Rethinking Veganism
I keep having this nagging notion that all life is sacred. That means animals and plants. And that Life depends on Life to exist, however hard that is to accept. So with years spent vacillating between vegetarianism and veganism, often feeling justified in my moral uprightness by not eating meat, this concept reduces my "rightness" to rubble.
Disclaimer: I respect all omnivorous, post-modern dietary choices. Meat-eater, vegetarian, vegan, raw-vegan, paleolithic, whatever! But lately this poking, tug-at-my-sleeve thought prevails every time I eat a meal: all life is sacred.
Then I begin to see that eating a piece of beef and eating a head of lettuce are both the consumption of Life. If the life being taken has been honored, cared for, given proper respect, then the act of eating becomes about unity and connection to other life forms, which is the underlying truth of existence on this planet. And for that matter, the act of eating also becomes a direct relationship to death. Plants, seeds, birds, all must die in order for me to live. Or using different language: energy must be recycled that I may live. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, they said blandly in high school science. I understand that to mean all energy; the energy of a beating heart, of respirating breath, even the energy of cell division.
With that in mind, a meal takes on deeper meaning. So that taking the life of a turkey to celebrate family and community and give thanks on a holiday begins to seem somewhat appropriate. Especially if that turkey lived fairly, cared for and raised in the neighbor's yard and I am taking responsibility for its death at my table. Indeed my own mortality is tied up with that turkey's mortality.
Death used to be acknowledged in the very essence of daily life for humans. From our earliest, more tentative existence to the death practices of our recent ancestors. Tending the body in the kitchen, showing it in the parlor, digging the dirt, placing the gone-flesh in the ground. Now we have very little to do with death, fear it to the extent of subtle mania, expose such in our over-zealous cleanliness and insistence on letting others do the work for us. How did my grandfather get from the hospital bed to that casket? How did my turnips get on that grocery store shelf?
(By the way, insects and weeds must die for us to have fresh produce. I remind myself of this crawling through the garden pulling up dandelion and chicory, squishing stink bugs off the squash leaves.)
The problem with being at the top of the food chain, and having the frontal cortex that allows analyzation and self-consciousness, is that we are cursed with knowing what it is that we do. I know that bug will never fly again into the cool night. You know you take a beautiful summery day or the acrid smell of rain on hot earth away from that chicken. Does the chicken know? Does it matter? We know. But the great gift of being human, of having that frontal lobe, is the same as its curse: self-consciousness! Being present for every moment of excitement, expectation, sorrow, anger, fear, and gratitude. All emotions of daily life. All emotions involved in the reaping and preparing of animals, birds, fish or plants for daily nourishment. This is the emotional framework of the life/death cycle.
Whereas once upon a time we were present with and mandatorily (by nature of the exchange) took responsibility for taking life that sustains our own, now we can walk in a grocery store and buy lamb chops cleaned and tidied in clear plastic wrap, or reach for a sealed bag of spinach with perfectly formed leaves minus bug holes. Perhaps the omnivore's dilemma is the same as the dilemma of contemporary society; that is a seeking of connection to the nourishment that sustains our life. Of seeking connection, God, community, all things that are just different names for the same thing.
As I write this I still have not eaten meat exactly. I did resume eating eggs (local pasture raised) and brewing my own bone broth. Bone broth, as I have come to understand, is full of easily absorbed essential minerals, glucosamine, and gelatin. I can attest that my body has responded kindly to this new nourishment. As a matter of fact I have fallen into a new weekly rhythm around my broth. I walk to the local butchery a few blocks away, where the woman butcher and her employees all know me and greet me when I come in. Every week I ask questions and they offer answers, we laugh, talk about the upcoming local goings-on while I pick up my poultry bones and a dozen farm eggs. My butcher believes in working with local farmers and clean, properly-fostered meats. This makes me trust her. They find me somewhat amusing, the new lady who only buys bones and eggs, who is too timid yet to buy a whole bird to cook, eating the meat and utilizing the bones; but we get along. I then walk home and brew the bones in a pot for six plus hours. I spend those hours at home with the soft smell of food wafting through my house as I clean or read or tend to phone calls with friends. On Sunday I make a soup with the broth that when I taste it, has such a richness and depth that my whole being feels nourished...from the friendliness at the butchery, to the time spent preparing my food, to the sitting down and offering it to my body. And every week I take a big bowl to my mother. All this from a simple bone broth.
