TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Returning to her Panamanian roots
- In the words of Sharon Bolden: How my journey of going vegan for lent changed my life
- Vegan spirituality and a multicultural worldview drive Sharon to four continents
- Positive women play a central role in Sharon’s life
- Sharon’s vegan journey leads to kitchen activism
- Vegan tea parties awaken the new generation
- In the words of Sharon Bolden: I live the teacher archetype and need to teach others about veganism
- Sharon’s vegan journey leads to a man standing at the river’s edge in a royal blue robe
- Veganism and a friendship deepen
- Staying true to being vegan while married to a man who eats meat
- Deepening her commitment to the vegan spiritual pathway
- Questioning everything except her commitment to veganism
- In the words of Sharon Bolden: Why I left Panama
- Adopting a whole foods plant-base diet and lifestyle set Sharon free
- COVID causes a setback to Sharon’s physical and mental health
- Post-COVID therapy
- In the words of Sharon Bolden: Channeling Aunt Iris to heal from COVID
- Influences that paved the way for Sharon’s veganism
- Mimicking Aunt Iris these many years later
- More committed than ever to veganism
- In the words of Sharon Bolden: feeling a oneness with everything and everyone
- Black vegans, a growing community of support
- Gratitude, another passage on Sharon’s vegan journey
- At the center of a circle of women, Sharon is vegan, herbal healer, doula, mentor, and teacher
- Sharon’s quiche, an easy vegan recipe for anyone on a whole foods plant-based diet
Going vegan for Lent was a journey that lasted for Sharon Bolden. She is a light bearer and community builder who brings love into the world to benefit us all.
Her spiritual path unfolded in St. Louis eight years ago when she committed to going vegan for Lent. The 40-day vegan practice of eating a whole-food, plant-based diet transformed her. Today she is dedicated to a wholesome vegan lifestyle.
Sharon began her vegan journey while working as a bilingual mortgage professor for 9,000 people. The company was in a state of flux and downsizing. People were losing their jobs. However, Sharon’s job was not yet in peril. She took personal time off and went to Panama, the place where she was born and raised.
“After going vegan for Lent and eating no meat for 40 days, I felt so good that I didn’t want to go back to my old lifestyle. I wanted to stay on a whole foods plant-based diet. I felt with certainty that living vegan was to be my new lifestyle.
“But there was only one way I could succeed at transitioning fully from a meat-based diet to a plant-based diet. I had to go home. I had to return to my roots, my culture, and my people. Only then could I orient myself on a vegan spiritual pathway,” Sharon said.
Returning to her Panamanian roots
Sharon was devastated when she landed in Panama City and saw that nobody was there to greet her. All of her family in Panama had died over the course of the 33 years that she had been living in America.
In a moment of panic, Sharon reached out to God and said, “Look. You led me home to Panama. What’s next? What do you have in store for me? What about my vegan spiritual pathway? What about my job? What about my American lifestyle? What about my culture? You need to give me some answers because I don’t know what to do.”
For a full week, Sharon waited for God to answer her questions. In the meantime, she listened to local villagers recount stories about her growing up in Panama and eating fresh fruit from banana, mango, and coconut trees. They talked about her rebellious teenage years and told her stories about her Panamanian mother, American father, and beloved Aunt Iris, who was from another world entirely.
“I heard stories I had never heard before. I asked questions and met with people to reconstruct my story,” she said.
And then, like manna falling from heaven, Sharon received a call on her cell phone telling her that she had been laid off from her job. The company would be making a direct deposit of $20,000 into her bank account as severance pay.
“I took the stories of my past and the severance pay from my job as signs from God that I was meant to stay on my vegan spiritual journey and continue traveling to rediscover myself and renew my health.
In the words of Sharon Bolden: How my journey of going vegan for Lent changed my life
Things in my life had to change. My diet was a mess. My body was a disaster. And doctors were wanting to remove organs and prescribe drugs. Menopause, oily skin, and morbid obesity had become heavy burdens. Boils were breaking out all over my body, and I developed 15 infections and illnesses.
I was raised Catholic. When the Lenten Season rolls around, it’s common for Catholics to start taking about what they are going to give-up for Lent. I was 51 years old and said I would be eating no meat or dairy during Lent.
I channeled my dear Aunt Iris and worked my way back to remembering how she lived and healed with plants and herbs. Following Aunt Iris’ lead, I turned to vitamins, herbs, fruits, and vegetables. I decided that going vegan for Lent would be my cure.
