Only three days late on this one – B on Friday! (I hope). Other A’s that I have written about are: Altars, Aphrodite, Apples and Ancestors.
Last November a friend challenged me to go vegan for a month. I mostly made it, apart from a slip two days before the end when I ended up licking my fingers after touching a cream cake (thoughts vary as to whether I successed or not).
I had no intention of becoming vegan but I was interested in engaging with myself about my thoughts on animals. I’m still trying to eat ethically, it’s harder than you’d think as my every second thought seems to be ‘where did they source that from?’ I’m doing mostly ok though I need to learn to say no when Weasel suggests buying me fried chicken. I’m reasonably sure there is no such thing as ethical fried chicken and saying yes to my boyfriend is not the same as having dinner at a friends house. (Where I might start leaning towards vegetarian but politeness takes precedence unless they start serving me foie gras regularly).
This ethical eating thing but being ok with killing animals – it comes down to my paganism. I believe in a natural cycle, I am an omnivore and I eat plants, animals, all sorts. But if I am to be sustained by death then that death should mean something, should be honoured. I’m not there yet but where I want to be is knowing that the soul of the animals I have consumed are being used to live in a way that honours them.
This sounds pretty poncey I’ll admit, and yet I do rather believe it. I like the idea of praying over an animal as I kill it – but then that’s the easy part. Animals aren’t honoured in the way they live and are farmed. If we only hunted each individual animal then I could sleep easily no qualms. But they are treated appallingly and that’s not good for the soul, the spirit of the animal and through that the combined kami of the farm, the area, the country, the world.
So I’m trying to cut down on the animals that are treated badly that I take into my body and thusly become a part of my soul.
My understanding of the world and of my life is a very spiritual understanding, for all that it’s rooted in the physical.