I still tend to find the vegan option on the menu when dining out (unless it's an organic establishment) because I lack trust in the typical sources of fish, meat, and eggs; and for energetic and health reasons I choose not to put industrial-produced animal products in my body. Though by now my undeniable hankering to take full responsibility for my place in the food chain has proved worthwhile. I find to do this authentically, I must acknowledge death in each bite as intimately as I acknowledge the life. Still curiously surprised by where this strange notion -- All life is sacred -- is taking me; I go willingly. And giving proper thanks.
Image by Thoth, God of Knowledge, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
Tweet- 12-14-10
- Amy Ritchie's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
Comments
"The problem with being at
"The problem with being at the top of the food chain, and having the frontal cortex that allows analyzation and self-consciousness, is that we are cursed with knowing what it is that we do."
This presupposes that we are at the top of the food chain.
indeed!
...and we are not?
ARE WE CONVENIENTLY BULLSHITTING OURSLEVES!!!
I read most of the posts on this blog and surely there are some interesting perspectives but I fail to see some REALLY substantial discussion about a HUGE point that was overlooked/avoided by the author and most of our community. A community that has alot of suggestion and action towards creating a new life, new way of addressing life in society on spiritual as well as material/practical levels I feel is acting in great ignorance for convenience.
If in fact I give you that ALL life is equal we MUST agree by a purely realistic and measurable way that consuming animal flesh is the most resource intensive and wasteful means of consuming food. Aside from that it is certainly cruel, and largely, if not completely, UNNECESSARY!!!! What MUST be CLEARLY understood is that in order to live as RESPONSIBLE and ETHICAL as possible we must be mindful and act in accordance with what is we face as truth in regard to the USE OF RESOURCES OF A PLANT DIET AND THAT OF ONE OF ANIMAL FLESH AND FLUIDS... It is CLEAR that it takes far more resources, water, grain, waste management, fuel, land, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc. to produce animal flesh and fluids than that of plants.. For example a vegan uses 300 gallons of water per day and a carnivore 50,000. It takes 17 lbs of grain to produce one lb of animal flesh. THe list goes on and on. We also should be quite aware of the bullshit that its ok to eat flesh and fluids of animals because it is "organic" or "free range" both of which are HIGHLY flawed labels.
It also does not allow us to offer what we desire, expect, and would like people to identify us with; PEACE> We dont offer peace if we are eating every meal that contribute to violence against animals as well as the resources of this planet. If we cant look past convenience and offer peace, insight, thoughtfulness, mindful action, and responsibility in our choices then how is it possible we can expect that of others who are living in a less conscious way? If WE are sitting here on this site consuming ourselves with conversation about moving forward, HIGHER, while we sit with the flesh and fluid of creatures that were tortured and slaughtered that felt pain, fear, anger, helplessness, and misery within us it is with great skepticism and little hope that I have for our world. If we are not thinking about the amount of violence we are causing on this planet wasting its resources and trying to convince ourselves and others that we are on a more responsible path then we are surely doomed.
I hate to leave this heavy space but I do feel saddened that THIS great community of thinkers is actually trying to rationalize the single thing that could so greatly change our world; our diet.
It would be most wise for us to consider;
- How can I be MORE/MOST compassionate with my choices
- Is this a NECESSARY choice
- What is the impact of my choice, is there a more responsible one
- AM I choosing peace or misery
- How am I feeding myself spiritually with this action
- How will this choice affect this planet today and tomorrow
- Is this a choice I am proud of
- Am I prepared to do all that was needed to create this meal or am I ok with it because I am paying someone else to torture, raise and slaughter so I dont have to
- Do I know anyone who ever died from eating too many zucchini??
In love and peace
Ray
Well said Ray
While I applaud any efforts to be a conscious eater - especially a conscious carnivore - the fact remains that the vast majority of people do not think like that, do not even want to be made aware of the background of their meat etc. I've had friends and family tell me in the midst of a conversation 'I don't want to know!". I've also heard the religous dominion-based argument on a number of occasions regarding our right to lord it over the animals of the earth. On top of that, people on a limited budget most often cannot afford grass fed or free range (whatever that may mean). They must opt for the cheapest available food if they eat meat which can be any bit of ground up muck you can get from a factory for 99cents a pound.
