Would France Fine Jesus for Stopping the Slaughter? Examining the Brigitte Bardot Free-Speech Scandal

There are moments when a cultural controversy reveals far more than the headline suggests. The legal battles surrounding Brigitte Bardot are one of those moments—not because everyone agrees with her, but because of what her punishment exposes about the boundaries of conscience, dissent, and speech.

Bardot has long been labeled far right, dangerous, or racist in popular shorthand. But that framing collapses under even minimal scrutiny.

Her most controversial comments—those that led to repeated fines in France—were driven by a core obsession: her opposition to religious ritual slaughter of animals, and the exemptions that allow it to continue.

Not a rejection of human worth.

Not a call for violence.

Not an argument for cruelty toward people.

But a moral objection to practices she believed normalized suffering.

And yet, she was fined.

That should give us pause.

Brigitte Bardot’s activism has long centered on animal welfare—yet her speech became a criminal matter. (AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)

What Bardot Was Actually Criticizing

For decades, Bardot has been a fierce animal-rights advocate. She has criticized:

-Industrial factory farming

-State-sanctioned cruelty toward animals

-Religious exemptions that allow slaughter methods outside general animal-welfare laws

Her objections were ethical, not racial. She spoke about practices, not people. And she applied her critique consistently—across traditions, industries, and ideologies.

She has even publicly criticized American conservatism and figures on the U.S. right, complicating the lazy attempt to categorize her as some kind of ideological extremist.

And yet, in France, intent is not the threshold. Impact is.

Under French hate-speech laws, speech that is deemed to stigmatize a protected group—even indirectly—can be criminally punished. Bardot’s language, the courts ruled, crossed that line.

The result? Fines. Convictions. A legal record.

Not for inciting violence—but for offending.

The cleansing of the temple: moral confrontation, not polite dissent.

The Question We’re Afraid to Ask

Which brings us to a question that makes many people uncomfortable—but shouldn’t.

In the Gospels, Jesus does something extraordinary. He enters the temple and disrupts what had become a sanctioned system of exploitation and slaughter. He overturns tables. He drives people out. He condemns the normalization of harm—done in the name of religion.

This was not gentle speech.

It was not neutral.

It was not “inclusive” by modern bureaucratic standards.

It was moral confrontation.

So the question becomes unavoidable:

If Jesus did that today—if he publicly condemned ritual slaughter in the name of compassion—would France fine him too?

Under current law, depending on how his words were interpreted and who felt collectively targeted, the answer is disturbingly close to yes.

That should trouble anyone who believes moral progress requires the freedom to challenge tradition.

Criticizing Practices Is Not Attacking People

Somewhere along the way, we lost a crucial distinction:

People are not practices.

You can love human beings deeply while still questioning customs, doctrines, and systems that cause harm. In fact, that is how ethical evolution has always occurred.

Religious traditions themselves are not static. Many believers—Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and otherwise—are actively debating animal welfare, compassion, and the future of ritual practices. That debate is not hatred. It is conscience at work.

Silencing it does not protect faith.

It freezes it.

When conscience meets the law, who decides what may be said?
Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani / The Atlantic.

France, America, and the Limits of Speech

This controversy highlights a real and often ignored contrast.

In the United States, freedom of speech is protected precisely because it allows uncomfortable ideas to surface. The remedy for bad speech is more speech, not state punishment.

In France, the state plays a far more active role in determining what may be said when protected groups are implicated. The intention behind this is understandable—but the consequences matter.

Once speech is punished not for violence, but for moral disagreement, a dangerous precedent is set.

Because today it is an actress.

Tomorrow it could be a philosopher.

A theologian.

A reformer.

Or someone simply asking the wrong question out loud.

The Slippery Slope Is Not Theoretical

History is full of examples where moral dissent was first labeled “dangerous” before being recognized as necessary.

Abolitionists were once radical.

Women demanding the vote were once threats.

Nonviolent resistance has always made systems uncomfortable.

Jesus himself was not executed for kindness—but for disruption.

When societies conflate disagreement with bigotry, they don’t just silence extremists. They silence reformers.

A Clarification That Shouldn’t Be Necessary—But Is

For the record, and because accusations have replaced dialogue in modern discourse: I am marrying into a Muslim family. This is not about fear of the “other.” It is about preserving the right to question systems that normalize harm, regardless of who upholds them.

