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| Skagit Valley daffodils |
I took this picture years ago when I first visited the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley, just a short distance down the freeway from Bellingham, in Mount Vernon. I will be visiting at least once this month, but for now it's all daffodils, and on the opening day (yesterday) of the month-long festival, there are no open tulips to be seen anywhere. We have had an unusually cool spring so far, and although we have some upcoming warmer temperatures on the way, it's not been easy for those of us awaiting the beauty to come. They will be showing off their gorgeous plantings soon, just not right now.
No matter. I am seeing lots of beautiful blooms and flowering bushes around town, the early spring stuff that comes out quickly and leaves almost as fast. I have had to cart my raincoat around with me most days, since we are seemingly always having a chance of rain. Yesterday, we were not supposed to have any, or not much at all, during our morning walk. But when I left to head for the coffee shop, it was raining (albeit lightly) and cold. I hurried back inside to get the proper clothing for the weather. By the time we had finished our five-mile walk to Fairhaven and back, the skies were mostly sunny, even if the wind continued to make it feel quite chilly. I was grateful for warm clothing.
Now about that word in my post's title: ahimsa. It's likely you have never heard it before, and I first heard it years ago in a commentary that my yoga teacher gave before we began our class. She was describing the different principles of right living as practiced in many Eastern religions. I had never heard the word before, but over the years I learned quite a lot about the concept. It comes from a Sanskrit word, meaning nonviolence and loving compassion for all living beings. Apparently it started when monks and other religious persons wanted to find out how to keep themselves from being reborn in a lower form of life through bad karma.
It makes sense to me that we would be better off by not causing harm or suffering to others, including animals and other forms of life. But we are certainly not living a life of ahimsa if we eat animals when we don't need to. There are so many awful feedlots and slaughterhouses around the world, and many people don't even seem to realize that other creatures might suffer, just like humans do. I remember reading about Temple Grandin, a woman with autism, who studied how feedlots and slaughterhouses can be designed to treat the cattle more humanely. Of course, it's a fine line between any sort of place designed to kill and ways to make it easier to lead a cow to slaughter. I have not eaten beef or pork in many decades, which all started from watching a documentary about how the meat is prepared for sale. It is all so gruesome, and even today when I see cows placidly munching grass in a field, I think about what's in store for them.
However, during the pandemic, I began to eat chicken and turkey more often than I did before. At one time I considered myself a strict vegetarian, but no more. And I must say that it doesn't seem to disagree with me. At first I felt very guilty about it, but now I make sure that any meat I eat is organic and humanely processed. I know it's a fine line, but it makes me feel a little better about eating a fellow creature. My thought is that I myself could kill and prepare a chicken for dinner, but certainly not a cow or a pig.
In any event, while I was a vegetarian, I also ate eggs and cheese and all the things that come from animals, and I wore leather shoes, so the choices I made were not all that pure. It's not an easy thing to actually move away from all animal products, I found back then, but for a short while I did try. It was another one of those phases that people sometimes pass through, and I certainly tried for years to be vegetarian and someone who isn't responsible for the suffering of animals. I still go back and forth with ideas of how to become a more responsible citizen of the planet. How about you? Do you think about these things or am I an outlier?
I will try to get onto a more positive frame of mind to end this post, since it's springtime and the sun is bringing out all sorts of plants for us critters to eat, so maybe it might be time for me to consider other foods. With the enormous amount of variety I see in the stores, it seems impossible that I cannot find enough good food to eat that doesn't involve cruelty. I am beginning to find that life is filled with choices, every day, between right and wrong behavior, and that not all of it has to do with what I choose to eat.
Gratitude is probably the most important ingredient of every day. I find myself being thankful for so much of my world, and grateful for the ability to think, to write, and to communicate with my virtual friends all over the world. Hopefully you will have a wonderful day and week ahead, and that I will, too. Until we meet again next week, I wish you all good things, dear friends.
14 comments:
I was raised on a farm where we knew what was fed to our animals and they were butchered as needed. I frequent a local butcher shop for pork and beef it comes from several farms that I am familiar with...so I am supporting two businesses...both local.
I love a good steak! It is one of my favorite meals:)
To each his own. We are all different and I respect your choice to be mostly vegetarian!