To me there is no other way than to stay away from meat - thats a decision I've made and I try to subtley influence those around me to think more about the food they put in their mouth.
I'm not vegetarian because I
Post-Veganism
Hi Amy,Thanks for your thoughtful blog.
I was vegetarian for nearly twenty years, and vegan for twelve of those years. About a month ago, I started to eat meat.
One factor in my decision was Rudolf Steiner's profound maxim, "It is better to eat meat than to think meat."His experience was that thoughts are as real as objects - therefore, a thought form in our psychic space that instructs us to eat meat is not merely fancy - it's a dynamic being that is asking something of us. If we fight against it, it's not doing us any better than simply eating the meat - and disobeying can cause harm to our being.I was thinking meat and decided to give it a try.
If you don't want all that spiritual stuff wrapped in, you can take a more materialistic approach and say that craving and thinking about meat are signs that your body is missing something.
After eating meat again (and surprisingly experiencing no negative side effects or digestive distress), I feel stronger and have more energy. More importantly, my mood has become very stable - I find myself able to deal with many problems I'd not had the strength of mind or clarity for before I ate meat easy to handle now. (Again, Steiner comes into play - I won't go into his explanations of how meat affects the astral and etheric bodies or even what those bodies are here, but feel free to look it all up, there's plenty of information online and in his printed lectures.)
I think the most important lesson for me in this experience is a sort of echo of your statement that all life is sacred - It is not only the sameness of sacred life that unites us, but our freedom. Every being - not just its life, but its individual configuration - is sacred as well. Because of this, we must honor as sacred our individual needs while keeping the compassionate notion that life is sacred.
For some, vegetarianism is appropriate. Whether you base this on blood type, ethical conviction, or spiritual principle: being a vegetarian is the best way for certain people to harmonize their individuality with the sacred fact of life.
For others, eating meat is more appropriate - because it strengthens a weakened body, or because it obeys thought-forms, or because vitamins are missing.
Keeping this in mind, as a meat eater, I have the responsibility of respecting life and death by not eating meat that comes from tortured animals from factory farms (or "natural" farms that claim to raise their animals humanely but genetically modify them, clip their beaks, allow them very limited access to outdoors, etc.)
Plants can also be tortured, and I suspect monoculture crops that have been genetically altered and sprayed with chemicals and planted in chemical ground are tortured. Since a plant is so intensely a being of its environment and growth (whereas animals are more likely to carry their environments within themselves), altering its environment and growth patterns drastically are the surest way to "torture" a plant.
It's not always possible to eat non-genetically modified, humanely raised, spiritually respected plants and animals. We can try our best - and when we don't know, we can pray over our food and welcome it into a new life through our bodies - the opportunity to transform from pain and suffering into a joyful participation.
Thanks again,
Conner Habib
Transformation
Conner, thank you for your very thoughtful response. I am grateful to you for bringing up the power of prayer and intention: "we can pray over our food and welcome it into a new life through our bodies - the opportunity to transform from pain and suffering into a joyful participation."
We have far more power in our lives - and health- than we allow ourselves to believe. Best wishes to you, Amy
I am very sad to hear this
I want to start by saying that there has to be a line drawn some where, i believe one of the other responses talked about "is it ok to eat a human, or a chimp, or a dog, or pig. It comes down to fear, and the fear lives in the meat that you eat.
Take into account also, cholesterol comes only from animal and animal bi products.
Because humans have such long digestive systems, we absorb to much of this, which leads to heart attacks and strokes, it also causes acidification of the blood. A lion for example has only a few feet of intestines, which allows them to eat meat without running into this problem.
As far as being weak, go talk to NFL running back Ricky Williams about that. he is a raw food vegan, and plows through 6'4 270 pound men on the weekly basis.
If anyone wonders what diet is best for a human, well i would say just look to our friends the great apes, lots of fruit, vegis, nuts, lentils.
having said all of this, i must admit my diet is far from perfect and sometimes my laziness causes me to take the easy option.
I know all things are conscious, but i doubt a head of lettuce feels fear, or an orange for that matter. I do know that a pig will scream to live!
If we all agree consciousness is a thing, then i think we can agree that creating fear is not helpful if it can be avoided. I hope this has been found to be a valid counter point. Keep talking and keep thinking
IT takes more tortured plants to produce...
great post!
Reminds me of a post I made on my blog a few years ago.
