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| All of Earth's life forms are from the same Tree of Life. |
People around the world are celebrating life this week. Whether you are celebrating Eostre, the Mother Goddess, Easter, Passover, or Spring Equinox, it is all about rejoicing in the exuberance of life.
Life is something that has been woefully cheapened these days. Human beings are disturbingly expendable, and many thousands are sacrificed every week at the altar to the military-industrial complex and the lust for power, money and glory.
How we treat non-human life is regrettably worse. We are nasty to each other, and we are deadly to the life forms that are either tasty, or that get in the way of our plans and ambitions. Billions and billions of Earth's creatures are slaughtered every year to feed humans. Many more die as a result of basic human greed.
How can one celebrate life and do it justice, while engaging in its destruction at the same time? Those fluffy yellow balls of chicks are cute, but many more like them are going to be debeaked, warehoused, then killed after short lives stuffed in cages while we steal their eggs.
Unless they are males in which case they are "quickly macerated" shortly after birth. Not exactly an image you want to think about during a celebration of life.
Unless they are males in which case they are "quickly macerated" shortly after birth. Not exactly an image you want to think about during a celebration of life.
Like us, chickens and cows and pigs and turkeys and fish just want to live and be free. Like us, they are sentient, and that should give us pause. Spring is a good time to consider that reality.
In an article called "After 2,500 Studies, It's Time to Declare Animal Sentience Proven", cognitive ethologist Mark Bekoff writes,
"The animals will be grateful and warmly thank us for paying attention to the science of animal sentience. When we listen to our hearts, we are recognizing how much we know about what other animals are feeling and that we owe it to them to protect them however we can."
Whether the animal in question is a human or a dog or cat or fish or cow, let us reflect on how we are treating the life around us, and how we are protecting it. All life is sacred.
Listen to your heart. Celebrate Life.
Happy Spring.
Note: This is an updated and reprinted post.
Completely agree and Spring is nearly here in the UK. All things in nature want a chance to live and this should be the way. Indeed animal agriculture causes immense suffering to animals, the environment and humans. We are herbivores in denial.
ReplyDeleteI'm undertaking a life that causes the least suffering possible for others as there is nothing more important in life. Buy little as possible.
Happy Spring.
Alex
Not eating animals and buying as little as possible will help the planet, our health and our well being. I was just reading about the thousands of retail stores closing, but it's hard to find anyone willing to say that sales at these stores are down because people are "not buying anything" due to the huge wave of blogs like this one encouraging healthy living, good earth stewardship, simplicity, minimalism and a plant based way of life. My personal take (wishful thinking?) is that people are tired of the lemming lifestyle and they're fighting back by becoming independent thinkers, not stuff junkies.
DeleteSo I'm celebrating the awakening of the earth in spring and the awakening of the people of the earth who have decided to stop shopping. We might save this place after all.
Deva, I think there certainly are more people choosing not to shop, or choosing to shop less often and more mindfully. I think the tide is slowly turning, and eventually crisis will make it turn more quickly.
DeleteI think the real reason shops are closing down is because of the rise of online shopping. I hate to say it, but online shopping is huge. Shopping has really become the drug of the masses with 24 hour availablity - what an awful environment for young people to grow up in. One of my teenage students was very surprised to hear that we weren't called 'consumers' when I was growing up, we were just citizens and human beings!
Madeleine
Shopping has certainly moved online, where it is quicker and available at all times. I can't recall meeting anyone else except my wife living a low consumption lifestyle. We can still grow economically, but in a why that is directed towards caring for the earth and have a universal world wide support for food, health, education and sanitation. Allow people to practice permaculture and living simply.
DeletePeace,
Alex
Deva,
Delete"So I'm celebrating the awakening of the earth in spring and the awakening of the people of the earth who have decided to stop shopping. We might save this place after all."
Hear, hear! That is a wonderful celebration. We should never forget the efforts of the many people that are trying to do the right thing and live Earth-friendly lifestyles. May this be the beginning of a simple living revolution.
Happy Spring Gregg and Linda. We are celebrating lots of wonderful rain here in our Autumn.
ReplyDeleteThanks for speaking up for the animals, it's not a popular move. After 37 years as a vegetarian I still find it hard that most people eat animals. I fell in love with cows when I was 4 years old and was really shocked to find that's what we ate for dinner. It took another 9 years of dinnertime fights before I just refused to eat dinner with the family and started cooking my own! For me eating meat would be like eating my dog or cat, my wonderful friends who share my life and give so freely. I'm astonished that everyone doesn't realise animals have feelings and intelligence just like we do, and in many cases I would say more intelligence!
Madeleine.x
Madeleine,
Delete"More intelligent." Yes, they do not soil their own environment. They know no war - except for a few species of ants, as T.H. White pointed out in "The Once And Future King", a series of novels began in the 1930s that comment on aspects of war and human nature.