go ahead, change the world

As we all watch our leaders in Washington struggle, yet again, to bring themselves to serve the people instead of, say, defense contractors, who can help but wonder what we can do. 

As we watch even the progressive “squad” demur from forcing Medicare for All to a floor vote during a pandemic, we wonder just what it will take to effect real change. 

Each day, as we see the President-elect prepare to nominate yet another empty-suited crony to a top position in the new administration, we struggle to know how real change, positive change will come. 

We feel powerless, helpless to change this massive system that rolls along and over so many.

And yet, it is we who really do hold the power in our hands. Short of organizing, beyond organizing, there is one simple thing each of us can do that would immediately trigger change towards the world we want to see. 

If we all really want peace on earth and good will to all beings, we will walk away from using and eating animals. It’s that simple. And it’s something any of us – yes, even you – can do.

The uncomplicated act of refusing to participate in our society’s oppression, abuse, and killing of animals on a scale beyond imagination is the beginning and the key to massive, positive societal change. 

If our society really embraces a whole food plant-based diet, we will witness profound changes in everything from much-improved health to a reversal of climate destruction (and just in the nick of time). We will break the grip of the cabal of corporations on government and in our lives.

We will change the world in amazing ways, turning toward a compassion-based way of life instead of the cruel competition that we were taught to believe is inevitable and normal. 

Cruelty, killing, impoverishment, suffering, control is not normal. Nor is it inevitable. We have the power to change it for the animals, and, in so doing, we will change it for ourselves and our culture. We will change it for our children, and theirs.

So simple. It’s something you can do. It’s enjoyable. There’s tons of support and information. Be delighted by what you discover.

YOU have the power. Step up. Go ahead, change the world.

you change the world

be kind to yourself, others, animals, earth – go plant-based

The United Nations Environment Programme yesterday released a report that looks at the role human activity plays in giving rise to zoonotic diseases. These are diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans, as COVID-19 is supposed to have originated.

The report calls out seven “human-mediated factors … most likely driving the emergence of zoonotic diseases.” They cite seven “disease drivers”:

1) increasing human demand for animal protein; 2) unsustainable agricultural intensification;
3) increased use and exploitation of wildlife; 4) unsustainable utilization of natural resources accelerated by urbanization, land use change and extractive industries; 5) increased travel and transportation; 6) changes in food supply; and 7) climate change.

No big surprises here. It’s the usual culprits for so many of the things ailing us, particularly the impoverished citizens of the globe.

Given all that we know, it’s still startling how little we’re actually doing about any of it. As the report mentions, these negative impact factors are actually increasing or intensifying.

Human demand for animal protein is just one of them. It’s startling to realize that even though it is common knowledge that our insatiable demand for meat and dairy directly contributes to profound health and environmental issues, it remains on the increase.

Data from the Global Meat & Poultry Trends report released by Packaged Facts in February of this year shows that:

“Meat consumption worldwide is expected to increase 1.4% per year through 2023…”

It predicts that “…global meat and poultry consumption will reach 313 million metric tons in 2023. Global per capita consumption will rise slightly to 39 kilograms per year.” That’s roughly 86 pounds per person — globally.

USDA data cited by the The National Chicken Council shows that in the United States, per capita meat consumption (including beef, pork, and poultry) in 1960 was 167.2 pounds. In 2019 that number was 224.3. Although a slight dip to 220.2 pounds is predicted in 2020, meat consumption is forecast to be on the increase again, up to 223.5 pounds in 2021.

That is a lot of dead animals. And repercussions.

While plenty of folks are being religious about wearing masks and social distancing, the UNEP report underscores that there are other truly meaningful things we could be doing to help the world both now and in the future relative to pandemics and beyond. Just look at that list of seven things above. There is no doubt in my mind that there are at least several that each of us, personally, can directly impact. Reducing meat consumption is just one of them. 

Don’t wait for the powers that be to tell you how they’re gonna change the world (and then figure out if you can like it). YOU change the world.

considering the food on our plates

These two won’t be food, thank goodness.

We don’t like to think about it very much. We are pretty good at avoiding thinking about the lives and deaths of the animals that we eat or use for food. It is indeed a difficult subject to contemplate, and yet it is an absolute, inescapable fact due to our choice to use animals, on a grand scale, for food.

Maybe we have seen the large trucks rumbling down the highway, and perhaps noticed the eyes and snouts of the animals packed inside. They are on their way to the slaughterhouse, but we probably never get that far in our thoughts. We just notice a truck full of pigs, never processing what that ride must be like for those beings, or exactly where it is they are headed.

As the trucks arrive at the slaughterhouse, it sometimes happens that there is a group of animal activists there. They are there to bear witness. They are awake to the fact that these are animals just like us. 

Just like us, the animals feel fear, they feel pain. They are sentient: conscious, aware, feeling.

