even the most serious people smile back at me. by the end of my jog, my heart is well nourished. in the powerful vehicle of a smiling face, i deliver : “eat plants. grow trees. save the planet. bring peace.”
on today’s run i found myself singing to two men about to cross. one turned out to be my upstairs neighbor who had moved. he was with a fellow teacher. my former neighbor announced:
“i’m pregnant.” he looked down at his embarrassingly pregnant belly.
“that’s meat, dairy and eggs,” i joked seriously.
“i know. i know. i mean my girlfriend … is pregnant.”
i found out her due date and all the details. checked in if he’d gone vegan or his fellow teacher, handed each my list of films, (websites and books) a second time and with congratulations and good wishes, continued on my run.
now, in the sanctity of my home, i visualize golden light surrounding all who heard my plea so they return to sweet (vegan) sanity.
while on my drizzly morning run, i spied a little mouse going down the steps to a basement and appearing again running along the wall beside me. my heart reached out to comfort. as she ran, she stopped every so often to stand up and see if there were raised entrances to the building, but to no avail. i wanted to stoop, offer my palm and provide shelter … in what? a glass aquarium? alone? fed but caged? as she scurried and crossed in front wobbling across the roots of a tree and then into the wet street under a car, i wondered if the best i could do was wrap her in the same protective force field in which i wrap myself, a heart field …of love.
The Birds
yesterday was sunny … enough for me to stop and observe. there were crows and sparrows. the large black wings swooped and swerved lifting off, zooming and with a little flutter landing in just the right spot. how amazing to spread one’s arms/wings and fly. i was curious how often they stayed together. one decided to take off, dip and lift to a landing across the street. another followed and soon all were on the other side. do birds always stay together? i watched the little sparrows. eight flew off, then a leader turned abruptly and went back to the roof. all followed except one who was thinking and off in her own world. as soon as she realized she was alone, she turned and joined the others. some do venture off on their own, especially if they decide to take the lead and none follow.
i also wondered about the sounds birds make – what purpose does their chipping, crowing, tweeting serve? do they do it for the heck of it? to attract a mate? announce “i’m here! look at me?” show off? invite company? what?
i saw the film Uprising … three times … this month, once the film itself, once with the director’s commentary and once with commentary from four of the main actors, including Jon Voight). Donald Sutherland was also in the cast. … it took me weeks to watch even the first time around, because it frightened me so, that i could only watch in 5 and 10 minute increments.
The film was about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In sept 1, 1939, the Nazi army invaded Poland and within a month overtook it. They forced 330,000+ jews to live 5-10 families in cramped one-family dwellings, deprived them of sufficient food, clean water and fuel for the cold winters. Surrounding the ghetto, were barbed wires and walls.. Any Jew found on the Aryan side would be executed on the spot. [The word Aryan comes from the Sanskrit (ārya) meaning “noble, superior, or high-born.”] A group of Jewish men, women and children from different organizations and segments of society decided to resist this forced slow death and the wanton killing of their neighbors, family and friends. In 1943, there are orders from Hitler and Himmler to increase the number of Jews deported to what are euphemistically called “Labor Camps.”
The leader of this group of resisters,is Mordechai, a name which means “Warrior” and in the book of Esther in the bible, he is the uncle of the queen, and together they saved the Jewish people in what became the Purim story. Our hero here, Mordechai, requests one of its members follow the trains, the cattle cars to their final destinations. His tearful and agonized report-back confirms the rumors that these are indeed death camps and that “the Nazis may try to hide the bodies, but they cannot hide the stench of death.”
It is then that these brave people decide that, not the Nazis, but they themselves will decide when they will die. They find ingenious ways of smuggling in rifles, shot guns, machine guns and explosives and each time the deportations begin, they infiltrate those being marched out and shoot the officers and go back into hiding.
The attack on the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto increases finally with the a huge battalion of the German Nazi army marching in, in formation, singing with a tank ready to blow up the whole block in which the resisters are holed up. at a coordinated moment, explosives are reigned down from the roof onto the tank, which is destroyed, german soldiers are killed and wounded and the order to retreat is given. There are many victorious scenes such as this and i won’t give away any more, as i do hope you see it (on Netflix), but i must say, this is one of the most powerful films i’ve seen in some time and a must for anyone who cares about humanity.
This history, as hard as it is to watch, is still our collective history, both the barbarity of the racist brutal genocide of the jews and others as well as the bravery and beautiful spirits of the Jews who successfully resisted for months, even until the wars end and the trying of the Nazi war criminals.
My mind is a tree reaching to the sky, little finger branches tickling the unwitting sky and flying off to outer reaches like birds. (A bright red bird – (cardinal?) came to land in my line of sight this morning, reminding me to flit and flirt with life’s daring branches.) and through my wanderings while running this morning, i followed my mind which had recently realized it can travel such great distances without bringing my slower body along. i went into the school nearby jingling with activity, little bodies, children of wanderers. i traveled to the other side of the building, far off to the park and galloped across the lawn that carries my feet to the bench of my afternoon meditation. And out to the horizon where sky and earth tango with moving parts, gliding and gyrating in a laughable momentary embrace. And at the river, a dot on the map of my morning run, i wished on the waters. Waters, waves, they migrate out into emotional ecstasies one can only imagine … and i do. and lost in wishes and mental wanderings, having caught my breath, which sometimes runs away from me, i returned to the concrete, the fuzz of grass around tree roots, the makes of cars, their symbols and some without symbols but only words (was it chrysler – so well established, it didn’t bother with branding?) and returning from my run, which itself is a breather from my work which breaths like any other living organism. yes, i’m writing a book, with a beginning, middle, milestones, removal of stones, struggles and an ending. (is there an ending? yes. what has a beginning has an end. i run to the end. i keep going till i reach the end. running, running.) do you want to know more about my book? yay!!! curiosity cured the cat. keep watching. with love.
