I’ve opted not to publish an official Work Release for July since most of the month was occupied by the Grand Vegan Experiment. I’ve posted enough updates as I go along to qualify as work shown. Today is Day Sixteen of the GVE and for those of you who were never interested in the first place, you probably don’t need/want a recap. Aside from all of that, yesterday’s non-GVE post was probably the most significant of the month and it’s still nice and fresh. So then Poof! — July is released.

It’s been an education-rich month. New projects naturally generate new opportunities for learning. When the project is a full-on lifestyle change, it’s pretty much full-on learning. I’ve learned more about human nutrition in the last few weeks than in all the years I’ve thus far been a human. I think I’ve only scratched the surface of what I stand to learn about human behavior through this experience, but what I have learned so far has been illuminating. Specifically, I have no plans to become militant but I now completely understand what makes folks become militant or resort to extremist tactics and responses. I finally understand why. Now I get why everyone is so angry, on both sides of the issue(s).

I’m not angry. I am compelled. I am resolved. I am committed. But I’m not angry. I feel like I should follow that with a not angry yet caveat, since I can’t be sure I won’t get angry about something at some point. I’ve been shocked. I’ve been dismayed. I’ve been disgusted. I’ve felt betrayed and deceived. I’ve felt all the things associated with innocence lost. None of that has boiled up into anger but I realize that these are the feelings underpinning the anger in the folks whose outbursts make the internet news and become fodder for internet memes. It’s not crazy. It’s inevitable. It’s the bed we’ve made.

To put your minds at ease; this is not going to become a vegan blog. I doubt I will write much about it past the 30-day mark unless something remarkable happens that isn’t already a documented aspect of wellness. So hang in there if you’re sick of it. It’s almost over. Moving forward this will still be a blog about the practice of wellness in all forms, not just my latest practice. And besides, you can’t throw a rock without plunking eleventy-dozen vegan blogs these days. They’ve all got good things to say and they’ve all been living it longer than I have. No need for me to parrot them.

Work worth an honorable mention this month:

When I’m waiting for the words to come I involuntarily lay my hand against my chest with my fingertips resting on my collarbones. The palm covers my heart; the fingertips point the direction. When I’m weighing those words or taste-testing them or waiting for them to align my hand rises to my throat. It’s a ritual I took for granted until I learned about the chakras. I was/am instinctively tuning into energy centers specific to feeling, awareness, integration of insights (heart chakra) and communication (throat chakra). The ritual showed up twice this month in self-portraits so that I could recognize and appreciate it, and thus make it voluntary and deliberate in the future, hence the quad of gratitude shown above.

Feedback received from a new acquaintance this month:

In conversation; no wait. Through conversation we reached a point where a tidal wave swelled behind her eyes and broke across the space between us, crashing into my own. We were simply talking. Simply speaking. Listening. Giving and sharing energy (see yesterday’s post). And then she said,

Your gift to me in this moment is that you made this space feel safe for me to release my pain. I have not been able to do that before.  

“I have not been able to do that before” — it stabs me hard and repeatedly that this is the reality for so many people walking around in pain. Driving in cars beside me in traffic. Standing in line behind me. Crossing my path. Speaking on the other end of the phone or the computer. These people hurting so much who just need a moment — a moment! — to feel safe enough to release it. It remains the deepest desire of my soul to provide those moments. The Universe conspires to bring me my deepest desire. I am grateful for the work.

— Mercy