Within a week, I noticed that the boils on my back and thighs were reducing in size. Menopausal mood swings were lessening. I lost weight and felt lighter. The oily skin that had plagued me for years was improving. My body was making a comeback from the chaos and nonsense I had forced upon it for decades.
Those 40 days of being vegan changed everything. My body, mind, and spirit had begun to heal. I had transformed to veganism and I wasn’t going back. People saw the changes in me, and I saw them in myself. I was on a new path of living vegan and was determined to stay on this vegan path for the rest of my life.
Vegan spirituality and a multicultural worldview drive Sharon to four continents
Sharon left Panama and traveled to Brazil to continue her spiritual journey. She is at home with people wherever she goes; in part, she says, because her family roots are diverse.
“I have never seen distinctions between people based on skin color, ethnicity, or religion. The blood in my family is mixed with people from Jamaica, Venezuela, Panama, Barbados, and America — all with different religions. Some of us are Catholics and Protestants. Others were Buddhists. Some, like Aunt Iris, were African spiritualists who went to the Jump-Up church and danced, drummed, and praised God with herbs and rituals on the water while wearing white,” she said.
Sharon’s mother was Panamanian and her father was American. She said her grandmother passed for White with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Raised with a multicultural worldview, it felt right for Sharon to travel to other continents to renew her health and rediscover her sense of self and purpose.
Positive women play a central role in Sharon’s life
Being a queen is not about wearing a crown. It’s about the energy, the presence, the demeanor women exude when they stay in the heights even when people, circumstances, and situations might otherwise bring them down.
Sharon Bolden is a community builder who plants herself squarely in the center of a community of women she refers to as sistas. She calls the women who are significant to her queens, including those women she has not yet met but are destined in the future to play a role in her life.
“Being a queen is not about wearing a crown. It’s about the energy, the presence, the demeanor women exude when they stay in the heights even when people, circumstances, and situations might otherwise bring them down,” she said.
It’s no surprise that Sharon surrounds herself with positive people. She is a light bearer herself, a healer who helps other people improve their lives.
Vegan journey leads to kitchen activism
Going vegan for Lent turned into an exciting journey for Sharon. She returned home to St. Louis after traveling four continents over the course of a year.
In 2019, she began teaching classes on veganism. She was still learning about the whole foods plant-based diet and lifestyle at the time, but that didn’t stop her from teaching others what she was learning along her own vegan pathway.
The important thing for Sharon was to spread the word about veganism. She needed to tell others how living vegan was changing her life and how a whole foods plant-based diet could improve theirs.
Every Sunday for eight months she cooked a 7-course vegan meal in her kitchen for seven different guests each week. Through these kitchen experiences — Sharon’s form of vegan activism — dinner guests learned about the health and spiritual benefits of veganism.
Dinner guests learned how to make nut milks and simple nutritious vegan meals. Her vegan dinner parties also included raffle prizes for vegan cookbooks and trips on Megabus so women, like Sharon’s Aunt Iris, who had never traveled, could take trips. Facebook gave Sharon a platform to teach and gather community for her Sunday vegan meals.
In exchange for the Sunday meals, Sharon asked dinner guests to bring hygiene products for a local shelter for homeless women.
Vegan tea parties awaken the new generation to cruelty-free living
At the request of women who attended her Sunday vegan meals, Sharon began hosting vegan tea parties for the women’s daughters, granddaughters, and nieces.
“What a show-stopper those vegan tea parties were! The little girls would come fully dressed in brightly colored and patterned African dresses. Even the little White girls wore African head wraps,” Sharon said.
“Those little girls taught me a lot. They are full of life and have more self-esteem than most adults I know. They are growing up to be queens,” she said.
While hosting Sunday vegan dinner parties for women and vegan tea parties for little girls, Sharon’s heart continued to expand and break open even more. Veganism opened her eyes and caused her to see the world differently.
“I woke up and saw a world that needed healing. I needed to pay attention and fully engage in community. This awakening prompted me to get certified as a doula and to transform the couch in my living room into a therapist’s couch for women who needed to talk,” Sharon said.
The Sunday vegan meals and vegan tea parties eventually gave way to new forms of vegan activism. Sharon is now a member of a community garden and grows her own vegetables and herbs to support her vegan diet. She is also a part of a circle of caring women who support one another on their spiritual paths. Some of the women are on a vegan pathway, and others are not.
