Do-Good List For Your Looong Weekend

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! Every few weekends I try to post a collection of a few of my favorite petitions/pledges that I have come across. So during this weekend, consider taking just 5 minutes to include your voice to  these worthy uproars…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I mean, does anyone with any sense even eat Domino’s anymore?) Okay, but for the animals….Tell Domino’s to get with the program and stop contributing to farm animal abuse here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Demand GMO labeling here!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help battle colony collapse here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think floating garbage islands are disgusting and shameful? Make a pledge to stop contributing to them here.

 

Happy Weekend.

~~~S Wave~~~

Emerson with your Friday? Yes, please.

The Memorial Day weekend is off to a great start! This month is now officially the most-viewed month that ~~~Life As a Wave~~~ has experienced since our grand unveiling in October. Okay…maybe not what might seem like a great many visits in a month – 531 – but enough for us to feel blessed and excited as we start this process and see where it takes us. With many of you who are now following our posts I have felt a strong togetherness in our thoughts, philosophies, and visions for ourselves and our world. It has been amazing to encounter you and we look forward to more connecting with you and growing because of you. Here is an Emerson quote that is dedicated to YOU today!! Thank you, as always, for reading. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for being you.

~~~the Waves~~~

My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I, but the Deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts.

~~~Emerson, Essay VI, Friendship

I feel the need….

Okay, here are the books that have been accumulating on my “Need to Read” shelf.

Of course there is no way I’m going to read them all this summer but I can make a dent. Where should I start?? If you can’t decipher from the picture, here is the lineup:

THE BOND by Wayne Pacelle

THE WORLD PEACE DIET by Will Tuttle

PROUST AND THE SQUID by Maryanne Wolf

EMDR by Francine Shapiro and Margot Silk Forrest

TAO by Hua-Ching Ni

RADICAL HOMEMAKERS by Shannon Hayes

NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION by Marshall B. Rosenberg

FOUNDATIONS OF TIBETAN MYSTICISM by Lama Anagarika Govinda

LOVE AND SURVIVAL by Dean Ornish

SCIENCE AND THE AKASHIC FIELD by Ervin Lazlo

 

I’m so excited for each one of these and hope to share my reactions in our Book Review section. If any of you have read these let me know what you think! Worth reading??

But Which Perspective is RIGHT?? (mine of course)

“For some reason she was committed to robbing a bank–the only truly reliable explanation for which is the simpleset one: people do rob banks. If this seems illogical, then you are still judging events from the point of view of someone who’s not robbing a bank and never would because he knows it’s crazy.”

–Richard Ford, in Harper’s Magazine, June 2012

****************

Someone we’ll call Mike and I used to fight over things that to him were “small” and to me, “big.” We used to find ourselves spewing things like, “Ugh! That’s not how I said it at all!” or “How can you think that?!” I would reenact something I said with the gentle voice of Snow White–how I remembered saying it!–while in his reenactment I was more like the Harry Potter’s blithering, hateful uncle. We could go around and around that hamster wheel until we collapsed. One time I thought I was very keen as I explained himself to him with, “If something doesn’t make sense to YOU, then you just dismiss it!” to which he countered, “No, not if it doesn’t make sense to ME. If it doesn’t make sense to the WORLD!” dramatically flailing his arms in the air (I imagine…the debate was over the phone…widely agreed to be the best way to argue, right?? ) Not one of our better moments. All in all, though, a sound example of our norm…a good number of our conflicts were tied up in a simple and unavoidable difference in perspective. That’s all. Just like Phil said.

When two people are interacting in the same time and space but from completely separate vantage points (namely, our senses, our brains, our memories, our souls), it’s really miraculous that understanding, compassion, and putting on of the proverbial “other’s shoes” occur at all! In one of my recent posts, Stir Up the Love, I suggested that recognizing our connectedness is key to transcending perspectives and moving on to understanding. We are all part of each other’s experience, right?

But then I had a second thought about that. I think loving your enemy is also about being able to recognize our separateness.

“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”

Don Miguel Ruiz

I am not Mike. He is not I. And when I can surrender to the fact that his experience is just as valid as mine….that he is trying to do his best with what he has, just as I am….that my reality is just different than his, that it’s just like that 30 Rock muppet episode where you get to see the world through Tracy, Jack, and Kenneth’s eyes…

… then I can actually feel the compassion begin to quell my anger.

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’ —a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

–Albert Einstein

So in some strange and beautiful way, my compassion seems to rely both on connectedness AND separateness. I haven’t gotten it all straightened out yet, and I’m probably reinventing the wheel with all these words, but maybe it’s that honoring our separateness lets us disentangle our emotions enough to feel compassion and acceptance for the Mikes in our lives from a safe distance, while honoring our connectedness to Mikes compels us to not forsake them altogether and infuses us with gratitude for sharing a time and space with them at all. For whatever grander purpose that encounter served.

To be continued of course…

Mother’s Day, 2013