Ethics cannot be outsourced to tradition alone.

Compassion cannot be selectively applied.

If we lose the ability to speak honestly about that—without fines, labels, or legal threats—then freedom of conscience becomes conditional.

And history tells us where that leads.

The Question That Remains

The issue is not whether speech should be responsible.

It should be.

The issue is who decides when moral conviction becomes a crime.

Because if compassion itself becomes punishable, then yes—we should be willing to ask plainly:

Would France fine Jesus for stopping the ritual slaughter?

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Brigitte Bardot—whose uncompromising advocacy for animals forced uncomfortable but necessary questions about conscience, compassion, and the cost of speaking openly in modern society.

The Forgotten Gospel Reclaimed: A New Look at The Gospel of the Holy Twelve

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

I read The Gospel of the Holy Twelve front to back after having a spiritual moment in France that made me question the origins of Christianity. I couldn’t put it down. It resonated with the Holy Spirit that dwells within me, deeper than any sermon or scripture I had encountered growing up. I was raised a vegetarian Catholic, yet I never knew there were early Christian teachings that not only supported this lifestyle but embodied it. I had never been told that reincarnation was plausible… or that a vegetarian Jesus was very likely. These truths had been hidden… but once I saw them, I couldn’t unsee them.

For centuries, Christianity has been presented through the lens of empire, tradition, and convenience. But what if the original teachings of Jesus were far more radical… far more compassionate… than we’ve been led to believe? What if Christianity, at its very roots, was a vegan movement?

That’s the bold yet spiritually grounded claim made in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, a recovered text translated by Reverend Gideon Jasper Ouseley in the late 19th century. Ouseley claimed he had access to ancient Aramaic manuscripts preserved by a secret brotherhood, which offered a truer, unedited version of Jesus’ life and message. While the origins of the manuscript remain controversial, the gospel’s teachings align strikingly with what we know of early Jewish-Christian sects, particularly the Ebionites and the Essenes (Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus, 1997).

In this gospel, Jesus stands not only as a healer and teacher but as an advocate for all sentient life. He does not bless the slaughter of animals… he condemns it. He does not multiply fish… he frees them. And he declares, “They who partake of benefits which are gotten by wronging one of God’s creatures, cannot be righteous: nor can they touch holy things, or teach the mysteries of the kingdom.” (Ouseley, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, Lection XLVI)

Rooted in Early Tradition

Though The Gospel of the Holy Twelve is not part of the modern biblical canon, its tone and teachings are not without historical merit. Ouseley and others believed it to reflect the original Hebrew Gospel referenced by early Church Fathers like Jerome, who wrote of a “Gospel of the Hebrews” used by Jewish-Christian groups (Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, 3).

These groups, including the Ebionites and the Nazarenes, believed Jesus came not to abolish Jewish law but to fulfill it through love and nonviolence (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III). They rejected blood sacrifice, practiced vegetarianism, and upheld a mystical form of Judaism centered around compassion and purity. The Church Father Epiphanius, though critical, confirmed the Ebionites’ vegetarianism and rejection of temple sacrifice (Panarion, 30.15.3).

The broader context of these communities was later supported by discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found between 1947 and 1956 near Qumran, the scrolls revealed a rich diversity of Jewish sects in the Second Temple period, many of whom—especially the Essenes—emphasized spiritual law, nonviolence, ritual purity, and apocalyptic expectations. Scholars such as Geza Vermes and Elaine Pagels have argued that the scrolls lend credibility to the existence of early traditions outside the later Christian orthodoxy (Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 2004; Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, 1979).

When Empire Meets Religion

The Jesus portrayed in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve is far removed from the sanitized, empire-friendly figure canonized under Constantine. By the fourth century, Christianity was institutionalized under the Roman Empire. With the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and subsequent imperial sponsorship, the faith became increasingly aligned with hierarchy, sacrifice, and patriarchy.

This shift has been documented by historians such as Bart Ehrman and Karen Armstrong, who show how early diversity in Christian theology was gradually suppressed as the church merged with imperial power (Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 2003; Armstrong, The Battle for God, 2000). The radical, liberating message of the original Jesus movement—rooted in inner transformation and justice for the marginalized—was traded for control, conformity, and obedience.