In June, July and August, when school is out of session, she tutors children in Spanish and teaches them how to crochet. Children become calm and learn to focus when they crochet. Sharon also take trips with children to places where most Black kids never go, like to Amish farms.
In the words of Sharon Bolden: I live the teacher archetype and need to teach others about veganism
I’m the free-thinking teacher archetype. The sage. I am meant to teach people through intellect and knowledge and provide them with teachable experiences. Mostly, I am passionate about the vegan lifestyle and cannot deny anyone the opportunity to learn about veganism and herbs. The need to teach is embedded in my psyche and stirs my soul.
The warrior archetype is another one of my primary archetypes. I joined the U.S. Army at age 17 to get away from an abusive aunt and uncle I came to live with in the United States when I was 16 years old. I never felt safe with my uncle, and my aunt was ruthless. I was dark skinned and she favored the light-skinned children in the family. I was in a living Hell and needed to get away from them.
I don’t do as much vegan entertaining anymore. After years of hosting vegan meals and vegan tea parties, I’m moving into a new phase of life. I feel that, first and foremost, I need to live by my teacher archetype and teach people about herbs and veganism. This, I believe, is my true calling.
I also have a husband in Nigeria and need to focus on getting him to America to be with me. A 9-month paper pushing exercise for entry into the country turned into a 5-year delay. He is still not here.
Sharon’s adventurous vegan journey for Lent leads to a man standing at the river’s edge in a royal blue robe
Sharon spotted him at 5:30 am on her third day in Brazil. He was tall and lanky and stood erect in a long blue robe at the river’s edge. At the time she saw him, Sharon was celibate and on a water fast for purification. She had already transitioned to veganism and was deep on her vegan spiritual pathway.
“I wasn’t looking for love. I wasn’t looking for a man. And yet, there he stood, catching my eye,” she said.
Sharon sauntered nearer to where the man stood and sat on a bench. She greeted him and, in turn, he asked if she was from Brazil. Sharon told him that she was Panamanian living in America.
Slowly, the man inched closer to Sharon and sat next to her on the bench. That’s where they stayed for four hours, engrossed in conversation from 6 until 10 pm. When they rose to walk into the night, Sharon told the man that he looked like a king in his long flowing robe. In response, he declared that they would marry and she would be his queen.
Sharon and Hameed Aremu spent the days Sharon had remaining in Brazil wandering around Salvador Bahia as platonic friends. She left Hameed and Brazil to continue her year-long quest across four continents to self-discovery and health.
As her journey began to wind down, she returned to Salvador Bahia to see Hameed again. They spent the next 30 days together.
“It wasn’t lovey-dovey. I wasn’t in love. Our friendship wasn’t like that. We just enjoyed each other’s company. I had been hungry to have deep conversations. My soul needed different words. I was tired of having the same conversations with people. He was music to my ears,” she said.
Veganism and a friendship deepen
Sharon is vegan. Hameed is not. Hameed is from the Muslim Yoruva tribe in Nigeria. In his tribe, men are treated like royalty, according to Sharon. Women do the cooking, cleaning, and work.
But Sharon said he was different. For 30 days he cooked for her and did her laundry. They sat in the garden of her Airbnb each morning and enjoyed long leisurely breakfasts together. They exercised at a run-down gym in San Paulo and went to beaches, open-air markets, and to his apartment for meals he prepared.
Hameed prayed five times each day. Together they spent afternoons hiking and evenings walking. The relationship was conversational and friendly. It was romantic in a platonic sense, which Sharon said made her feel free.
And then one afternoon while strolling along a boulevard, Hameed stopped and lifted Sharon from her feet, twirling her in the air while exclaiming, “My queen, my queen, my queen!”
“He claimed me at that moment, and I was captivated,” she said.
Hameed asked Sharon to marry him, and she said yes. The day they got married in Hameed’s Nigerian village, he introduced her to his family not as Sharon, but as Queen.
Staying true to being vegan while married to a man who eats meat
“We have been married five years and in this length of time, he has never called me Sharon. He always calls me Queen,” Sharon said.
“That is what we are to each other — king and queen. It is a relationship born of mutual respect and dignity. He teaches me wisdom and brings me peace,” she said.
From the beginning of their relationship, Hameed resonated with Sharon’s spirituality, but he didn’t understand her vegan diet or vegan lifestyle.
