Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.
~George Bernard Shaw
The Long And Winding Road
Today I made my vegan version of a Philly Cheese Sandwich recipe. The truth is that I did not embrace this recipe in the blink of an eye. MOVE OVER PHILLY, THERE’S A NEW SANDWICH IN TOWN
In leadership and organizational development, we make declarations for what we want, integrating values and vision to support those stands. A shift in paradigms leads to a peaceful, dynamic, non-conflicting life. We’re works in progress. When I’ve taken a stand, as when my clients do, it creates a new field of relatedness such that the entire universe and world conspires to support that new stand. New life is created from it, with all the resources needed to live it.
Through meditation, fissures or mind splits can be healed. As I let myself breathe in and out, I watch thoughts and conflicts rise and fall. When I meditate on a meditation passage I let elevated words drop down into my consciousness like a balm, erasing negative conditioning.
I did not have those tools earlier in life. Inside of me, clashing values raged. Eating was deeply disquieting. (Please see my other blogs on the subject: CONFESSIONS OF A VEGETARIAN: The Day I Heard A Fis... and CONFESSIONS OF A VEGETARIAN: Seeking Freedom Living in a vegetarian collective helped me. But when I moved from that home, I still sporadically ate fish and fowl.
I was estranged from food. Often, I felt sick. I was consuming my own conflict. And conflict isn’t digestible. And after haggling with doctors pressuring me to eat more animal life, I finally found hope.
I became a Vipassana meditator. I met other vegetarians. Then one of my sisters asked me to find a holistic veterinarian for her dog, Lancelot, who had cancer. The veterinarian put Lancelot on a pure rice and vegetarian diet. While it did not cure him, it did give almost another year of life. My sister decided if Lancelot was to have that daily diet, she would too. While I was wrestling with vegetarianism, she became one. Overnight. Later when she gave birth, she passed that lifestyle on to her children.
I made a decision. My sister had health issues. If she did not get worse, I would be a full vegetarian. My sister got healthier; I became a card-carrying vegetarian. Magically, I got stronger and suddenly was in love with eating. I lost weight and loved cooking.
I come from a richly integrated family of blood and adopted family. My nieces, who were vegetarians as children, were star athletes; my brother, a senior, walks to work at 5 a.m.; my sister and I remain full vegetarians. I have another niece who is a full vegetarian and my other sister is a partial vegetarian. I have a whole social community of 100% vegetarians, forty or more sitting together on feast days. I have amazing friends and family, some vegetarian and some not, which share vegetarian meals with me. I am blessed.
Dear reader, what’s your journey into conscious eating? And what’s yours, vegetarians? As conflicts go, be sure to cash in on a happy ending.