The teachings found in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve directly challenge this evolution. In one passage, Jesus drives the animal sellers from the temple—not merely for commercializing religion, but for desecrating life itself. “Ye have made the House of Prayer a den of thieves, and filled it with cruelty and blood,” he says (Ouseley, Lection XXXIV). Notably, the word “thieves” in the original Hebrew could also be rendered as “violent ones” (Strong’s Concordance, H2555 – chamas), reinforcing this interpretation.

A Logos of Compassion

In the text, Jesus speaks of the “Holy Law” written not on scrolls, but in the heart—echoing the Jewish prophetic tradition (Jeremiah 31:33). He embodies the Logos not as doctrine, but as a way of life grounded in reverence for all creation. This connects not only to early Jewish mysticism, but to figures like St. Francis of Assisi, who called animals his brothers and sisters, and rejected worldly power in favor of divine simplicity.

Indeed, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve suggests that spiritual awakening is inseparable from ethical living. This idea, though controversial to institutional religion, resonates with mystical traditions across faiths—including Kabbalah, Sufism, and Eastern philosophies, all of which honor the sacred interdependence of life.

A Christianity Worth Returning To

What would Christianity look like if we re-centered it around this compassionate Christ? Around a Jesus who called for mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6, quoted by Jesus in Matthew 9:13)… who broke chains, not breaded fish… who lived in harmony with creation rather than domination over it?

Many are beginning to ask this question—not out of rebellion, but out of a deep spiritual longing to reclaim what was lost.

We may never fully prove the historical origin of The Gospel of the Holy Twelve. But history alone doesn’t determine truth. As Jesus said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). And if truth bears good fruit—if it leads to greater compassion, justice, and unity—then the gospel’s message is one worth listening to.

Whether we call it the Holy Spirit, the voice of conscience, or divine wisdom… something is guiding many of us back to this lost path. And perhaps that’s not a coincidence—but a resurrection of something long buried.

Knowing what we now know about early Christianity, if Jesus were here—reincarnated, as some traditions suggest, with his radical compassion intact—would modern Christianity even recognize Him?

Did Da Vinci Hear the Dog Whistle of Hidden Knowledge? How He Knew About DNA Before Its Discovery

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

**How Did Da Vinci Know About DNA Before It Was Discovered?**

If everything is vibration, then heaven is like a dog whistle—it’s here, but not everyone can sense it. Only a few get a glimpse.

We like to think we’re at the peak of knowledge, but the past tells a different story. Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate Renaissance visionary, was drawing double-helix staircases centuries before the discovery of DNA. Coincidence? Maybe. But for those who study esoteric wisdom, it’s another clue that knowledge exists beyond time—passed through mysticism, hidden in symbols, waiting for the right minds to decode it.

The Château de Chambord in France holds one of the most fascinating architectural mysteries of the Renaissance: a double-helix staircase designed so two people can ascend or descend without ever crossing paths. It’s eerily similar to the structure of DNA, which wouldn’t be identified until 1953. Da Vinci, who was commissioned by King Francis I, is believed to have inspired this staircase. His notebooks reveal an obsession with spirals, anatomy, and the unseen forces shaping life.

But Da Vinci wasn’t just a scientist; he was deeply immersed in secret knowledge. The Rosicrucians, an esoteric group associated with alchemy, sacred geometry, and hidden wisdom, used the rose-cross symbol—a fusion of spiritual transformation and the material world. His works are filled with hidden messages aligning with Rosicrucian and Hermetic teachings. He blended science and mysticism seamlessly, understanding that reality isn’t just what we see, but also what we sense.

Everything in existence moves through vibration, pattern, and ratio. The entire chord progression of the universe—the frequencies of existence itself—is what the ancients called The Music of the Spheres. The Logos. Sacred geometry reveals itself in the Fibonacci sequence, in the spirals of galaxies, in the resonance of sound waves, and in the very structure of our DNA. If you think of vibration as the foundation of everything, then what we perceive as reality is simply the harmonic ratios playing out in form.

This is why I teach affirmations the way I do in Free Yourself From Grief. If everything is frequency, then emotions resonate at different levels, just like the keys of a piano. Grief, at the lowest end, holds a deep, heavy vibration. But through truth, compassion, love, and euphoria, the scale crescendos toward something higher—toward that divine frequency just beyond human perception, like a dog whistle. The affirmations work to shift your emotional state, lifting you from grief and helping you see your situation differently.