“He never pushed meat onto me. I told him from the onset that I would never touch meat or cook it for him. He respects that and says that he believes my being vegan is keeping me younger-looking,” she said with a laugh.
Hameed Aremu has 16 siblings. His mother is the third wife to his father. His father is the elder in the tribal village. Sharon said she will not convert to the Muslim religion.
“I was raised Catholic and believe that regardless of religion, we each pray to the same God,” Sharon said.
Nigerian men from Hameed’s tribe take multiple wives, but he has told Sharon that he will not take another wife.
Deepening her commitment to the vegan path she started for Lent
Sharon believes her trip to Brazil made her a better person and a better vegan. She said the time she spent in Brazil made her look at life differently. A few days before meeting Hameed, Sharon was staying in a place called Salvador Bahia. This was a slave trade town where descendants of slaves mostly live. Michael Jackson had sung, “They don’t care about us here” when he was in Salvador Bahia.
“I saw in their faces their stories of enslavement,” Sharon said. “The people in that town are kind and sweet and loving. They are beautiful people.”
Every morning Sharon would walk in a circle with the locals in the town center. She said they would nod to one another in greeting. She went on tours with them in the middle of the ocean and spent time being present in their company.
“It was like I had been with those people in Salvador Bahia my whole life,” Sharon said.
She still keeps in touch with many of them on Facebook. Sharon chose Salvador Bahia randomly. She wanted a calm and quiet place by the water to heighten her spiritual practice.
“It was meant to be. They don’t speak English, and I don’t speak their language. But we made it work. I call it Divine Providence,” she said.
Questioning everything except her commitment to veganism
Sharon’s time in Salvador Bahia and subsequent time in Brazil with Hameed caused Sharon to question everything about her life — her religion, her life’s purpose, her family history, her American lifestyle — everything.
“The only thing I didn’t question was my veganism. That has felt pure and right from the moment I took it up as a 40-day Lenten practice,” she said.
Sharon said being in Brazil brought out all of the questions that were lying dormant within her.
“In Brazil, I woke up from the longest, deepest sleep of my life and had a true spiritual awakening,”she said.
Part of her awakening was remembering her traumatic past to reconstruct her personal story.
“I weighed 125 pounds when I left Panama as a 16-year-old girl. I returned to Panama more than three decades later as a 305-pound woman. The American diet and lifestyle had taken their toll. Aunt Iris’ herbs and veganism would get me back on track,” Sharon said.
In the words of Sharon Bolden: Why I left Panama
I had begun missing Panama so much that I wore a hernia into my side. I never stopped remembering every alley, every street, every corner, every market. I missed the Panamanian lifestyle.
I have asked myself every day since leaving Panama 46 years ago how my life might have been different if I had stayed in Panama. I lost a lot by leaving. I missed the funerals when my Aunt Iris and brother died, and I missed all of the family celebrations. I paid a price for leaving.
I was a teenager when a friend’s cousins from America came to visit Panama. I remember thinking that they were the hottest girls I had ever seen. When they opened their suitcases to unpack their clothes, it was like a thousand pairs of shoes fell out. In that instant I knew I wanted to live where they lived. I couldn’t imagine staying in Panama after seeing the number of shoes those girls had.
When I was 16 years old, I told my mother I wanted to live in America with my aunt and uncle. She bought the airline tickets and off I went. Months later I realized that I had sold my soul to the devil for those shoes. Living with my aunt and uncle turned out real bad for me.
When I was in the Army, I asked my mother to send my young brother to America so I could help him have a better life. I raised him like he was a son. I was 21 years old. At the same time, I was raising my own small daughter. The grace of God protected us. I got married at age 19. We had people in and out of the house at all hours to talk and eat. I felt good about opening my home to others.
At one point I made a conscious decision to forgive my aunt and uncle and to heal myself from past trauma. Having people constantly around me was a necessary distraction and part of my healing process. I continued doing this throughout my entire adult life. I have always surrounded myself with people.
Being vegan is the best thing that has happened to me. Every day it causes me to go deeper into my spiritual practice to keep finding answers about how I should live my life. As a nod to my past, I named my herbal tea business “$50 and a Suitcase” because that’s what I had to my name when I left Panama to live in America. I had $50 in cash and one suitcase. That was it.
Adopting a vegan diet and lifestyle set Sharon Bolden free
Going vegan for Lent set Sharon free. She said those 40 days of not eating meat and dairy turned her life around.