So the activists bear witness to these last moments of these animals’ lives by speaking tenderly to them, by giving them some water to drink, by perhaps giving the animals the only real show of compassion and respect that they have ever known from humans — all while the animals are still crowded inside the transport truck. 

The animals were born trapped into a system that profits by their death. And it is all about the profit. These animals have never known freedom on this earth: born, living, and dying to serve another species’ market.

The protest also serves as an attempt to raise awareness of this cruel industry and our part in it. Rest assured, there would be no industry if not for our part in it.

On June 19, just a few days ago, such a protest took place in Burlington, Ontario. There was an additional impetus for this protest due to the fact that Canada, like its neighbor to the south, had just passed an ag gag law, Bill 156. Such laws are designed to further protect the animal agriculture industry, make it easier to keep its practices concealed, and insulate it from scrutiny or protest.

That day, one of the protestors in the Toronto Pig Save group was a 65-year-old woman named Regan Russell, a longtime advocate for animals and for other social causes. But at this particular protest, by the time all was said and done, Russell was dead, having been run over by a slaughterhouse truck.

It is my hope that even one person will stop and think about the meat on their plate, and decide to say no. In saying no, we reject a vast, cruel system of exploitation, one that abuses the animals, the planet, and, indeed, the consumers for profit. In saying no, we choose kindness and love and we help to open the world to more of that.

In the memory of Regan Russell, please give a moment to consider the food on your plate.

born of air #WritePhoto

Looking out from my perch, I could see the makings of an abundant day. 

My eyes turned back toward Volanta, yet asleep with little Piscea snuggled up beneath her mother’s wing. I tried to capture all the details of that scene, knowing that I would carry it in my heart.

I spread my wings and lifted from the cliff. I circled down over the waves, alert and searching. Soon, I could see Volanta arcing away from the crevice high above me, ready to join in the hunt. 

And there was Piscea, scanning the waters eagerly from her heights, flexing her wings. 

Weeks of effort had come to this. We gathered up another feast for our darling, knowing that soon we must let her go. The time was near when our young one would set out on her own over the waters.

Now, Volanta and I remain, looking thoughtfully into the dark, listening to the waves pummeling the shore far below. The ache of loss pierces us, but then our hearts and wings begin to soar again, confident in our beloved, and beating with life.

###

Thank you, Sue Vincent, for the inspiration of this week’s #WritePhoto prompt.

a mystery to me

In the midst of the myriad urgent issues facing our nation and world, we lately learn the Trump administration is taking time to broaden rules regarding the hunting of bears and wolves in Alaska. They are revising public land rules to allow the hunting of bears and their cubs in their dens. Oh, and wolves and their pups as well. The new rules also allow for shooting caribou from motorboats and for the baiting of bears.

 I find these rules depraved on every level, but, hey, it makes for great sport, huh?

I am still having trouble getting my head around this. Who, exactly, really wants this? What constituency is pushing for such barbaric rules? And should we not perhaps be concerned about them? 

The National Park Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service maintain that the broadening of the federal rules to accommodate such outright cruelty more closely aligns with state law. 

Hunters and tribal groups reportedly support the changes. For hunters, I question what exactly is sporting about killing animals and their babies in their homes. Tribal arguments about subsistence hunting wear thin as well. Subsistence concerns might be better aimed at simply securing the planet we live on before searching out bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens to slaughter.

Of course this is just a drop in the ocean of maneuvers the administration has made to ensure that we are able to pillage every last thread of life on this earth, but it is especially disturbing in its utter savagery.

What kind of people are we? What kind of animals are we?

what the other animals know

My best friend seems unaware of the only thing that anyone talks about anymore. Coronavirus is not a thing to him. He appears to feel no fear and no trepidation. He has never worn a mask.

No, Tippy spends his days more concerned about things like the birds and the squirrels that he spots outside the window. He notices the trees in the wind, or the first pitter patters of a rainfall. He loves to nap. And, thankfully, he loves to spend time with me.

As a cat, Tippy does not spend inordinate hours scouring the news. He could really care less. He has his priorities. Aside from eating, pooping, sleeping, and tracking anything that moves, he values being close to me. He likes to sit with me while reading, lay on top of me asleep in bed, position himself in the middle of anything on which I am working. He follows me around.

I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows more than I do, than we all do.

For one thing, he has instincts, and he trusts them. To the letter.

He knows the difference between an actual, existential threat and mind games. Were a big dog to come into view, there is no doubt Tippy would make himself scarce.

That’s not to say that Tippy doesn’t pick up on vibes. He is, after all, my best friend. It’s clear, he ‘gets’ things. He can tell when I’m sad or scared or tense. He knows when I’m awake, staring into the dark. I don’t think he cares at all about what is going on that might affect my frame of mind, but I think he cares a lot about my frame of mind.

