Sydney Silver, neé Sarah Roberts, lived a unique and multifaceted life until her passing on December 12, 2021 from breast cancer. Please help us remember her short but full life by adding your favorite photos, videos & tributes to this site (as "Stories").
Sydney thought deeply about the impact of her life, had strong opinions and lived according to her values more than most people do. She was a thinker, a seeker, and a doer who worked as an actress and invested in real estate, as well as spending hours working to reduce suffering and explore the mysteries of our world. After her death, friends from around the world reached out to share the ways that she had inspired and shaped their lives.Sydney's impact survives her body on this earth in so many ways.
She dedicated a lot of her life to reducing suffering, especially for animals, and stopped eating meat in the 1990s, before most people knew what “vegan” meant. When she was swept up and jailed during a protest in 2002, she was released early when the jail found it too hard to respect her values and she refused to compromise them. From an article at the time describing a conversation with her jailor: “He suggested I stop eating vegan,” Roberts said. “I explained to him that ... to me, animals aren’t food. They’re dead bodies. My ethics command me not to eat them.” (1)
Sydney eventually lost interest in activism as a way to make change and started looking for ways to reduce suffering through science and business. Before she passed, she had figured out two ways to make humane milk and eggs, and set up a trust to realize this project in an ethical and sustainable way that would outlive her.
A thinker and a seeker, Sydney developed a church where she shared her thinking on various philosophical and moral issues, including death. We don’t have to wonder what she believed about death, her writings from her church say that while she could never know for sure, she thought we get a chance to come back to earth in other lives, but just don’t remember it. Here’s how she thought it through:
“To an eternal being, life may be heaven. How can u have everything In heaven if u have no limitations or suffering? With no limitations u have nothing new and no excitement. So that means there is no excitement in heaven?
Which means this is heaven, where we live now. Or a part of it. The part where we can have more things, such as excitement.” (2)
Born into a cult group, Sydney was constantly trying to figure out who and what to trust. She felt this formative experience protected her from being taken advantage of later in life, and she trusted her own eyes and memories over anything else.
This led her to explore and develop flat earth experiments. Her experiments at the Salton Sea landed her in an eccentric community of seekers where she had fun and made many friends. One hope she had was that the last experiment she was planning would one day be carried out – a reality show boat trip around the earth at two different latitudes which would definitively prove the shape of the earth.
She was not always an easy person to be in a relationship with. She held an eclectic set of beliefs that probably no one agreed with her on 100%, and on one hand she enjoyed debating and exploring many ideas with people who disagreed with her.
On the other hand, if she felt you were acting in ways that created unnecessary suffering or which hurt her, she pulled no punches in giving you a piece of her mind and making sharp boundaries. She struggled with trust - the people she put her trust in didn’t always live up to it, leading to more suffering than she deserved.
“To reduce our suffering, but at the same moment to appreciate it & find gratitude for it, is what (I hope) for, as it does appear that suffering brings us a great many things we would not wish to be without.” (2)
Sydney left us with a lot of her as an actress, musician and entertainer (3) - if you miss her, you can see her again in (and add to!) the videos in the Gallery and on her YouTube channel. (4) She encouraged other people to live up to their creative potential, setting many people on their career paths in this way. In an industry that likes to pit women against each other, she insisted that the women she worked with lift each other up and don’t compete and tear each other down.
She was proud of the ways that she created space for women to work together and realize whatever they wanted for themselves, while fighting against unfairness at personal and systemic levels. Sydney’s church dontated to and worked on many issues including helping erotic workers by decriminalizing sex work, a cruelty free milk and eggs project, and a garden city project intended to reduce poverty and increase access to food and healthy communities.
Sydney lived the last few months of her life at the Immunity Therapy Center, a cancer clinic in Mexico. At this clinic she met many friends from all walks of life among the patients and staff, including Amish and Menonite patients, nurses and psychedelic medicine producers, janitors and doctors. She was surrounded by love and appreciation by staff and patients, called “Sunshine” and loved by drivers and cleaning ladies - everyone.
Before she died she mused about a director who wanted to make a movie of her life and said “I’ve had a lot of fun with this life I’ve lived.” Her life was not always easy but she lived without regrets, saying that she was proud of who she was, and if she hadn’t had the hard times she had, she might not have become this version of herself. Sydney was proud of her ability as a businesswoman who made her own way, mentored other people, and made those around each other treat each other better. She was proud that her modest success and careful planning allowed her to sustain herself and those close to her during the pandemic.
Sydney died ready to go, ready for her suffering to end, and telling us to be happy for the end to her suffering, and to be happy ourselves.” Happiness is the most important thing” she said, “and we don’t spend enough time and energy on it.”
Please honor her by making or buying a delicious vegan meal on the day of her memorial and any other days you'd like to remember her.
Sydney is survived by her mom Kathy Sue, mom Geni, sisters Julie & Ella, goddaughter Maya and brothers D, O, Matt, Vince & Markus, and their families, & all her friends.
(1) Sydney's time in jail for protesting on Democracy Now & LA Times Story about her release:
https://www.democracynow.org/2002/5/30/street_medi...https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jun-0...(2) Sydney's World Church Website:
http://www.churchoftheworld.net(3) Sydney's website:
http://www.sydney-silver.com(4) Sydney's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Tch8300Nsokr_5W...
