This personal experiential investigation into trauma, grief, love, and its lessons highlighted the importance of aligning both our body and energy identities. I found some interesting answers, insights, and ideas.
Image credit: TThe Virsa
Foundation, Inc.
August 2020, I sat numb in a Main Street Vegan Academy class,
secretly hoping that I’d get by without much participation when
Jasmin Singer declared she was going to speak about Veganism and the
power of personal stories. I was numb because my father had just
passed away, and my mother was all alone abroad, still fighting the
COVID virus. I was numb because while I identified with being whole
food, plant-based, I was still terrified of the V-word (Vegan).
Since 2018, when I eliminated all animal products from my diet, my
focus was entirely on physical health and my father’s untimely
passing underscored that voice in my head, “It’s ALL about human
health.” I didn’t know if I could drum up compassion for animals at
that point.
Then Jasmin started speaking and leading us through prompts as we
recalled encounters with animals. Memories are imperfect, because
when we reconstruct them, we add selective bells and whistles. All
versions of my memory of Jasmin’s session have her and Victoria
Moran dressed up as various avatars ranging from Cinderella’s fairy
godmother to Macbeth’s witches to the wise and mighty High Priestess
of the Major Arcana. I have deep respect and gratitude for the work
of both these amazing individuals.
As Jasmin spoke, a trance took hold, my numbness transmuted into a
surprising somatic flashback to a time when I was living in
Indonesia several years ago. I was being driven to work and the car
came to a complete standstill near a crowd of people cheering and
watching a cow being slaughtered. Her neck was slit, blood gushing
out, the animal crying out in pain in a way I have never heard from
any living being before. We honked our way out of this incident and
continued onto my worksite. I recall dining at an expensive
steakhouse with my team later that night. My brain filed away this
memory and, as I discovered during Jasmin’s session, my body kept
score.
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