“The whole foods plant-based diet and lifestyle have taught me to understand myself. It has made me realize the importance of being true to myself,” Sharon said.
Sharon credits veganism for healing her wounded child and setting her free from the trauma that had bound itself in her body, mind and spirit. Sharon also credits veganism for improving her health and healing her from COVID. Being a Black vegan gave her a unique community to belong to.
“Veganism made me whole,” Sharon said.
The whole foods plant-based diet and lifestyle have taught me to understand myself. It has made me realize the importance of being true to myself. Veganism made me whole.
COVID causes a setback to Sharon’s physical and mental health
Like many other people thrown off-kilt by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sharon veered from her spiritual path and lost her way for a while. She withdrew into the shadows and entered into a realm of personal darkness.
“I recognized the dark place I had entered and knew I had to get out of the depths of it. I knew I had to ready myself for a fast, but my body rebelled and wouldn’t allow it. I was in a deep spiritual crisis. I was struggling, struggling, struggling and had a vision that something bad was going to happen to me,” she said.
And something bad did happen. In December 2020, Sharon contracted a severe case of COVID. She grew weak and exhausted. She was in severe pain and terrified that she would be put on a ventilator.
Things got worse for Sharon. She had a stroke while hospitalized. COVID had slammed her to the mat. People who knew her panicked.
Sharon had always been the person people came to for healing. When COVID took her down, she couldn’t heal anyone and some people in her life panicked.
“They felt entitled to take from me what precious little energy I had left. They wouldn’t accept my illness. Instead of leaving me alone in peace, they created chaos with their aggressive demands,” she said.
Sharon remained in the hospital for 12 days and was conscious of hallucinations she had at nighttime of a man who hovered over her bed. In the hallucinations, Sharon fed aspirins to the man. She watched him ascend into the sky each morning.
Post-COVID therapy
Twelve days after being admitted to the hospital for COVID, Sharon was released. She removed from her life the people who had emotionally drained her while hospitalized, and as soon as she was able to manage it, she began running again. She would get up early every morning and drive to a quiet place in Alton, Illinois, where she would run from 6-7:30 a.m. Sometimes she ran eight miles, and other times she had the strength and stamina to run just two miles.
“But I always ran,”she said. “And that was the important thing. I ran.”
Since becoming vegan, running is as essential to Sharon as breathing is to the average person.
“I had a personal transformation when I became vegan and I embraced it fully. I went vegan at age 51. A year later, at age 52, I ran a half marathon, which is something I never could have done or would have wanted to do before living vegan,” Sharon said.
Since then, she has been running every day, except on days when she has been ill or exhausted from the after effects of COVID.
Sharon’s immediate goal is to heal herself back to mental alertness through running and living the vegan lifestyle.
After her post-COVID running sessions each morning, Sharon returns home to continue her daily ritual of making a green smoothie with chia seeds and herbs, fruits and nut milk. And then she goes back to bed for a nap.
After napping, she gets up and makes a cup of herbal tea and reads something spiritual, does some light cooking, peruses her healing books or writes recipes for healing tonics, ointments, and fizz bombs. She stays in motion to avoid panic attacks.
In the words of Sharon Bolden: Channeling Aunt Iris to heal from COVID
COVID robbed me of my energy and poisoned my body. I could smell the toxic drugs doctors prescribed oozing from my urine and skin. My daughters came to the rescue while I was hospitalized and made sure I had the healthy vegan food my body needed.
I knew I had to channel Aunt Iris to survive the illness. Aunt Iris had hundreds and hundreds of herbs in her house for every type of body, mind, spirit healing.
I learned from her by sneaking around and watching Aunt Iris from around corners, under tables and wherever else I could observe her actions without being spotted. She would swat me with a wooden spoon if she caught me watching her. But that never stopped me from spying on her to learn what I could. I was amazed by her knowledge of herbs and how she used them for the common good.
I have 100 herbs in my home. The moment I returned home from the hospital, I started combining herbs in a pot of boiling water to drink so I could expel the chemicals from my body. I knew I would never heal if I did’t first remove the toxic drugs from my body.
I drank herbs and took hot showers to cleanse and detox my body. I took body floats, did infrared saunas, and had acupuncture. I did everything that I could think of to release the chemicals.
I also purified myself in other ways to balance my body and soul. I adorned myself in African waist beads. These are ritualistic beads that women in Africa wear for protection. I woke up one instant to voices talking about my waist beads. I was afraid the nurses were going to take them off of me. I could hear Aunt Iris’s voice say to me, “Don’t ever let anyone remove your waist beads.”
