By now, you’ve heard of California’s ganja-growing, pot-smoking nuns known as the Sisters of The Valley.
Maybe you watched the 2018 documentary “Breaking Habits,” saw them in Forbes and CNBC or caught their depiction as the “Sisters of the Brave Beaver” in the 2025 film “One Battle After Another.”
The Sisters of the Valley are not affiliated with the Catholic Church. Instead, their order is modeled after the Beguines, a group of women in the Middle Ages who formed communities that practiced a life of spirituality and service free from male or clerical oversight. Each sister takes a set of vows that include living in practical ways, performing service to their community through plant medicine and practicing environmental stewardship. The meta description on the Sisters’ website characterizes them as “modern Beguine revivalists empowering women through Cannabis and ancient wisdom.”
It’s hard not to be captivated by the sight of a nun’s habit set against a pair of sunglasses in a field of Cannabis plants. The very image seems to defy the stigmas and taboos around Cannabis. But despite all the media attention, founder Christine Meeusen, who goes by Sister Kate, says they have been fighting to stay alive for the last few years due to legal complications over trace amounts of THC in their CBD wellness line.
Sisters of the Valley started their brand with salves, ointments and oils made from hemp flower harvested on their farm in the San Joaquin Valley. The business thrived, especially with the advent of online sales, but since 2024, an oversaturation of brands in the CBD market, along with an unfair ruling regarding trace amounts of THC in their products, has cut incoming revenue to one-fifth of what it used to be. The situation got so bad that Sister Kate said she even contemplated hanging up the habit, “It was like riding a wave to extinction.”
But, as the saying goes, “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” That’s what the Sisters found in an unexpected visit from Jessica Blair of the Traditional DTLA dispensary location and Damian Martin from Catalyst Cannabis stores. Sister Kate was impressed with their interest in partnering, not just putting the order’s name on a jar.
Later, along with Catalyst CEO Elliot Lewis, the trio outlined a way for the Sisters of the Valley to launch THC products in dispensaries, and to start legal proceedings to get their CBD business back on track. After three days, the group hammered out an agreement to design and release a product line to sell in over 30 Catalyst retail locations. Now, thanks to this retail partnership, Sister Kate envisions a future that is brighter than ever.
“The industry needs some other culture that’s not just stereotypical stoner culture,” she told the Leaf during a phone interview. “There’s plenty of room for all manner of representation, but I feel the public should see a medicinal and spiritual side to the plant.”
And so, the Sisters packed their bags and left the farm on a pilgrimage to visit each Catalyst store, meeting everyone they could to share the spiritual side of Cannabis and learn how to best serve the retail community.
Sister Kate said these interactions proved instrumental in fine-tuning the product line and introducing people to the order. She believes they couldn’t have gotten such a loving crash course in the adult-use market without the relationships the Sisters formed with both customers and budtenders. The response to the products has been so positive that drops have already sold out.
The order also formed a bond with Traditional’s cultivation team as they took on the difficult task of scaling up, and they have gone above and beyond to ensure everything meets the Sisters’ standards.
Before every crop is planted, the Sisters perform a ground blessing by walking the rows. Afterward, there is a sunrise and two sunset blessings given to the plants before the harvest. In the 10 years the order has been blessing fields, Sister Kate told us they’ve never had one so large that it took days to complete. She joked that next year they might try blessing the field on horseback.
Sister Kate hopes this relationship opens the door to multiple markets one day. They want to use Cannabis sales to build an enclave where sisters can live, study and train new initiates. The plan is to purchase a 12-unit apartment building with a garden space where sisters can have quarters on the upper levels and offer the lower units to those in need of assisted living.
On the farm, there’s only enough room for six members to live full time, which includes sisters, applicants, postulates and novices. With many members operating remotely and chapters established from Mexico to Chile and even Brazil, they need a space to house their growing order — somewhere they can build communal living situations, taking what they do out on the farm into the city as the very first Cannabis convent.
Find Sister of the Valley products in Catalyst stores, select Traditional retailers and their website sistersofthevalley.org.
Sites & socials:
sistersofthevalley.org | @sistersofthevalley
