“I have always wanted to be a healer. I am thankful I stayed out of a system of brainwashing and looked for truth in natural plant medicine.”
Chapter one
The Roots
I grew up Southern Baptist in Tennessee in the ’70s and ’80s. Back then cannabis was talked about the same way alcohol and hard drugs were. Wicked. Dangerous. Sinful. I remember those “this is your brain on drugs” commercials with the egg frying in the pan like it was yesterday.
I had never been given another perspective. No frame of reference to even suspect it might not be the whole truth. I have always been the black sheep, though. Always questioning things I was just expected to accept.
What hit me hardest was realizing cannabis had been used as medicine since the beginning of recorded history. The demonization of this plant was not about protecting people. It was about suppression, profit, and control.
“That was the beginning for me. Not the end of my faith. The beginning of searching for truth more deeply.”
Chapter two
The Discovery
When I met Paul and found out where he came from, what he believed, and how he was raised, I broke up with him. The Ethiopian Zion Coptic tradition, cannabis as sacrament, a spiritual lineage: I had no framework for any of it, coming from where I came from..
But I missed him. So I prayed about it. And the answer my Father gave me was simple: what difference does it make?
My faith has not weakened through any of this. It has deepened. Truth is a spirit. When you hear it, it resonates in you. Paul and I are polar opposites in almost every way. But our strengths fill each other’s weaknesses. Different roads. Same truth.
“We decided not to let our differences create division. We chose cohesion instead.”
Chapter Three
The Body. The Work. The Mission.
I was in nursing school when Paul’s father got sick. What I saw inside the hospital system during those months was not a failure of the people working in it. What I could not unsee was the system itself. A number, not a human being. Symptoms treated, not causes addressed.
This is not theoretical for me. Spine and neck injuries. A cervical fusion. Years of chronic pain. I know what it feels like from the inside.
After thousands of conversations, I know something the wellness industry still largely does not understand. Pain closes people. It isolates them. But when you can give someone even a fraction of relief and a measure of hope alongside it, they can finally hear you.
“I have always wanted to be a healer. I am thankful I stayed out of a system of brainwashing and looked for truth in natural plant medicine.”
Chapter Four
The Farm. Colorado. Who I Am Now.
When the 2018 Farm Bill passed, Paul saw what others missed. Not just a market. A mission. We moved to Banner, Illinois. We broke ground: Paul and I, his seventy-year-old mother, and his brother Luke. Fifteen thousand seedlings, planted by hand.
The name was not an accident. Banner is where we started. And the word banner means excellence.
I do not think of Banner Harvest as just a business. To me, it is ministry, education, advocacy, and relationship all wrapped into one thing.
“I believe I have been placed where I am for a reason: to share truth and give hope. I believe every person who walks through our doors is there for a reason. Not luck. Not coincidence. A divine appointment.”
Yolanda ImOberstag
Co-Founder, Banner Harvest LLC
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