Was Da Vinci ahead of his time, or simply remembering something long forgotten? In the same way mystics speak of divine frequencies beyond human perception, was he tapping into knowledge encoded in the universe itself?

Maybe heaven, truth, and the deepest mysteries of life are always present—just beyond the frequency most can hear. Only those willing to listen will ever catch a glimpse.

A Call for Compassion: The Case for Marie Antoinette

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

Marie Antoinette and her children in a portrait hanging in Versailles.

Revolution is in the air. Corruption is coming to light at a fast pace and the question of accountability is on everyone’s lips. Humanity has been through shifts like this before, and I think it’s important to reflect on how we’ve handled these shifts of consciousness for humanity in the past.

I discovered during 2023 that my family on my mom’s side, the French Rose line have lineage going back to Jean Jaques Rousseau in France. We were once Rousseau and changed the last name to Rose when we left France. Because of this, I paid special attention to his influence on France during my visits.

Jean Jacques statue at Chateau de Chenonceau in the Loire Valley.

Jean Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy writing the social contract and questioning the natural order of things spurred the dramatic shift in thought patterns of the French, ultimately leading them to revolution. He described the current state of affairs as artificial, a sort of Matrix like reality disconnecting us to the true peaceful order of things.

Unhappy with their lives under the Royals, and blaming individual people for their suffering, the French subjects had a true insurrection at Versailles, trashing the castle, and eventually killed the entire royal family, including the infamous Marie Antoinette. In many ways, I felt my ancestor’s influence lead to her death so I feel a sense of responsibility for it.

Walking through Versailles, I got a true sense of who Marie Antoinette was as a person. As an empath I could feel her. I was also surprised to find Kirsten Dunst’s portrayal of her personality was fairly accurate according to both my tour guide and my inner knowing. She came from privilege and responsibility in Austria, and married a soon-to-be French king to solidify the relationship between the two countries. In many ways, her life was bound by the deeds of others and not of her own making.

Walking the grounds of Le Hameau de la Reine July 2023.

It becomes abundantly clear that Marie tried to escape the demands of Versailles by building her country home, known as Le Hameau de la Reine, The Queen’s Hamlet. She lived and loved a simpler life in nature, growing food, baking sourdough, reading and meditating on the property. She felt the way her life was at Versailles was unnatural. She even had window coverings in her Hamlet, a true invention of pulleys and black out curtains not seen otherwise at her time. She yearned for a private life where she could just enjoy her days. Her decisions were meant to bring her own life peace in a difficult situation, but ultimately was perceived as uncaring and disconnected to the French people.

Marie was a fan of Rousseau, which is the ironic part of her demise. She is portrayed as reading a passage he had written while basking in the sun with her ladies outside at her Hamlet in the Sophia Coppola movie.

Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette reading Rousseau, 2006.

“Rousseau says: If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? The state of nature from which he has been removed? Imagine wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.”

I see Marie as a gentle soul. A true lover of the natural world, which in many ways is what the French Revolution was all about.

To quote Marie’s cousin’s mother, the infamous Anne Boleyn who rose from commoner to queen, « To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it. »

Marie’s cousin Elizabeth I quoted this passage by her mother in her famous « Golden Speech ».

This important sentiment shows the pressures the Royals were under and that it is a very different experience than those who perceive Royalty.

As we move yet again from subjects of the world governments into individual sovereignty, it’s important to see those who have demonstrated perceived crimes against humanity with compassion. Did they grow up in this matrix? Did they feel pressure to behave, act and think in a certain way? Is it possible someone is moving with the status quo out of concern of self preservation ? Like Marie Antoinette, the answer is yes, absolutely.

Unfortunately, she suffered gravely at the end. Her hair apparently turned white from fright as she approached her untimely death. The blood thirst of the French Revolution was unquenchable. They wanted the Royals to suffer like they felt they had suffered.

