Mission Blue

[photo by Octavio Aburto]

It's official.  I am no longer eating seafood anymore.  It's something I've been gradually leaning towards more and more over the past year, and after watching the beautiful documentary "Mission Blue", it was the final push I needed to send me over the edge.

Seafood is one of my favorite foods in the world!  I would try anything from the sea!  I pretty much loved everything new I tried!  I'm not joking in the slightest when I say that when I go snorkeling in the ocean and see all the colorful fish swimming around me, my mouth waters... under water.  Perhaps I was a seal in a past life!  After being vegan for a year (many years ago*) the first non-vegan food I bit into was a piece of fish... and it was divine.  It was always the food I craved the most.

But something was starting to feel not right in my soul about eating so much fish all the time.  Trust me, I was a big consumer and really eating too much of it!  I started to lose my joy in eating it, taking it for granted, bite after bite.  And the truth is, our oceans are so over fished... at this rate, wild-caught blue fin tuna will soon be wiped from the Earth!  Our magical coral reefs are literally dying and disappearing due to all the pollution we've been dumping into our water.  What runs into a river, will eventually meet the sea.  In many parts of the world, where the rivers meet the sea, "dead zones" have been created.  Meaning, absolutely nothing (fish nor plant) can live there, because the water is uninhabitable.  Those numbers are rising.  Also, after that most devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the number of off-shore drilling in that area has now increased.  The aggressive and rapid way we as humans are consuming our natural resources (fish, animals, plants, trees, oil, clean water) is completely out of balance to the way Mother Nature intended for us to live.  I hate to say it, because it's a very dark truth, but we have become something of a "virus", attacking our "host" (Earth).  I just hope that we won't eventually devour it completely.  This is such an extraordinary planet, full of wonder, and full of millions of compassionate human beings who I know care about this planet we all live on and share together.  I know it all can seem so daunting at times.  Sometimes I think, 'What difference will it make?'  If we all just do our part a little, and remember to stop every now and then and think of what we can do to make where we live a better place for our next generations, we may just be able to slowly turn things around.... little by little.  It simply starts with you and I.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, or how to eat.  I'm just announcing that what this documentary makes us aware of, is a step in the right direction.  Sylvia Earl's mission is to create "Hope Spots"; protected areas of our ocean that can have the time and space to heal itself and one day, flourish again.

Here's to HOPE.



Love,
p. a.

P.S.  Here are some ways we can help!  

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*I was vegan for one year when I was 20 years old.  I mostly lived off of candy and rice milk.  Needless to say, I was a terrible vegan!

New Year, New Me

I feel so thankful to 2013, for all its ups and downs.  The lessons I've learned, or am still learning!  The new friends made, places seen, inspirations discovered!  And the year could not have ended better!

A 2 week tour through China 

11/27 - 12/8


{from top left to right}
Thanksgiving Day meal at Incheon Airport, en route to China // one of the many debaucherous and 90% vegetarian meals we had in China // a priceless Nicholas Cage ad // view from my hotel in Beijing // restaurant hallway // Sasha Smith, keyboard extraordinaire, on the misty streets of Shanghai // adorable and "armed" statues in Beijing // Shanghai sunset // rambunctious little elves at Shanghai Airport 

Making a music video for "Deck The Halls" with some of my closest friends

12/17

Playing the most memorable concert of my life at my favorite place in the world, The Ghibli Museum in Japan

12/23

Spending Christmas with my family in Pennsylvania

12/24 - 12/31

{one of a kind vase made by the amazing Polkaros -- see more here!}

Returning to L.A., a little under the weather, but in time to ring in 2014 with my best friend

12/31/13

I realized this year, that despite the fact that according to the calendar that the entire world follows, the new year begins on January 1st... the only way 2014 will truly be new, is if I make it new.  Meaning, if I keep living life the way I have been, and not try to improve myself or the world around me in some way, then technically I'm sort of still living in 2013, or 2012, or sometimes even 1990! -- the way I act sometimes.  So this year, in order to make it feel new, to make it different from the last, I truly do hope I can make a difference in myself.  By being more conscious of the earth, and of the food I eat (and no, I'm not talking "gluten-free"!  I mean eating "cruelty-free").  By expressing my love to my husband, friends, and family more openly and with no reserve.  By feeling love for people on the street, or in the car next to me... because 99% of the time, I forget that they're not just some unnamed "blob" pushing a shopping cart, or an a-hole in the car swerving around me.  They're a person, just like me, with sadness in their life, with anger, with pain, with good intentions, with love in their heart, with insecurities, who can look over at you and perhaps also see nothing but another "unnamed blob".  Or maybe...in that moment, they actually see you too, and the complicated, beautiful universe that you are.  

New Year.... New Us.

Love,

p. a.