About the Author & Owner of Shakti Blissful Botanicals
Updated: Jun 15
Renee Boje is Canada's 1st Cannabis Refugee from the US who was granted Canadian Citizenship. Renee Boje's case was a high profile case for 10 years & garnered a great deal of media attention as she devoted herself whole heartedly to cannabis activism declaring that it was the birth right of all humans to have access to cannabis & all of the Plants of the Earth. She spoke out about how the War on Drugs has been going on since the Dark Ages & is actually a War against Mother Nature, specifically targeting her Plant Spirit Medicines & a war on higher consciousness.
While fighting for her freedom, Renee opened the first Entheogen Shop in Vancouver BC called Urban Shaman Entheobotanicals. In 2006 she sold her shop & went on to create Shakti Botanicals, a well known alternative community hub on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, where one could enjoy a blissful herbal infused aphrodisiac pie or purchase a consciousness expanding elixir.
View Video Interviews of Renee speaking about her Cannabis Refugee case & the creation of her 1st Entheogen shop in the Gallery below.
After her Cannabis Refugee case was resolved, Renee was asked by a spiritual teacher in Brazil to build a Plant Spirit Churchin Vancouver from the ground up & to facilitate ceremonies in that tradition. He left some simple instructions on how to hold the ceremonies & some sacrament in her fridge. Although Renee was surprised that spirit had quite suddenly dropped a huge responsibility in her lap, she had many dreams & spiritual visions before even coming to Canada showing her that she would embark on such a path which would lead her to her destiny. Renee facilitated Plant Spirit Medicine ceremonies for 10 years at this church.
Before facilitating her first ceremony, Renee decided it was important to learn more & to immerse herself in indigenous Brazilian Plant Spirit Medicine traditions. One day when Renee was deep in the force of a Plant Spirit Medicine Ceremony, a song was sung that was not like the other songs she had been learning and singing in Portuguese. This song was clearly in another language and had a frequency to it that Renee felt on a cellular level. After the song was shared Renee learned it was a sacred song sung by the Yawanawa Tribe in Brazil. Renee knew with every fibre of her being she needed to go there to meet this tribe and learn from them.
Little did Renee know that as soon as she got off the boat and arrived in the Yawanawa village, she would meet with her destiny. Not long after her arrival, she was greeted by a woman who was to become her spiritual mother, Putanny Yawanawa.
Putanny, along with her sister, Hushahu were the first women to become shamans in the Yawanawa Tribe, located in the Brazilian Amazon. . In some of her writings, Renee has described the profound healings she received in the Jungle with Putanny as her guiding light & the past life connection that she and Putanny shared memories of when they reunited in this lifetime.
Since Renee's transformative experience in the Yawanawa Village, she has dedicated herself to building a rainbow bridge between the Sunshine Coast of Canada & the Yawanawa Tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. She carries a deep Love & Profound reverence for the Yawanawa lineage, their Saitis (Sacred songs) & traditions & hopes to do all she can to help preserve these sacred traditions & the immense spiritual wisdom contained within them.
Renee currently resides on the Sunshine Coast of BC, where she runs a Women's Plant Spirit Medicine Church & operates Shakti Blissful Botanicals, a herbal boutique specializing in blissful & consciousness expanding herbal medicines. Renee currently offers Spiritual Counseling & Spiritual Herbal Alchemy Workshops for women both online & locally in person on the Sunshine Coast of BC through her practice, Plant Spirit Medicine
In her spare time Renee loves working on a book she is creating on Entheogens and their connection with the divine feminine throughout history.
In Renee's own words; "Women carry within their cellular memory the ability to birth spirit into matter. I believe the Mystical Divine Feminine is re-emerging in order to help Mother Earth in her rebirthing process. The Goddess is reclaiming Earth again to remind us that all of life is sacred and has a divine purpose. The Priestesses of Mother Earth understand that she is the body of the Goddess. The divine feminine has a deep connection with the spirit of Gaia. When we wake up to our divinity, recognize the divinity of the Earth, expand our consciousness and deepen our capacity to Love, we have the ability to co-create Heaven on Earth once again. Respect for Mother Earth is deeply interwoven with respect for the divine feminine for she is the matrix of creation. Our planet and all of life upon it depends on humanity's ability to uplift the feminine in her role as the matrix of creation, for it is through her that all things are born and re-born."
Renee believes "The more we reconnect with Mother Nature and commune with her Herbal plant medicine Queendom the closer we are to remembering our own divinity & co-creating Heaven on Earth once again! As above so below