After my heart attack I was recommeded to eat a plant based diet, and live more actively. The rehab I attended was based on a doctor's statistical data which showed this lifestyle could reverse heart disease. I tried it, but slipped out of it, the back into it, then out. Yes, another one of my attempts to help my body heal. Today when I grocery shop I say "plant based" and avoid many of the things I used to love, but find new ones too! I have never been one to prepare a menu for a week, then a grocery list based on it. And cooking for one is another conundrum. Thanks for the attitude of "ahimsa."
I am vegetarian, but not yet vegan. Mind you, I stopped eating meat because it disagreed with me (though I suspect it was not the meat but the things we do to it). Organic/cruelty free meat was not available at the time.
Ahimsa makes a lot of sense to me however. A work in progress.
I grew up on a small farm too, and we raised our own beef and pork and lamb and chickens. The animals were well cared for and slaughter was quick. We grew these animals as food. Now I buy meat at the grocery store and I'm sure these animals are treated less humanely. I just don't pay attention. It's not a cause of mine.
I don't eat very much meat anymore, just small portions, but Tom likes it and I cook it for him.
I came away from your post with an interesting reflection on humanity. A lot of what we do is based on what we’ve done, without question, for thousands of years. How to live in harmony with nature is changing the way we live and how we will go forward. I am grateful for that. Thank you for your post and I wish you and SG a good week ahead. John
I would like to limit what I eat to what avoids cruelty, but my husband is the shopper and the cook and he is an only-buy-stuff-when-it's-on-sale kind of guy. So I ask him to pick up fruits and vegetables, and we eat mostly that, but some meat.
Enjoy the tulips when they show themselves.
I look at the middle of the two extremes . I look for balance.
We are stuck in a certain kind of society and economy, and it would be very difficult for me not to partake in it. I do abhor cruelty to living things and hope that society does a better job of mitigating it.
A thought provoking post, Jan. We have reduced the amount of beef and pork we eat but have not eliminated it entirely. That may happen. Vegetarian meals are an important part of our diet now and we quite enjoy them. I watched Clarkson’s Farm recently and saw his dilemma about taking his cows to slaughter. My own mother couldn’t ever eat lamb because she was attached to the lambs on their farm and couldn’t bear the thought of eating them when they appeared on the table. However, her family had food during the Depression when many did not. I can’t stand the look of the various veggie items now on the grocery shelves which are supposed to taste like beef etc. I like vegetarian food to look like what it is, not masquerade as something else. One wonders what chemicals are added to it. My husband and I will have portobello burgers this year, not beef. A small step in a long journey to healthier eating and the journey to ahimsa.
When it comes to eating meat, we do... but not a lot of red meat, mostly chicken. Still I do wonder if eating meat is necessary in this day and age. I understand that circumstances play a part in everything and there was a time when hunting for food was a necessity (and it may still be in some areas). But if it's not a necessity, then why kill an innocent animal? The meat industry would suffer... true... and possibly other industries that depend on animal products. So, I don't know the answer. All I can do is follow my own conscience. If I am aware of cruelty, I would certainly not buy that product.
i grew up on a farm and we would have starved with five children had we not eaten our eggs and slaughtered our pigs or steer once a year. I have canine teeth and admire our raptors...so meat to me is important for health.
Thank you for the struggle to explain. I share the dilemma.
Beginning to eat chicken and turkey more often during Covid than before makes perfect sense to me. Being a strict vegetarian is an admirable moral position to uphold, but in times of war or disease, saving human life is the highest priority. I too would feet guilty about it, but I have two moral views that must be followed - 1. kosher food and 2. care for humans and animals.
There is nothing at all wrong with eggs and cheese. For me the problem is fish. Fish have a brain and would feel the pain as they suffocate to death. But getting married and having children required a compromise. I am a kosher ovo-lacto-pisco fan.
I have not been able to read blogs and write comments lately but hope that is changing now. I, too, tried to go vegetarian once, because I know of the cruelty of slaughtering animals like the ones on the farm where I grew up. But I need meat for my health so I eat more seafood and white meat not red meat. I enjoy an all vegetable meal often. Lately, I seem to just go for something simple I don't have to cook.
I wish we could all love each other and the other creatures of the earth and protect each other. I still believe we have more good people than bad, but we hear only the bad.
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