This is a call for compassion, a true case for the Marie Antoinette’s of today. They may be ready for change and yearning for a different life just like the rest of us. Violence begets violence. Is it possible to take the high road during revolution ? I think it’s time we try the Golden Rule even in the most extreme of circumstances. May the next revolution truly be a Golden one. ✨🫶

The Twin Flame Conundrum

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

I never really fully understood what the spiritual community meant by a “twin flame” and I confused the term for a soulmate for a really long time. I’m finding the people who truly meet their twin flames are those who dare to live with passion and purpose, despite impossible odds. The desire to live your fullest life that helps others will set your life in motion to meet them. The events that lead to meet them may be heart wrenching and difficult, but it was the Universe doing you a kindness to redirect your life perfectly. Twin flames are literally a part of your soul with a shared purpose, and are the most incredible mirror of your self. Everything about you will be amplified. The meeting of twin flames is so intense, both are changed forever. Sometimes the meeting is brief. But more likely, it’s a string of events that can be described as a roller coaster, a push and pull, a magnet that both attracts and repels. It will leave your friends and family questioning, and your brain second guessing. But your heart will always know and be set on this person.

I find that most people don’t even meet their twin flames and lead perfectly fulfilling lives with their soulmate or karmic relationship. Some people meet their twin flames and never actually marry them. The relationship is so intense, that it’s difficult to maintain in this 3dimensional reality. Both partners need to constantly release negativity and work on themselves to even hope to be together. A twin is your mirror, and while it can mirror the most heavenly love back to you, it can also mirror every insecurity, and every dark place you still hold in the back of your consciousness.

How do you know if you met your twin flame? I can only really speak to my own experience. You will instantly recognize them as someone significant, because it will be in perfect, divine timing. For me, I always see repeating 4’s during significant times, and the first time I learned the name of mine, I also saw his phone number ending in 444. You’ll meet your twin flame with such a small decision that could have gone either way. Then one day you’ll realize it was always meant to happen. They will share life experiences that you yourself have gone through that you didn’t think was possible to be shared with another human. You may listen to the same music, or have the same type of dogs, or share the same beliefs. My twin flame and I both lost 100 lbs, and left really unhealthy lifestyles around the same year. He also came into and lost a lot of money the same years I did, supporting our family and friends. When I first walked into my twin flame’s apartment, it looked exactly like my first apartment from the color on the walls, to the dream catchers displayed in the same weird way, to the same products and the same vibes. You can probably find yourself around their kitchen, and every single thing will be in the same spot, down to the same exact glass cutting board you both purchased. You may even both share the same random first concert, and it could be a band that often sings about love and intuition, and a higher power, even if they aren’t popular anymore. You may also both question yourself in similar ways, and have the deepest empathy you’ve ever felt for another human. If they are having a bad day, you can feel it, even hundreds of miles away.

When you are together, either everything will line up and fall together in the most magical, synchronistic way, or it can be a series of unfortunate events. You both manifest so strongly together that your focus of your thoughts will attract your reality and experiences for the day. This is by design, to manifest a big purpose together. Here in lies the twin flame conundrum. You and your twin flame truly have to master yourselves to make sure you are both manifesting the beautiful things you both deserve, versus the hell your darker parts try to make you believe you deserve. This was a hard one for me to recognize as someone who has grown so much and overcame some really testing situations. If your twin flame is struggling to love themselves enough to overcome their past, you also have more work to do. If your twin flame is still punishing themselves for past mistakes, instead of living in the moment, then you are too. Your twin is literally your perfect mirror, and any part of their ego you are analyzing is probably something you’ll have to analyze yourself.

I don’t have all the answers, but I have learned a few things I would like to share:

1. Don’t take the hard times too seriously, and remain positive. Your focus becomes your world, especially with the power behind your twin flame manifestations. Let the negative go, transmute perceived problems, and tell the story of the good times and the good things, and remind yourself how everything is working out as it should.

2. Things aren’t always as they seem. Twin flames connect on the deepest levels, and to focus on what’s happening on the surface level is missing the big picture.

3. Send them love, always. The moment you start sending them any darker emotion, is the moment you are only creating trouble for yourself. This also extends to what you say about them to other people. Your twin flame is a super intuitive person like yourself, and you want them to feel good, and in turn you’ll feel good.

4. Compassion is key. To have compassion for what your twin flame is going through is also extending compassion to yourself. Punishing them for a behavior is the last thing you want to do. The best thing is to try to extend understanding for anything that may be perceived as negative.

5. Focus on yourself. This seems counter intuitive sometimes, but when you are kind to yourself, you are doing them a kindness. This Love is so deep, that when you focus on yourself, and raise your own vibration, you are also uplifting them.