Something amazing and inspiring was brought to my attention yesterday. I wanted to write about it today though to remind myself that Mother’s Day started out not just as a day for flowers and kissy face emoticons but as a response to war…a call to protest and proclamation. I didn’t know that! It’s troubling to me that Mother’s Day has been diminuated until all that remains is the sentimentality and a big hug for mom. We have lost touch with the roots of this celebration. Today there is a dialogue regarding the “war on women,” there is controversy surrounding contraception, there remains blatant wage inequality as well as the insidious ideological gender inequalities that reverberate in everyday conversations, and there is ongoing use of sexual malfeasances (to put it gently) that are still being used internationally as wartime strategies. I think now is a perfect age to restore some of the original tenants of Mother’s Day…

In 1870 Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation to call for the gathering of women together “without limit of nationality” in order to seek counsel from one another regarding the loss of sons and husbands in wars and to proclaim that, “From the bosum of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: ‘Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.’”

As well-intentioned as we all are on Mother’s Day, our Hallmark-frenzied tradition in America is a far paler expression of honor than was conceptualized by the foremothers of this holiday. I would like to see my mother, grandmothers, step-mothers, sister, cousins, friends, and aunts and alllll the other wise women out there to all get something different for Mother’s Day next year. For Mother’s Day 2013, I want them to “leave all that may be left at home,” come together to counsel with one another about human rights, war, family, and future of this this country and this world.

Then once they’ve come to an agreement about “the promotion of the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, and the great and general interests of peace” I want the rest of the world to sit and listen with the attentive ears of an child which, after all, we all are. I don’t know… for some reason I feel like this “congress of women” might be more productive than the one we have now. You?

Here is the inspirational full story (borrowed from a reading I heard on Sunday) including Ms. Howe’s proclamation:

The first person to fight for an official Mother’s Day celebration in the United States was Julia Ward Howe. You may be more familiar with her name as the writer who wrote the words to the Civil War song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Howe was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her family was well respected and wealthy. She was a published poet and abolitionist. She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth. She was active in the peace movement and the women’s suffrage movement. In 1870 she penned the Mother’s Day Proclamation. In 1872 the Mothers’ Peace Day Observance on the second Sunday in June was held and the meetings continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted, but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official holiday. The Mothers’ Peace Day was the beginning of the Mothers’ Day holiday in the United States now celebrated in May.

The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy bears little resemblance to Howe’s original idea. Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother’s Day in the United States…

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosum of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

 

How to Watch a Factory Farm Video in 12 Steps

Dear courageous world-changers,

I have to ration the number of animal abuse videos I watch. I physically, mentally, and emotionally can only take so much. But there IS much…almost every week there is a new video coming out from groups like Mercy For Animals, Compassion Over Killing, PETA, and HSUS evidencing the horrifying horrifying (did I mention, horrifying?) things that go on behind closed CAFO doors (that’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and slaughterhouses not to mention circuses, fur farms, “science” labs, and backyard butchers.

Today there was another video that came out from the Humane Society of the United States. Although some of the reports call it “shocking,” I’d say it’s unfortunately par for the course. Initially, I acknowledged it but did not watch it. I had second thoughts though as I remembered the recent proliferation of “ag gag” bills entering state legislations and in some instances, passing. These bills muzzle undercover investigators who obtain employment in settings known for animal abuse. The investigators are the people who witness the abuse for sometimes months on end in order to gather footage convincing enough to ignite significant change.  I am in awe of their bravery, but pro-ag lobbyists and legislatures would like to close the blinds on what goes on and allow non-transparency to reign. Ag gag bills have already passed in Iowa and Missouri. Of these bills, Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy for Animals said:

“This flawed and misdirected legislation could set a dangerous precedent nationwide by throwing shut the doors to industrial factory farms and allowing animal abuse, environmental violations, and food contamination issues to flourish undetected, unchallenged, and unaddressed.”

Now more than ever the public needs to know about the ugly side of factory farming…before there are no more videos to show us. So, in the spirit of honoring what these investigators have done for us and to pay my respects to the millions of animals that are suffering at this very moment, I watched the latest video. The video is from the inside of a pig breeding “farm” called Wyoming Premium Farms. This facility is owned by Denver-based Itoham America Inc. and supplies pigs for Tyson Foods…the world’s second largest meat processor and a common brand in your community’s grocery store. The video shows piglets being kicked like soccer balls and spun in the air by their legs. Its shows sows being beaten away from their piglets. In one mindboggling snippet a worker bounces on the back of a sow who is refusing to move because her leg is broken.

*sigh*

Even writing those things is making me dizzy. Nothing gets me vicserally reactive like these videos. My hands were shaking from just this 2 minutes of video. Maybe this description of the footage is sufficient for you. Sometimes the written descriptions are all I need…or can handle. But maybe you want to watch it. Maybe this will be the FIRST undercover footage you’ve seen like this. If so, I thought I’d give you a brief tutorial to prep you for the experience.

Here are the 12 steps I realized I take to get through these videos. Maybe one day I can cut it down to 7 or 8.

1. Get a Kleenex.