The nurses didn’t take the waist beads off of me. That was a moment of grace. I would have been too weak to fight them. The beads have healing powers, and I believe they helped me recover enough from COVID to be released from the hospital.
Those COVID days were very scary times. When I returned home from the hospital, I remember telling my daughters, “I know I look the same to you, but I am a different person now.”
COVID steals your personality. I have to keep taking herbs, even now, six months later. I was released from the hospital on December 3, 2020. Two week after being released, I still felt like a two-ton gorilla. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t even walk. And there are some days still when I don’t have enough strength to even go to the bathroom.
But, like Aunt Iris, I have herbs to help me heal. And I have a healthy vegan diet and live a wholesome vegan lifestyle. I know I will heal fully from COVID. My vegan diet, vegan lifestyle, and vegan spirituality all work together to protect me like a warrior shield against the coronavirus.
Influences that paved the way for Sharon to go vegan for Lent
Sharon estimates that 90% of her personal life story is filled with Aunt Iris. She was a village elder and healer in Panama when Sharon was growing up. She passed along some of her knowledge to Sharon.
Sharon didn’t grow up vegan, and Aunt Iris wasn’t vegan. The family ate meat, but not much of it. Sharon recalls living a holistic lifestyle in Panama, going to open-air markets to buy fresh produce each day and plucking fresh fruit from trees. Her family made their own juices and ate a lot of raw foods.
She also remembers the women’s herbs Aunt Iris used to stop the menstrual cramps that caused Sharon great pain in puberty. And she remembers the salve Aunt Iris applied to her hand after burning it while ironing clothes.
“Aunt Iris was a stoic and skinny woman with no breasts. called her Black Olive Oyl because she was rail-thin like Olive Oyl in the comic strip Popeye. Aunt Iris knew how to cure everyone for every possible affliction. She also had a network of healers that she called upon when needed. She never married,” Sharon said.
Memories of Aunt Iris stand out prominently in Sharon’s mind. To this day Sharon said she drinks water all day long because Aunt Iris made everybody in the family drink it.
“Anytime we wanted a snack, she gave us a glass of water,” Sharon said.
Mimicking Aunt Iris these many years later
Sharon admits to having been a mouthy teenage girl with attitude. She recalled the story of how Aunt Iris sent her to an African spiritualist to cure her of her attitude. A wizened old woman deep in the wilderness performed an ancient ritual on Sharon. The ritual terrified Sharon and left a lasting impression that she never forgot.
“The ritual achieved its intended purpose of bringing my attitude down a few notches and halting my mouthiness,” Sharon said.
When she looks back on Aunt Irish, Sharon said she feels sad.
“She did not have an easy life. She left Kingston, Jamaica, to live in Panama when she was young. She worked hard and never traveled anywhere,” Sharon said.
“Her skinny self always carried a large woven basket, and she used a machete to hack her way into the forest to collect herbs. Aunt Iris was fearless. She never went anywhere without a basket and a machete, and she taught me to do the same. Today I kind of mimic Aunt Iris. I carry a machete and woven basket, just like she did,” Sharon said.
Aunt Iris made teas from the herbs she collected. Sharon said each morning upon awakening and again before going to sleep, she made everyone drink her herbal teas for medicinal health. The teas were for worms parasites, stomach aches, cramps and intestinal pain.
“Her teas tasted horrible and she always gave us a peppermint candy afterward to make drinking them more tolerable. We would sell our souls to the devil for that peppermint,” Sharon said.
Sharon Bolden is more committed than ever to veganism
Today Sharon’s identity is firmly rooted in the vegan lifestyle. She said, “I never thought I had much of a heart for animals, but I do now. I never thought I would want to spend the bulk of my time outdoors, but being in the sun makes you want to live a happy life. Being vegan makes you pay attention to your clothes and what you put in your mouth. You pay attention to everything. You want to feel connected to the whole universe.”
Sharon’s spiritual vegan pathway excites her. For her, the most exciting part of her journey so far is knowing that her grown daughters have seen a change in her.
“I’m glad my girls have seen the transformation take place in me. I wasn’t bad before, but I’ve upgraded,” she said.
