New / old
inspired / reinvented
: when you have short term memory loss it becomes very tricky to distinguish.
Is something genuinely transformative or merely freshly refreshing, and does it matter?
Because really if it is our perspective which counts, then if we read / view / feel the same thing a couple of weeks apart, it isn’t actually the same thing. Or if it has not changed then we could have. For example, a person I impacted and whose viewpoint has been changed irrevocably by my vegan outreach, will have a profoundly different reaction to a dismembered cow than they would have had prior to meeting me. So too with me. Last week I was spoken to by a man I had never seen before, who shared with me a little of his throat cancer experience, which included showing me the scars on his neck and arms. All I could say was :“You must like being alive very much to go through all that”.
Because frankly, I was amazed.
People cling to life, they cling to other people, and they cling to habits.
Attachment, or inability to imagine anything better / different?
When I was in my early 20’s a medic friend shared with me his witness of a suicider. This person was utterly calm and lucid, as they brought him into the emergency room. Meanwhile as they attempted to learn what substance he had taken before he went unconscious, he impressed my friend with an aura of grace and loving acceptance. The description was of rarefied peace and resolution. The man told what substance he had swallowed, and with a wistful smile said his last words : “ I think I’ll just give this one up”.
And that was it. No struggle, no panic, no regret. He simply slid away, let go effortlessly and passed on.
Unless he didn’t, of course. Because we can never be sure what another’s experience is, particularly if they’re no longer capable of conveying it. There is a mildly irritating advert for life insurance which pops up when I go online. Its more ludicrous than annoying to me, because of its asking about how unpreparedly one is leaving one’s loved ones, and for its slant of cold comfort in knowing they’ll get a financial windfall. Ultimately when you find yourself on the other side of the veil, money at long lovely last will be redundant. Unless its been such an obsession as to stalk one through the beyond, that is. I once attended a spiritualist meeting where all manner of passed on persons were ostensively queuing up to speak through the medium to their assembled loved ones in the congregation. Forgive my insensitivity, but almost every single one had things to say about who had acquired what possessions of theirs. This included the discarnate entity who claimed to be my father, coming back to complain about his medals being in the wrong hands. And to tell my mother off for no longer wearing the wedding ring he had put on her finger. It was the first time I had heard of any medals – he was a peculiarly uncommunicative man, almost a total stranger despite his physical presence. Perhaps my loquacity and openness to share experience and feelings has been an equal and opposite response………..the more shut down my parents were, the more of an imperative to be opened up I became. In spite of repeated thrashings and teachings about my utter inconsequentiality and complete lack of right to be heard. Some authentic, primal portion of me remained inextinguishable.
Non religious people, or more accurately anti-religious people, enjoy criticising and belittling the faith they feel safe to scorn as unscientific in others. Perhaps they are envious because believers clearly have something they lack, and have no access to. Certainly from my perspective it is a self imposed limitation to be either purely logico-rationally guided or only dogmatico-indoctrinated. Both have their strengths and flaws, and a synthesis is required for optimal awareness. Just as we need to be joined up head and heart-centric beings : if there is an internal fight for dominance then you’ve missed the point! Einstein said that he did not learn the secrets of the universal laws via logical means. Allow that truth to infiltrate your being awhile. The most awesome intellect had to remind his peers to keep their rationale in check. But they did not listen, did they? And so the sequelae of nuclear abuse, global disrespect and runaway consumerism accelerated. The delusion of man as separate from nature, from each other, and from the infinite source/sustainer of life.
“Imagine no possessions” John Lennon sang. Did anyone actually do that, even for a moment? Nah, life’s about getting and begetting. Sex and security. Ownership and power. Control and domination. Sigh. Well whilst those ideas proliferate nobody can hear the still small voice within. Just as, whilst the idea continues that its morally o.k. to confine, comodify, enslave, incarcerate and murder innocent beings, humanity cannot evolve.
Stop with the justifications.
Just stop that.
Milk is matricide. Its also infanticide : in order to steal her milk, a mother cow’s baby is slaughtered. She follows afterwards when her yield drops. There are no retirement homes for animals, and they don’t receive respect as a reward for their labour, do they?
Meat is murder. Dead flesh, extricated from a living, breathing, sentient, terrified, abused creature breeds fear and violence in those who ingest it. These animals are skinned and dismembered before their hearts heave stop beating, or their eyes stop blinking. I have seen it. They die piece by piece, taking about 20 minutes to do so, and they are frequently not unconscious or adequately stunned when this occurs. For pigs the electric shock merely renders them temporarily incapable of struggling, whilst being very much awake. Think about that. Check out the facts if you don’t want to believe me. Then decide that the very last piece of pork has passed your lips, and share these awful facts with others, so that together we can emerge from the hideous nightmare.
Violent eating has thrown a cloud of cruelty, disconnection and denial over our beautiful planet.
For the longest time it has been excruciatingly painful for me to be so aware and so stuck here in this miasma. My nemesis walking partner, a card carrying carnist named Godwin, admitted something, when I asked him how he would feel if he woke up one morning a vegan, for all the myriad reasons I had been showering him with during two whole weeks of plodding 18 miles a day. He said :“It would be hell on earth, and I’m glad I’m not you.” Then proceeded to wave his bacon buttie under my nose, chase me making predatory noises, and laugh at my raw sensitivites. Classic twisted doublespeak which makes the truth absurd and the depraved lie acceptable. Just because something has been going on a long time does not give it immunity from scrutiny. The times we are in are forcing disgorgement of all the predications upon which the human mansion of misery was built. I challenge assumptions, I vocalise fearlessly, and I build my rock on compassion and love.
I am grateful, even when it hurts, when people do the same for me : calling me out on my own inconsistencies and hypocrisy.
Forgiveness, of self and other, is vital for us to be able to birth in the new expanded kingdom of gentleness, to become the kind side of humanity.
Willingness to share, not desire to own, resources. To conserve and preserve them in common for future generations.
Not a revolution of attempted imposition or overthrow, but an evolution of willingness, cooperation and sustainability.
Greed and hoarding is passing away. Trust and care is predominating.
Let it not come to the bitter end, when, to paraphrase the Native American saying :” Not until the last penny has been spent will people learn that money cannot create life.”
Life is a gift.
All life is sacred.
“Thou shalt not kill” is both a divine decree and a warning.
“Be done by as you did” is karmic return.
Live and let live 🙂
The peaceable kingdom is upon us, can you not feel it in every cell of your being?
Ruth Hawe 