I deal with similar thoughts on subjects like this, from the food we eat to the materials that we use to build our homes and clothe our bodies.
http://blog.bryanklein.com/2005/05/69-disgustipated.html
-Bryan
Fruitarianism
The Sacred Of Life
So basically what you're
oh and just to be clear, not
Plants are conscious too
animal gifts
I've been a mostly-vegetarian for a number of years, but I eat meat and seafood on occasion, such as when I'm offered it in someone's home, gifted it, or when my body occasionally craves it. I choose sustainable, organic, and local meats and seafood when I can. I respect animals and am conscious of my impact on the environment, and so feel gratitude on the odd times when I do enjoy eating them.
For example, where I live we had a massive salmon run this year (unlike last year's small trickle). When I was given locally caught salmon this summer, it was a delicious treat. Last year, I didn't dare eat salmon, but this year's bounty was a gift of nature, and I appreciated every bite, since I know maybe next year I won't get to. But that's okay. Chickpeas and lentils aren't in any danger of extinction, and I'm happy to eat those, too.
We have more knowledge of nutrition and food than any people who came before us. We just have to take the time to learn, in order to eat in the way that brings our body's health, our ethics, and the Earth's health into line. Don't let anyone preach one way of eating over the other. Only you know what will work for you, and it may change at different stages in life.
I eat lots of meat.....
Plants are life also,
So plants feel pain now. I see.
Other Considerations: Environment and Direct Connections
One thing that is completely missing from this conversation is the environmental impacts of eating flesh - especially larger animals such as cows and pigs.
Eating the flesh of cows and pigs, and to a lesser extent chickens, is a massive waste of resources. It takes 16 pounds of wheat and 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. In the US, meat production consumes one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used. Food animals in the US create 130 times more excrement than the human population.
A person could make the counter-argument that these problems would go away if cows were allowed to graze naturally, but we have all seen the environmental destruction that this causes - erosion and eradication of native plants. Organic meat might be better than factory farmed meat - but the only truly sustainable meat is wild meat - and with a population as large as the world has today - wild meat is not an option.
As for the point about all life being sacred - yes I think we can all agree on this. Almost all of us have had a direct connection with the process of plant growth and harvest at some point in our lives. We all at least know how it feels to kill a plant. How many of us know what it feels like to directly kill an animal?
If a person wants to argue that it is ok to eat meat because plants are sacred too - then I would suggest that, at least once, that person go out and slaughter and butcher an animal for themselves. If this is done, then the conversation about sacredness, direct connection, and respect can begin.
VERY WELL SAID
Where's purpose?
Millions of Tiny Sentient Beings
And of course there is the small matter of the millions of cells, bacteria, and viruses your body is sentencing to death every second.
A question I once asked a Buddhist teacher: if I should avoid taking the lives of sentient beings, does this mean I should refuse antibiotics?
He was honest enough to say he'd never thought of that.
Since when are bacteria
I have been Vegan for 3
Traditional Foods vs. Packaged Foods
Seven years of vegetarianism felt great for me, but not quite as good as the past year in which I've excluded processed foods and included meat and an abundance of raw dairy (in the tradition of Weston A. Price).
I was able to make the switch because I realized that it would be damaging to my physical and spiritual health to wade in the belief that my nutritional needs are static, especially in a world where there is so much to learn about our evolved and evolving bodies and consciousness.
My move to a part of the country where I had abundant access to small-farmed, truly local organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed and -finished beef, freshly caught fish and RAW, unpasteurized milk, cream and cheese allowed me to toss aside my sense of morality associated with vegetarianism, in support of my new moral obligation to support this beautifully radical small mountain community that seems to be doing everything right.
The most sustainable way to eat involves a radical shift in consciousness, and it begins with a vision of life before packaging and processing. Take a moment to imagine it :)
Long before food became a corporate profit scheme, our ancestors ate farm-to-fork, cooked with saturated fats like butter and unfiltered olive oil (un-demonize the term saturated fat and discover that your body needs lots of it to produce energy and hormones and to build your cells and organs!) and ate plenty of raw and fermented foods.
They also experienced the joy of preparing food, something that is lost in our culture amongst meat-eaters and vegans/vegetarians alike. The most "nourishing" thing you can do for your body is to know exactly what is going in to it, without having to read a label.
