circumvented this to be able to sustainably and consistently give to your community, as you do?
T: Some obstacles and challenges, definitely financial. Money, that's always a big, big challenge in community work. It’s kind of getting out of that trapped mindset of I don't have enough money to do that. There's money out there and it's there for you. You just have to be open to receiving it and trusting that you're going to use it for something that's good and to make an impact. Another thing is focus. Holding a vision for what you want is super important and to be able to come back to that, but knowing as well that you can rest in between it and you don't always have to go, go, go.
I love flyering and in-person networking and physical marketing tactics. I have a whole list of community boards all around New York. Doing pop-ups is also really great. Obviously you can make sales there too but you're also networking and marketing yourself and building brand awareness which has helped a lot is overcoming the obstacles that i mentioned.
H: What’s next for Love Land and your personal offerings through Tara Rook Studios? Is there anything else you would like to emphasize?
T: Next for Love Land is continuing to develop this virtual platform where meditation can feel really accessible and you can connect in community and with the teachers. Something that I would love to really start building is more of the arts element, like building a music program for meditation music and ambient music that is directly aligned with Love Land. Then, eventually, finding a brick and mortar place to be able to fold everything together in a physical realm. So hopefully that's in a couple years, location TBD. Right now, I'm really pushing for more like pop-up sanctuaries, which I'm calling them where people can come listen to ambient music and be in connection. So those are things, and just continuing to keep building in my mission of Love Land being a place to create a mindful life.
Stay in touch: Follow Tara on Instagram | Join Love Land | Explore Upcoming Events
