CONFESSIONS OF A VEGETARIAN: Seeking Freedom

Vividly, I recall standing in the windowed kitchen where we sat our groceries and drank tea. We took our meals, often in the living room, with community vegetarian potlucks swapping liberation tales, playing music and connecting.

I was not in the kitchen for tea this day, however. I was about to do an insensible act. As I stood before the stove, I reflected on the last few days. Meeting one of the five housemates, grandmother Meridel Le Sueur, was memorable. She was a poet, kind and born into a family of political and social activists. I knew three of her grandchildren. http://www.meridellesueur.org/ Meridel encouraged my piano playing, writing and cheerfulness. I loved her poetry, her interest in youth, and her generous ability to connect.

I remembered the day Jane Fonda sauntered through our kitchen en route to my roommate’s office to discuss new developments. I remembered how interested, curious and helpful my housemates were. I wondered if I’d discover why I was living in San Francisco (what I came to learn). I wondered if I remembered to put away the co-op food picked up late today.

I’m getting ahead of myself.  Desiring to be a writer, and new to the Bay Area, I chanced upon a meeting with Pat Parker, poet and writer. We became friends. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Parker Together we found ways to share history, poetry and dreams.

Although independent, I denied my truth when seeking my “herd”. Pat wanted to sit on the dock of the bay and go crabbing.  I obliged her. My best days were when our nets were empty, but not our souls, as we talked and communed. My vegetarian conflict was relentless. How to say “no”, but not make waves? It’s amazing what we do to fit in.

Today my bucket was not empty. And Pat was about to travel. So I took my crab to share with one roommate before the others got home. My attention was on preparation, reflection and making sure I didn’t get pinched. Where were my heart, intelligence and learning? They abandoned me; or I submerged them in favor of pleasing “another”. Painful memories have a way of resurfacing; repeating our mistakes is their calling card. http://consultingforpassion.blogspot.com/2014/07/confessions-of-vegetarian-day-i-heard.html

Deftly and unconsciously I lifted out the crab. As she entered the pot, I was taught a lesson. The crab did not cry out. But her angry eyes glared into mine.

Later, shocked and stunned, I realized she was pregnant. Her angry face never left me. Do animals, birds, and sea creatures feel? What a stupid question. This was my defining moment. Whatever battle I still had to wage, I committed then and there to become a vegetarian.

Sometimes we need to walk through the hot fires of our conditioning and come out the other side, transformed. We need to be patient and loving, for the journey is deep and long to growth and healing.

What is your journey, dear reader, in releasing negative conditioning and embracing conscious living?

CONFESSIONS OF A VEGETARIAN: The Day I Heard A Fish Cry

Born into an American home with a pre-set diet, I had trouble eating what people call “meat.” Something did not agree with me. I preferred cooked spinach.

Sunday food with my beloved grandparents was a mixed blessing: corn on the cob, tomatoes, potato salad or mashed potatoes, green beans, watermelon, custard pies and peach cobbler. That, and being with my grandparents, was delightful. How the chicken became part of Sunday best, I don’t really want to know. I was in conflict. I wanted to eat what my grandparents had prepared. Another part of me recoiled from the fried stuff. I struggled with eating all through college.

Friends and I canoed while in college and after. One of my friends fished and one afternoon invited us to learn. Reluctantly, I agreed. What I was seeking in our time away was peaceful meanderings around the lake, “gunnelling,” (a favorite childhood activity), great campfires and conversations. The fact that we were going fishing for a weekend did not register.

At the end of the first day, my friend was happy to have caught a lot of fish. I experienced regret. I remember little except having a wiggling fish placed into my hands from the pail. I felt its pain and then its life leaving its body. I recall little else. Did I do as instructed? Did I cook, eat? I don’t know.

I did run far into the woods and burst into tears. I felt again this life hurting and dying; I cried and cried and cried.  Hours later, my friends kept calling me as dusk became dark.

Something in the woods spoke to me of connection, of our time upon earth carrying our footsteps. I walked back, dazed. I wish I could say I never ate of another being’s life again. But process isn’t like that. Nor are inner conflicts. At least, not mine.

Eventually, I was guided by wisdom. These same friends and I embarked on a six-month road trip together starting at the Rio Grande and working our way west and then north.  We ate sparingly. What we ate went underground in my consciousness. I do remember the joy of berry picking in Oregon, boiling and canning them.

Eventually two of us left the road to live in a San Francisco communal home with an old college friend. There were fresh community veggie food co-ops. Eating flesh was passé. Peaches, strawberries, fresh greens, salads, rice, beans and chocolate were the norm.

I wish I had completed my conflict there. I didn’t. But that year was an interlude into living my core values, really deepening what had I had learned in college. That education is of value when woven into and instructed by the world in which we live, its times, and its call for change. Give it tribute, connect with it, and you will be taught what you are here to learn. Ignore it and you succumb to the blind numbness of habits and values not yours...old torn hand-me-downs in need of revival. In my next blog, I continue CONFESSIONS OF A VEGETARIAN. One big fish story is enough for today.

So dear reader, when did you have a defining moment that led to transformation out of conflict?