If I could tell myself one thing when I first met him, it would be to not be so caught up in whether or not you are in “union”. If you close your eyes, and you can feel them, there you go. You are in union. I hope this helps someone going through the same thing. There’s no exact manual or exact science, but this world is full of healers and people with purpose to help change the world for the better. With the state of our world, it’s no wonder that people with huge purposes are walking this planet. Everything is perfect, and everything is happening as it should. Trust the Universe. 💚✌🏼

Earth Day: Compassion Begins On Your Plate

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

Compassion begins on your plate!! 💚🌱✨ I’ve always been a bit of a bleeding heart. I was 14 years old when I decided weight loss wasn’t worth eating animals. My entire family was on the Atkins diet, and saw short term successes (but long term health problems, cancers and death). I was repulsed by seeing family members eat flesh for every meal. I went vegetarian without really knowing how to be a healthy one. As a Midwest girl with limited nutrition knowledge, I just decided to eat anything that didn’t have eyes. This included tons of bread, pasta, and cheese. 18 years old wasn’t even my heaviest. I was heaviest in my mid twenties working in the insurance industry. I finally had a moment where I felt like I woke up. I found myself staring down a road I didn’t want to be on, and drastically changed my life.

Working at Whole Foods and learning about The Whole Foods Diet, and finding veganism was the answer I needed all along. It was not only the most compassionate choice for the animals, and the planet, but it was the most compassionate choice for myself and my health. I finally found the answer to all the questions I had about our nutrition, while still limiting our harm, and impacting the planet positively. The energy this diet gave me impacted my physical activities as well.

We are all so hard on ourselves sometimes, myself included. We are all imperfectly perfect. As I learned more, my mind evolved, my behaviors and diet evolved, and then my body followed. It wasn’t a perfect process. It took time. Transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen. It’s as simple as making a decision on what you are making for dinner tonight, or to take that walk you are thinking about. May your life and actions be a celebration of the Earth, every day.

Anything You Can Eat, I Can Eat Vegan

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

Veganism is kind of like the mainstream belief in the normality of the “food chain hierarchy”, but in reverse. How did the animal get this nutrient ? What did the animal eat? If the animal got it from another animal, what did that animal eat? There in lies the answer to any nutrition inquiry.

The design of the Earth and our bodies is so intelligent, our nutrients we need just naturally occur in growing plants, and natural elements. Scarcity during changing seasons and weather conditions is the reason our early ancestors hunted animals. In this day and age, a large variety of plants is at our fingertips within a moment’s notice. Killing is unnecessary. Compassion truly begins on your plate: for the animals, the environment, your health, and the future of the human race.

Crossroads All Lead Home

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

Shifts and fluctuations in our surroundings is a part of life. Life is ever changing, ever expanding. Some people grow together, some grow apart. But the truth is, even if you are disappointed in who stays or who leaves, it’s all there for a reason. It’s all about resonance. Someone will vibe with you for one part of the journey, and then something shifts and they are vibing somewhere else. The right doors will open and close for you as a result of your vibration. You are attracting every crossroad for your highest good.

Always remember that those who leave never really left. We carry pieces of everyone we have ever brought into our awareness. It is up to us to transmute these experiences, as they are always within us. Everyone carries a piece of you with them. Everything you experience and everyone you meet is always within you as well. This truth is that everything is limitless and infinitely connected to everything else. Separation is an illusion. There is only one all-that-is, always. 💫✌🏼

Compassion Begins on Your Plate: How Plant-Based Eating Can Transform Your World

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

As a child, I basically ate whatever my parents decided to put in front of me. Until one day, I started questioning the choices of my parents. I was 14 years old when my dad’s side of the family all decided to be on the Atkin’s diet. I watched my dad order a beef burger without the bun, eat as much bacon and sausage as he wanted for breakfast, not eating many vegetables and completely cutting out carbs. Being someone who never particularly enjoyed eating tons of meat, I was repulsed by it. I called it the “flesh” diet. I declared I was a vegetarian and started preparing my own dinners. I didn’t really know how to be a healthy vegetarian, I just knew I didn’t want to contribute to the killing of animals. Once I researched documentaries like “Kentucky Fried Cruelty”, and saw the brutal treatment of animals in factory farms, there was no turning back. I often ate pasta drenched in garlic and olive oil, or omlettes covered in cheese. It wouldn’t be until years later that I truly would make the connection between food as medicine and vitality.

