A Trill Epiphany

I woke up on the 8, 9, and 10th, livid…like real hot bro.

I’ve run exactly 100 times this year, for 161 miles. This is the point where a lot of people say something corny and contrived. If you are a person who can’t understand how I can identify with Ahmaud (and why it’s an issue) , then I’m not for you, talking to you, nor do I care to engage you.

I also lost a few family members over the past weeks during and due to the pandemic.

The reason I’ve been hot is b/c of the things I’ve chosen to allow to be a part of my diet on the internet.

When I got to Cali, I had been vegetarian/pescatarian before and fallen off of it. I tried going vegan for 6 months in La Jolla and I just couldn’t get it right. I met @turnipvegan and I’ve been at least predominantly plant based ever since. Through that relationship I had developed a relationship with the broader vegan community at large, especially online.

Based on that introduction, I’ve met/followed some people I could take and some people I could leave. I figured out early on that identifying as a “Vegan” wasn’t gon necessarily be for me. There is a level of dissonance when using “slavery” and “holocausts” that give me severe indigestion, but to each his own. However, I still rock with a lot of the people in that community and get a lot of love.

Fast forward back to the past few days, and I see people that had time to post animal slaughter are church mouse quiet on a human one. I saw people that are quiet on black oppression, but loud on the “oppression” of neanderthal’s wanting haircuts. Mind you, this is in the same state that switched the water from Detroit River to the Flint river and exposed between 6k to 12k kids to lead. Directly on the other side of the Flint River is Flushing, an affluent suburb. Surprisingly their water wasn’t switched…..Lead caused birth defects and brain damages.

One of those 6 – 12k children was my little cousin who was about three at the time. I bought his mama, my other little cousin, filters b/c they at the time they were showering by turning the water on to get wet and washing up, turning it off, and then turning it back on to rinse quickly. Surprisingly, I never heard any Vegan, a lot know I have family in Flint, speak to this in any meaningful way.

I hear a certain group of people talking about a police state and conspiracy, yet be incredibly quite on hear about the conspiracy of 71 days to arrest former police officers who committed murder in cold blood. But right on, bro.

Epiphany, from the Greek, epiphainein, to reveal. In our day to day, it means a sudden revelation or insight. In Biblical terms, it speaks to the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles in Matthew 2 (1 – 12).

I got my shit back together and this was both. Over the past few days, I’ve had a realization as if it was presented to me by the divine.

I had been back on my amateur sh!t. I’ve been studying the Bhagavad Gita deeply for two months and aspiring to what a spiritual person is supposed to be. Resistance had shut down my production and output.

My struggles were two fold. I’ve been so focused on my spiritual journey that the weight of being OG yogi was daunting. I’ve felt this pressure to live up to this idea of identification with the spirit soul and seeing God in everyone. That frustration on the material level, with people and their flippancy towards the slaughter of people who look like me, was causing a significant gap between where I was and where I envisioned myself.

I remember when I was on goofy time aspiring to be on some street shit. There was a lack of authenticity at times which made me uncomfortable. Now the only street Negus I care about told me he was proud of me and looked up to how I was getting it.

People I love and respect dearly have consistently told me about their appreciation for what I’m doing and what I represent. People have entrusted me to provide guidance on a spiritual level with some traumas that you couldn’t even fathom – and that was in the same few days.

See, that Epiphany that hit me was simple but profound like the divine had spoken it directly to me: I had been serving the wrong clientele. I had allowed disdain for people I don’t respect or value to discourage me from serving the people that I love and respect and tho whom I was providing value.

Where attention goes energy flows, but also where energy goes, attention flows. It’s cyclical. I had gotten so worried about people I don’t or no longer respect, I stopped producing for the people I do respect. I won’t make that mistake again behind playing nice with people that hold views that are dangerous to my very existence.

I’m back on my pro sh!t though….but it’s still love and light.