She's baaack...

My goodness, it has been a while. There have been many things distracting me away from this creative outlet, however the main excuse I will highlight is overwhelm. Not from my life (though my life has had some highs and lows in terms of busy-ness as a student finishing off her college degree!), but overwhelm by the initial challenge that I took on 2 years ago. As a vegan living in a 4-season climate, I felt straight-up deprived during some cold winter months - I remember a specific week where I ate nothing but bulk grains and legumes because there was nothing growing (that I knew of) here in Michigan. While since then I have learned about wild edibles and started growing some vegetables of my own, there has still been a sense of guilt and deprivation that I have attached to this blog and this challenge.

An interesting aspect of living in such a high tech society is we are given so many opportunities to spiral into information binges. What a blessing and what a curse. There are so many (contradicting) opinions - scientifically back, personal, or experiential - on how we should be eating. Food is a smokin' hot topic and legitimately so. We are literally coming into union with another energetic being! Maybe that is too "woo woo" of a comment, but I do not think it was a fluke that traditional societies have intricate rituals around eating.

At a secondary thanksgiving event yesterday, my cousin asked if he could get the info of this blog to share with his mother-in-law as inspiration for a more vegetable-centric lifestyle. I kind of didn't want to give it to him because I was embarrassed by my virtual disappearing act. Well I am ready to challenge myself again - in a very subdued way. I have danced dirty with deprivation and I will not allow myself to feel that way again. I know that my body feels best when I consume large amounts of raw vegetables and if I can not get them locally now, that is juust fine, it is something to strive for ;)

Another note, I am no longer vegan, vegetarian, and I'm boycotting any labels of this sort as a general rule. Though it makes life a whole lot easier to go into new situations being able to say "Yeah, I'm not gonna eat that. I'm veeegan." and about 95% of what I eat on a daily basis is vegetables (soooo many vegetables), I have come to terms with the fact that just because something is "vegan" or "locally produced" or "gluten free" does not mean that I want to put it into my body. I think I will call how I eat now as a high vibration diet. But that is another conversation for another day...

(black radish love to all of you)

Anyways, thank you so much for reading this (if anyone is haha) and I hope that anything that I say, do, take pictures of, eat inspires a more conscious lifestyle!

Love, Sam