When I wrote my blog yesterday about The Fourth of July and new beginnings, I didn't realize that I would be discussing that same theme again one day later. I shouldn't have been surprised because recurring motifs have played a large role in my life since May 1, 2011. That was the day my life changed, and it all started with a movie called “Forks Over Knives”, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
On July 4, 2013, Ordinary Vegan reached the milestone of 15,000 community members. When I started this journey, I didn't even know a vegan and very few vegetarians. I decided to create a blog and community to find support and hold myself accountable to someone besides myself. As the months went by, more and more people reached out and shared their stories with me. Some were animal lovers, others were environmentalists and some just wanted to be healthy again. I learned so much from all of them. My journey may have started as a quest to heal myself with food, but ended up being so much more far reaching. Today, I realize that becoming vegan is about changing the world from inside out. I can honestly say becoming vegan set me free.
Today I want to thank all of you for building and sharing this community with your friends and family. I want to thank you for loving and protecting all sentient beings, and I want to thank you for wanting to take care of yourself with food. Every comment, share and like is sending more compassion out into the world. There is nothing more positive than that. Even though you can't hear them, tears are pushing through my voice, so I will end with a quote that sums up everything for me today and for the rest of my life.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Congratulations child of the universe. Shine- on, Cissy xo