The health conscious community has been duped big and bad with ingredients like canola oil, unfermented soy, pasteurized foods and food packaged in plastic.
If you are reading this post, you have the leisure to choose what enters into your consciousness...it would be wise for all of us with the same privilege to choose to skip the "aisles" at the health food store and rather spend a little bit more energy in choosing whole, traditional foods prepared in our own kitchens via more traditional methods.
Take more time to find, prepare, share and enjoy real food and we will be rewarded with individual health and collective well-being. It's as simple as that.
Real Milk: http://www.realmilk.com/
Canola Oil: http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/559-the-great-con-ola.html
Saturated Fat: http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/528-importance-of-saturated-f...
Packaged Foods Corporate Structure Flowchart: https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html
Read: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon; The Acid Alkaline Balance Diet: An Innovative Program that Detoxifies Your Body's Acidic Waste to Prevent Disease and Restore Overall Health by Felicia Kliment; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Much Love for the RS Community and the Expansion that is happening right now in all of us!!!
"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night." - Rainer Maria Rilke
Price, Fallon, etc.
Thanks for this Elizabeth -
It's true that, as you write, "If you are reading this post, you have the leisure to choose what enters into your consciousness..." Bearing in mind that food itself BECOMES consciousness through us. Instead of remaining inert matter, it transforms, in conjunction with our bodies, into the conscious participation with the world that we call thinking, feeling, and willing. It's not the only force that contributes to these actions, but it is a vital one.
Food that is less processed tends to transform more readily and to leave less litter in our bodies (the processed chemicals are like a candy wrapper - they contain aspects of the food, but are themselves undigestible and are left scattered about our body and mind in unsightly forms).
All that stated; the notion that diets including highly processed, sugar-added, genetically modified soy beans instead of lovingly tended to animals are better for the planet cannot be sustained. One pollutes our consciousness with waste, the other continues the act of of responsibility and love.
The human being and the human psyche must be included in the understanding of the good of the planet - not merely a distanced notion of killing animals is bad/eating plants is peaceful.
That's why the radical shift you mention in our relation toward food - including our psyche and idea-world as PART of the environment - is necessary.
I don't think Weston Price gets everything right, but I believe that Sally Fallon, Thomas Cowan, and others, properly tend to his thesis with spirituality.
Thanks for bringing their names here.
Conner Habib
TOSSING ASIDE MORALITY!!
"milk, cream and cheese allowed me to toss aside my sense of morality"
You said it!!!! Sorry to hear it. Also sounds like you are consuming more animal protein than you body is actually ingesting which is a huge waste of resources...
Eat Low on the Foodchain
It's crystal clear that the
Well I think most of us
Well you think, therefore you are
internet marketing
Thanks for sharing
over-population & meat-consumption
a lot of what is disgusting about meat consumption is peoples' attitudes. Ie: the attitude that "the animals are there for me" (not as entities in themselves), & not to mention the way these attitudes result in factory farming & other inhumane forms of treatment while the animal is alive.
That, & considering the vast numbers of people alive today, & the vast quantity of animals that must constantly be slaughtered if we all have the attitude of being "entitled" to our daily meat.... the whole meat-eating scene mostly makes me feel sick. My personal balance at the moment is to eat a vegan/vegetarian diet when I make food for myself at home & eat out at a restaurant. I will consume meat on "feast-days", &, since I work in the food-service industry, if they're about to throw the left-overs in the trash anyway...... But even in that latter case I think about all the hormones & cloning & muscle-memory of suffering contained in what I'm chewing.I love the point about plants being living entities too (true) - & if you think about it, isn't obtaining other beings' life force the whole raison d'etre for eating, period? But every perspective has it's limits, I think. This same notion of 'vitalism' is what causes some in Asia to hunt & kill tigers for their penises (vitality), leaving the rest of the carcass to rot... which I personally think is short-sighted, selfish, & wrong. For example. Anyway - namaste all. - Melanie D.organic bone soup
The big fish eat the little ones
Humane versus Animal
what about the destruction of the rainforests?
come on people...
how come no one is capable of even mentioning that the demands of the mass consumption of soy products (and there's others...) in the USA and the majoraty of European countries is destroying everyday the rainforests, like in Amazonia or the Palm oil production in Asia... To not eat certain animals you destroy other regions, other animals, other plants, other human lives. And what about Codex Alimentarius...? Also nothing to say aboot that? The change our souls are craving is to be back in to the natural rythms... For that you must grow your food, animal or plant, nurturing it and caring for it until it will give you its life force once you eat it. That seeded on a compassionate economy of post-economy. That would bring us back to community and natural life, the visceral truth we run and crave for.