Every animal that has graced my life has been a teacher. They have shown me love and patience and humor and joy and tender compassion. Sometimes I have been witness to their fear, suffering, incomprehension, death. I have grown from every encounter – from my beloved cat friend to the cardinal singing in the tree or the snake slithering away from my approaching foot.

With our culture’s anthropocentric perspective, we suppose we know so much more than the other animals. Or the trees, for that matter. We’re all about our brains, and all that we’re able to accomplish with them.

While it is true that amazing and wonderful things have been born of the human brain, we don’t honor how little we really know. Nor do we own the many detrimental purposes to which we put those brains, on a grand scale. The other animals do not behave that way.

I suspect they are, in actuality, more highly evolved than humans. They are extremely observant and they understand the priorities. 

Like Tippy, they pay attention to the fundamentals of life – food, water, air, sunshine, exercise, relaxation, play, shelter, relationships, tribe. They tend to all that without leaving an indecipherable and disproportionate path of destruction. Nor do they just muck around with their own or other species for gratuitous or ruinous ends.

They live in sync with life.

But as the almighty human species, look what we do to the animals. We pen many of them up for their entire shortened lives, use them, abuse them, kill them, eat them in incomprehensible numbers, all while wreaking destruction across the planet.

Maybe the fact that the other animals seem incapable of doing that to us isn’t evidence of their ignorance but in truth shows us how truly advanced they are.

I think during this pensive time it might be wise to ponder the idea that the other animals know more than we do. Maybe give some thoughtful consideration to how they walk their life paths.

My wise and wonderful best friend Tippy never touches on the news, but he reminds me daily about the important things of life and the elements of true health.

signs of life

Spotted this little dude while out on a freshly walkable trail. The flood waters have receded, and the snow is mostly gone, so it feels good to get back out there.

The sun was shining on the little muskrat, lighting up his pretty fur. He busily munched on something while I stood not far away watching.

Later, I surprised two deer in the woods. Further on, I spotted two more deer across the river from me. We all studied each other intently before they decided they would go ahead and dip their noses into the water.

During my walk, I also noticed all the birds singing, and caught sight of that proverbial harbinger of spring in Michigan – the robin.

I love all these joyful signs of life. Yay for spring!

of animals and ecosystems

Wolves were airlifted into the US from Canada at the end of February to bolster the wolf population in Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park. The purpose is to help control the moose population there.

This week, though, we heard that US wildlife officials are planning to lift protections on grey wolves in the lower 48 states, allowing them to be hunted.

Wolves have been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1975, when there was something like 1,000 of the animals left in the entire lower 48.

The reintroduction of grey wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 tells an amazing story about the trophic cascade that occurred there – impacting the ecosystem in surprising and extensive ways. Sustainable Human offers a short, lovely video about it here.

Let’s leave the wolves alone and let them do the magic for which they were designed.

We are losing species at an alarming rate. Let us stop willfully refusing to connect the dots.

We have learned that there is a delicate, precious balance in our ecosystems. Humans are part of the ecosystems, not the CEO’s.  

dog walks at the shelter

Walks with my canine friends at the shelter continue. There is always a need.

Most of my furry buddies are pretty excited to get out into the snow, delighted to snuffle their noses a bit in the white stuff. They want to chase things down into the bushes, and explore the tracks of those who’ve gone before them. There are actually quite a few birds flitting around in the trees and brush, teasing the dogs with their chirps.

Some of the residents are so incredibly loving and anxious for affection — they are more interested in cuddling or petting than walking. A few are so bruised from their personal histories that they are petrified with fear. It breaks my heart on both ends of the spectrum.

They wear the ghosts of their histories. Just like people, they are each interesting and individual and feeling. I am glad they have a safe, warm, and caring place to be right now, but I am sad for the path that led to their arrival there.

I come away from my shelter walks with a smile, but always feeling blue, too.

change must be

I remember it with both joy and melancholy.

I was finally preparing to leave. Everything was just about packed up. The house was already taking on that empty feeling. It was getting down to the wire, just days before saying goodbye to this place that I dearly loved but felt I had to leave.

I don’t know what made me look out just then.

I went deliberately to the window, and gazed out, the field stretching away to the west. And there she was, so close I could almost have touched her.

The fox stood still outside my window. There was a profound aura of peace and magic about this elusive, beautiful animal. I knew she was there on purpose. I knew we were connected somehow. Then, as if satisfied that her work was done, she disappeared.

I lived there for fifteen years, and never saw a fox before that day.

I was simultaneously calmed and distressed by the fox’s visit. I couldn’t help but wonder why the fox came to me. Was this reassurance about the path upon which I was about to embark? Or was this a warning?

It hurts to recall this moment. Stepping back into this particular past always does. Much pain and sadness surrounds the memory.

And yet, there is such beauty and peace and sense of connection in the memory, too. Even joy.

Like so much, I carry the fox in my heart.

Change must be. The fox knows, and she goes with me.