2. Mute my computer. The sounds are terrifying. If I want to, I can watch it later with sound. This way I distress my senses one at a time instead of all at once.

3. Take three deep breaths, thanking God for the courage to watch and the compassion to react.

4. Either cover my eyes with my hands leaving a thin slit I can look through OR find a benign spot on my screen where I can look so that I only capture the worst images with my peripheral. 

5. Start the video.

6. As I watch, don’t forget to breathe.

7. When there is writing on the screen, read it.

8. From time to time look at the time bar, reminding myself that it’s almost done.

9. When the video is done, close my eyes and take more deep breaths until my body calms down. Cry if I need to but not for too long before moving onto step 10.

10. Say a prayer of gratitude for the animals that die in these conditions and offer an invitation for the wisdom to know how to change it.

11. Make a pact with myself that I won’t forget what I saw and that my life with be part of the change.

12. DO SOMETHING!! Change what I eat, change what I wear, sign a petition, plant a tree, buy a bumper sticker, tell someone what I saw, websearch for more information, read a book, listen to a podcast, write this post, go to a protest, cry, pray, yell, believe….

Okay, that all may seem a little melodramatic. I hear that. But I work well with lists and I cope better with an action plan. I hope that you won’t need all these steps, but use them if you do.

So my challenge for you today is to watch the video. But before I wrap this up and give you the link, I have one more thing to say. I have a friend who used to stop me short with, “Don’t tell me why you’re vegan. If I know why, then I’ll probably not want to eat meat anymore.”  I think the time for allowing ourselves this luxury of blissful ignorance has lapsed. We now need to know…for our own future…or our kids’ futures. The treatment of these animals on factory farms is not just an animal rights issue. These facilities are polluting our air, poisoning our water, producing chemicalized and diseased meat that we then feed to our families. And I’m just going to throw it out there because I don’t know much about the science behind what I’m about to say, but I believe that the energy of terror, fear, and pain that these animals are submerged in for their ENTIRE lives must somehow be passed along to those of us who put their flesh in our mouths. And it’s not that animal welfare is the most important cause out there…it’s that they are ALL connected! Human rights, civiil rights, animal rights, food rights, environmental rights, workers’ rights…they are connected. If you have abuse, suppression, violence and exploitation in any of these realms, it reaches out and contaminates the others through our ideologies, our leniencies, and our desensitization. So why not just jump in somewhere and see what kind of impact you can make? Do something small right where you are and your ripple effect will begin!

Okay, are you ready to try my 12 step program?

Here is the video. It starts right away so you may want to pause it as you get prepared. I’m proud of you for watching it. You can do it! Let me know if you need to talk afterwards.  I  love you.

http://video.humanesociety.org/

Stir up the love!

It has been interesting to look back at some of the posts I’ve written relating to animals and to compare them to our mission statement. Sometimes my attitude when writing about animals doesn’t quite reflect the magnanimous tenants that those of us on Life As a Wave believe in. I think to myself, “Will people read the mission statement and then wonder how I can be hating on the king of Spain or factory farm workers?!”

I know that at the gut level it is hard for me to feel anything but disgust toward people who are exploiting or abusing animals; it is next to impossible to feel that I am connected to them on some metaphysical level as two waves of the same grand ocean. Yet from time to time I am inclined to step back and ask myself to check in with that contempt and judgment that I harbor for them. Are those people not me? Am I not them? Don’t I exist only as part of their existence?

Hold on. That’s too deep for right now…It’s almost 1am for goodness sakes. Let’s start again.

Basically, it is good to love. So yes, I love animals. I can love my loving neighbor. I can love my family. But can I love the (alleged) enemy in this scenario? Can I love the people who are performing vivisection? Or who are skinning animals alive for fur?  Are they really even my enemy? (By the way, sometimes when I see my own writing style I think I should just rename this blog, The Blog of Important Rhetorical Questions.) When I step out of my gut and get into that place of higher self I realize that there is love in me for them. It takes work to plug into it and it may be just a fraction of its potential, but it is there. I don’t like what they do and I would take action to make them stop but I don’t hate their essence…because I truly think it springs from the same source as mine. We are not so different.

I can feel compassion and sorrow for them. I can acknowledge my ignorance of their experiences and pains. I can wish for them better. I can hope for them joy and peace and happiness…just like I hope those for myself. It does my soul good to remember all of this. It stirs up my Love. And I want to act out of Love. I don’t want my advocacy to become aggression, neither mental nor physical. And I don’t want my compassion to diminish. I don’t want to vilify.

I recently heard a sermon given by Ishmael Tetteh in which he used the following analogy to describe our existence:

“Every wave comes into being by the collective power of the entire ocean.”

One wave would not be, were it not for every other wave. And every other wave would be be were it not for that one. Obviously this reminded me of our blog. And thinking about our mission statement–about what it means to live this life as a wave–is what led me think about all of this that I’m now writing. My new mantra, solemnly taped to by bathroom mirror, is:

“I come into being by the collective power of the entire universe.”

This is true moment by moment and eternally. I believe it. I believe I come into being through connection to every other person, galaxy, drop of rain, tree, animal, and ocean wave. So I guess it’s not too deep after all to ask about people “Don’t I exist only as part of their existence?” My best conclusion right now is, Yes.