Back then I never could have imagined cutting out eggs and dairy. It took me seeing years later that it’s common practice that male chicks are ground up alive and baby calves are taken from their moms and slaughtered for veal- that there is no humane treatment of animals in any food industry. We are exploiting the most innocent beings on this planet by giving them a life of misery. This connection started making me think about energy in food and focusing on sourcing food that is “cruelty free”. If everything is energy, why would you ever want to consume a product sourced from an animal who lived in misery? It made me question how much negativity we bring into our own lives by absorbing that which we create from these tortured animals.

It wasn’t until I started working at Whole Foods Market did I really put the idea into practice. I set out to eat the highest energy, nutrient-dense foods. I finally learned how to not only eat compassionately for the planet, but also how to eat compassionately for myself. I took E3-Live, a super nutrient-dense algae high in 65 vitamins, minerals and amino acids, every morning with my orange juice. I ate chia pods on my breaks instead of bagels and cream cheese. I often grabbed organic pink lady apples, bananas, and cashews if I was hungry. I always had Lara bars on me, and drank chia kombuchas. If I was craving cheese, I bought cashew cheese and gluten-free crackers. I replaced my morning omlettes with my now favorite dish: the tofu scramble. I often ate at the salad bar, but mixed an avocado from produce with lemon juice over my greens instead of dressing. This diet gave me so much energy I had no problem working out for a couple hours after an 8 hour shift.

I was over 300 lbs when I first started working at Whole Foods. This change to a plant-based diet combined with regularly working out led me to drop over 90 lbs over the past year and a half. Little steps and daily decisions from the heart has led to a huge transformation in my life. It’s been less about the end goal, and more about how to make a loving decision towards myself and the planet in the moment. The weight has fallen off in the process. Every day we have choices to make. Every day we have the ability to channel love and light into every decision we make. It’s our little choices over time that lead to life-changing transformations. I truly believe compassion begins on your plate. What we decide to eat can literally transform our world: from our bodies, to our energy levels, to our environment.

When the Unthinkable Happens: 5 Lessons from the Afterlife

Posted by Julie Tourangeau

Hearing about the death of a family member has triggered some deep reflection today. I think back to losing my dad, and how painful the funeral and family drama really was for me and my sibling. Dealing with a close death was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through, and I did it at such a young age. At the same time, it has taught me so much more about myself, existence, and divine timing than I could have ever imagined. It’s easy when something traumatic happens in this third dimensional reality to focus on the physical absence. What’s beautiful has been to see my dad reach out to us through undeniable signs, famous mediums, and not-so-famous intuitives during the passed eight years. I chronicle these life changing experiences in my upcoming book.

There are a few life and afterlife lessons I have learned definitively that I want to share with those who are grieving today:

1. Death is completely physical. Consciousness survives the physical death of the body. I received confirmation upon confirmation of this fact. One of the most hair raising moments was when it sounded like my dad’s voice and personality was literally coming through Theresa Caputo, TLC’s The Long Island Medium. Furthermore, modern science is also explaining death is an illusion through quantum physics.

2. While no one ever really dies, their perspective changes to a metaphysical perspective. They no longer see existence from this third dimensional, human experience. Having this new bird’s eye view enables our loved ones to watch over us and work with angels to bring us signs, serving a new purpose in our lives as guardian angels.

3. No matter how abrupt or untimely the death of someone seems, all death is on divine time. Awakening to this fact requires faith and trust. Like all experiences in life, we have the free will choice to let the experience tear us apart or make us stronger than ever. Making positive interpretations of death brings us to the highest perspective, inviting the miraculous into our lives.

4. Speaking with our deceased loved ones is only a mental phone call away. While I didn’t always get an immediate reply, my dad always heard me and found ways to answer my questions. Know that they do see us, hear us, and know what we are going through.

5. Our loved ones find their loved ones who have passed on the other side. No one is ever really alone and separation is an illusion. One of the first things my dad let me know is that he found his brother, which I wrote about how I came to know this years ago in my blog post “All Gays Go to Heaven“.

These lessons have been learned through a lot of tears, and a lot of healing. My heart goes out to everyone going through losing a loved one. My intention is to share my experiences with the hope it brings comfort to those who feel lost. No one ever really dies, and death is not the end, just a doorway. We all eventually walk through that door. Love shared is eternal, and you will meet again.