Unite Vegans (Part 3)
We're driving again, James and I-- on the road again. Willie Nelson isn't singing, but The Beatles are here. James has "Here Comes the Sun" on his iPod. "Here comes the sun. It's all right. It's all right."
And so it is.
We've stopped for lunch at an exquisite beach named Guvvos. The waters are crystal clear, colors ranging from pale seafoam green to crystal turquoise to a rich blue-green, deepening into ocean blue at the horizon. The coast is nearly deserted, now that school is back in session and it's a weekday.
It's all right.
Time for lunch. James has whipped up a yummy and filling lunch: nori (seaweed) wraps stuffed with vegetables, sprouts and activated (sprouted) seeds and nuts.
Bon appetit.
We're driving along the coast through Great Otway National Park. The road is called the Great Ocean Road and there have been quite a few Australians-- including Kat, who lives in Melbourne, say they haven't yet had the opportunity to drive it.
Go for it, I say. It's amazingly beautiful. Take your time and enjoy the scenery. It's the journey, not the destination, you know. I'm so blessed to have this opportunity to share this part of my life with James.
James is wearing a white tank top. On the front is his logo for Voiceless 365. The back of his shirt reads--
"I'm taking a 365 day vow of silence as I travel around the nation to stand up for animal liberation." --James Aspey
and below, it says--
Want to know more?
I invite you to check out his website. Pay attention. This 27-year-old Australian personal trainer is committed to raising awareness of the harm being perpetrated every day "behind the veil," as 90 billion (not a typo) animals are slaughtered every year-- "for a sandwich," as my friend, Gary Yourofsky says.
Gary has just completed a successful tour of Israel where he has been raising awareness of the plight of farm animals, urging students in that country and throughout the United States, as he makes his way through America, speaking to college students.
The horrific lives of farm animals and the rampant speciesism, allowing us to love dogs and cats and horses, yet cruelly treat and slaughter cows and pigs and ducks and sheep and goats and chickens and turkeys and geese, is what prompted me on the vegetarian path when I was 17 and had left home to go to college. My mom was no longer in control of what I ate.
I'd met a fellow student early on in my freshman year at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), Valerie Krauss, from Puerto Rico. I don't think I'd ever heard of a vegetarian before, but when we went to a Chinese restaurant in 1974, and she ordered stir-fried veggies with no cornstarch and no MSG, I'd asked her about it.
"I'm a vegetarian," she replied. "And cornstarch is fattening and MSG is no good for you."
I decided that I wanted to be a vegetarian, too. I never liked meat, really, although the sauce made some things palatable. I wish my mom had known about being vegetarian and that I could have learned about choices for food that would have not only been healthier for me, but also kinder and more compassionate for animals.
I'd have become an avid animal activist, for sure.
I became vegan in 2002, eschewing the dairy products to which I'd become addicted, after Deborah Gilmaker, OMD (Oriental Medicine Doctor) counseled that I eliminate dairy.
"They're the cause of so many hidden allergies and addictions," she'd kindly explained, and handed me a huge stack of photocopied medical and scientific journal articles, detailing the dangers of dairy.
Think "milk is good food"? Think again. Do your homework.
Think it's too hard to change? Or that you could "never do that"?
Think again. And I invite you to join me and Steve on The WE Juice for Joy Experience live quarterly juice cleanse we co-lead every quarter. We offer them with live daily coaching at the beginning of January, April, July and October. We are also developing a home study program so you can do the juice cleanse on your own with prerecorded videos and audios and written materials, if you don't need the live coaching or if you want to see how you like it.
(Photo: Kaci with Joshua)
...To be continued....