In the words of Sharon Bolden: feeling a oneness with everything and everyone
Veganism is such a journey. When I began that 40-day vegan practice for Lent, eight years ago, I didn’t now where I was going with this stuff. All I knew at the time is that it felt good. I was opening up to more things in life. I was more at peace and discovering more and more goodness with each passing day. I wanted more of that.
The universe was speaking to me the day I decided to go vegan for Lent. Everything that came to me felt right. Veganism hasn’t failed me yet. The community of black vegan women closed rank around me and embraced me. Sometimes it takes my breath away how much they love me.
I had to watch what I did and what I said because these women were watching me. They referred people to me for my healing herbs and teas. The way people and the universe were opening up to me was like a mission, a calling.
Today people come to my home for herbal cures the way people used to go to Aunt Iris’s home for cures in Panama. We talk. If they are hungry, I feed them vegan food. If they cough, I make a vegan concoction.
I run my business like a Panamanian business. I follow my body, mind, and spirit. I make my herbal remedies and teas only if it feels right for me. I don’t run an assembly line. I follow my own natural rhythm.
Here’s what I tell people: Veganism opened the door to a whole new life for me. For me, veganism is not just about not eating meat. Living vegan is about grounding yourself and respecting yourself and all animals. It’s about healing your body, mind, and spirit. The vegan lifestyle is about finding yourself and helping others heal and find themselves.
My whole life changed after going vegan for Lent. And I know veganism can change the lives of others. Here’s an example of how veganism heightened my sense of oneness with everything and everyone around me:
It was early morning and the first time I had walked barefoot on grass after becoming vegan. I went outside without shoes on. I could feel the earth vibrating under my feet. I mean I could literally feel the earth pulsating under my feet.
In that moment I felt connected to nature, the universe and everyone around me. I never had an experience like that before going vegan. Veganism makes you appreciate everything about life. You honestly feel and see things differently. Vegans are kinder people.We have a heightened sense of gratitude for all we have received.
Black vegans, a growing community of support
Sharon gains power from her archetypes. She gains further strength from a community of Black vegans she has come to know. The community of Black vegans is another thing she is grateful for.
“Being vegan was lonely for a middle-aged 51-year-old Black woman just eight years ago. Now there are tons of Black vegans writing vegan blogs,” Sharon said.
African Americans have become the fastest-growing vegan demographic in the United States, giving Sharon a lot of new company on her vegan path.
Read next Sharon’s vegan quiche recipe
Gratitude, another passage on the journey
It is this heightened sense of gratitude that Sharon exudes routinely as a natural part of who she is.
Still recovering from COVID, Sharon has gained new friends to replace the old friends she lost during her dark night of the soul in the early days of the pandemic. She said she feels a second part of her life coming on.
“I have friends all around the world and feel that I am about to enter into a new passageway. I feel a new path unfolding. I’m a teacher and a warrior. And I’m a seeker — a traveler. Something is moving through me. I am grateful to my archetypes and listen to them because they guide me and don’t let me down,” Sharon said.
At the center of a circle of women, Sharon Bolden is vegan coach, herbal healer, doula, mentor, and teacher
The quintessential teacher, Sharon facilitates Zoom calls with women and instructs them on how to use medicinal herbs instead of synthetic drugs to heal their afflictions and illnesses. Women seek her out. She doesn’t advertise or promote herself.
“I’m a mentor to young women who want to learn the herbal arts. It feels good to me to pass along my knowledge so that other women may benefit from what I know and have learned from my beloved Aunt Iris. In the back of my mind, Aunt Iris is always there heeding warnings and giving advice and instruction,” Sharon said.
Sharon is a practicing doula and also enjoys nurturing pregnant women. She rubs their feet and massages their arms and legs with herbs.
“Women who are 65 years and older are considered elders in African communities. I am 58 years old. In a few more years I will quality for this honored distinction,” Sharon said.
“It took years for me to reconstruct my family tree and personal story. I now listen to that small inner voice that knows who I am. Veganism has been an amazing ride. I set myself free through veganism, and like Aunt Iris, I became fearless. I became who I was meant to be. I feel like someone who has busted out of a cage to set herself free. It is a beautiful thing.”
Veganism has been an amazing ride. I set myself free through veganism, and like Aunt Iris, I became fearless. I became who I was meant to be. I feel like someone who has busted out of a cage to set herself free. It is a beautiful thing.
How sacred beauty, castles in the sky, and a healing journey with Ayahuasca brought Mira Dee to veganism and carried her back to Self.
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