first we have to make the Earth stable again,by becoming unharmless to Her and that can happen through peacefull communal living in smaller groups inter-connected in to larger nets of multiculturalism and knowledge seeded in self-sustained indepented life in ALL aspeccts. That is the change, and that would bring back the Sacred to life lifting the limits between mundane and divine, between the duality of good and bad. only through our sacrifice to surrender to the the natural rythms we may find our place in this world, we that learned with the lions and the eagles, that with our counciousness lifted ourselves into intellegent beings that feel and think and create. We must create our place in this world as the crown of creation - we would be then finnally (after we and the earth rest in peace for a while)the watchers of the Garden.
But no... We "buy" from farms that aren't cruel... and the issue is dead there. "And to feel nature i must go a week on a rainforest workshop tour to bring the exotic and foreign to my life" instead of finding myself as a creator of art and a grower of life,a sovereign of myself feeding myself and acctually feeling the bounty of the earth and at the same time totally vulnerable in the hands of Gaya... that really makes me sad.
peace to all
Is food the new religion?
Levity
Good try, "Amy"
incredibly complex subject
Ferdinand
One day I came home to find that my brothers had decided to take Ferdinand to the butcher, and my young friend was neatly packaged and labelled as to cut in the freezer.
I bawled for days, sniffling and sobbing between bouts of rage and acts of violence towards the traitor brothers who were Ferdinand's judge, jury and executioners.
"I will never eat Ferdinand" - became my motto and mantra, repeated over and over to whoever dared come near.
Each day I bemoaned the smells of the porterhouse steaks and rump stews wafting in from the kitchen.
And each day I noticed I became hungrier and hungrier.
One day I fled the house, grabbing the keys to the communal car and heading into the small local town. Pulling into the nearest food joint, I slumped into a chair and ordered a burger. Starving, I sunk my teeth into the burger and began unconsciously devouring it.
Suddenly I was enveloped in the energy of the cow become flesh that was now becoming me. I felt his being. I felt his life, his moods, his needs, his death throws. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by the sense of this being that I was to incorporate into my being.
And I put down the burger.
And I thought of Ferdinand. My sweet Ferdinand.
Ferdinand had led a much gentler life, and sn honorable - if unexpected by me - death.
Suddenly I was surrounded by the threads of all the beings ingesting and merging with other beings.
I went home.
I ate Ferdinand.
With pleasure.
With honor,
and with joy.
Many years have passed since that day, and I have been through years of many dietary regimes - vegan, raw, rainforest premasticated manioc brew...
I have found that my health needs change over time, and that those of others are as varied as our bodies - and our imaginations.
I have studied with countless indigenous elders and communities, and found the connection that I glimpsed that day eating Ferdinand is a part of their daily existence.
And I found that the most useful practice for me, whatever my diet of that day - is to be in that connected space - with each and every bite. Taking in the being that is to now be me. Feeling with gratitude and clarity the being that gave up it's life as it was before to be me. Thankful for the seed, for those that planted the seed, for the earth that housed the seed, for the sun that germinated the seed, for the worms and insects that created the home for the seed, for those that nurtured the plant, for the rain that fed the plant, for those that harvested or ate the plant become now cow or sheep or.... You get the picture. Each bite in our complex food chain has so many essences, now becoming me.
In doing this, just as that day when I could not eat the burger at the food joint, I am unable to ingest certain foods that are filled with chemicals, or with bad energy. Fear, maltreatment, unfair labor practices...
To eat consciously becomes a necessary practice, not clouded by rhetoric or dreams, but by a harsh view of what is on my plate, or in the store, or even in my own garden.
This is an ongoing practice, and not always easy.
To end on a lighter note:
Taking one of my granddaughters to an organic farm which was showing the kids their way of cultivation, the farmer showed them what they were using for fertilizer instead of chemical nitrogen sources. She had spread in front of her piles of fish emulsion, dried blood powder, and ground bone meal.
"I never realized that," my granddaughter laughed. "Vegetables are carnivores!"
Eve Bruce, MD
www.DolphinSpiritGate.com
Plants and Animals are different!