when in doubt cry… laugh, rage or shake … OR … write. here i am sitting in the middle of my mind, rejoicing. sun and smiles make me happy. the sun does her own thing. i receive smiles by generating my own. i’m a genuine smile generator.
i went to the park, sat and wrote. i wrote an elevator pitch for an article about the book i’m writing. yay! as people passed by, i smiled and bellowed in my sing-song voice – “eat plant food. no dead animals, plee-ease.” and “meat’s not food. it’s violence. thank you. have a good day.” and variations on those.
a teen and his caregiver, a kindly spanish woman were passing by after walking around the park several times. when he heard my chant again, he stopped, stared and came right up. he asked what i was saying and i explained about not eating dead animals or milk or eggs stolen from cows and chickens. he screeched loudly and galloped like a child pretending to be a horse, one foot in front, the other following.
he said “i’m coming back. i’m coming back.” he circled back and said “i just got so excited, i had to run.”
from there, we engaged in a lengthy conversation.
“yes, i do think the chickens i eat feel pain, suffer and don’t want to die.”
he may live in a group home and not be in control of what lands on his plate, but he and many others to whom i sang this plea may think twice (or three times) and who knows what the ripples effects might be. happy face. happy day.
back from my run to the sun. while i run, i take the precious sunbeams into my heart, just load ’em up into every chamber. pump pump. i’m all pumped up. maybe you think i’m crazy, a hippy freak but when a person eliminates the cruelty and violence in consuming dead animals and milk and eggs stolen from them, the most wonderfully wacky, wow-y experiences can occur. so that’s my breakfast – sunbeams. and i run right to the river, the east harlem river where, on a sunny day, i get the extra treat of seeing the sparkles on the water, diamonds shining, smiling back to the sun and me, facets of fascinating. as if that weren’t enough (that would HAVE been enough “dayenu”), i get free smiles from passersby. now if that’s not something to take into one’s heart for a morning breakfast, i don’t know what is. i don’t want to sound like one of those TV advertisements – “and for no extra cost, if you act now, you’ll get one amazing gizmo absolutely free. all you do is pay for postage and handling.” but the truth is these morning routines (yoga, meditation and my run to the sun) start me off on the right (and left) foot, well actually flying. lastly, the treat of the trees – i could write a treatise on them. i have to admit, one by one i fall in love. today, it was one whose stature reminded me of a candelabra, which may come from “arbor”(a leafy, shady recess formed by TREE branches, shrubs, etc). this one had branches reaching out first horizontally, then almost abruptly almost at right angles, vertically upward. the trees speak so loudly sometimes, i can barely hear myself think, but ahhh that’s a signal to stop thinking, relax and listen. the universe talks … with love.
i choose to write, maybe even every day. They say one can improve one’s writing by writing. i’ll put my hat in the ring. I’ll ring the bell. Well, i can write about the run, this morning, to the sun. i run to the sun. simple and naive, it sustains my joyous spirit. well it was hard at first to lift off, and elevate so high and soon enough to exit the earth’s pulling atmosphere, gravity, but when you’re a runner, you try to extend yourself every day. at last i do. judging what i just wrote? no, just speeding along, approaching the speed of light. and i got closer and closer to the sun and then the diamonds appeared, sparkling jumping beams of light, dancing frantically off the water of the nearby river, the harlem (harmless) river. definitely diamonds. why do i like diamonds and sparkly things so much? because they reflect my mind. they are crisp and crackling. vibrant. light and water dancing, reflecting off each other.
and as usual, i thought about thinking. choosing thoughts, allowing thoughts to flow, to get thunk. i decided to write every day for 10 minutes. so here’s my first since march of this year. because writing is an anchoring of thoughts. editing comes later. yes, i’ve learned a lot about writing, since beginning in earnest to write my memoir. now i’m deciding almost definitely, this first draft at least, is for me. simply to tell my story and of course not only to tell it but to write it in such a way that other might find it interesting, but as stephen king suggests, write the first draft for yourself. and of course i listen to the other writing gurus who say “show, don’t tell.” in other words, include as much detail that includes as many sensory sensations, as allows the reader to not just read it but experience it on that more grabbing, real, engaging way.
so, that’s just about my 10 minutes. by making it short, i guarantee i will probably do it regularly. should i make a note for myself in my “to do” /appointment book? maybe. should i edit this? maybe. do you write? write a blog? are writing a book? a memoir? here’s the main question i’m constantly asking myself. since i want to offer to my readers the swiss army knife solution to the problems in the world: wars, inequality (classes), catastrophic climate crisis (floods, hurricanes, extreme hot/cold, droughts and fires), that being (the solution being) an end to animal agri-torture, and at the same time this is my memoir, kind of how i came to see animal liberation as primary amongst all the liberation struggles, i’m wondering how to keep it simple stupid as the AA saying goes and at the same time, fulfill my desire to include critical memories, memories that were the building blocks of my fundamental transformations. anyway, i’d love receiving feedback … with love.
one of my paintings from when i attended “the art students league many years ago.
i guess you could say – thoughts are thick or thin perhaps in relation to one another or perhaps depending upon how weighty they are. And therein explodes the question, into the air – just what ARE thoughts? can they even be conceived of as HAVING weight? form? think about it. they certainly are not matter. are they simply energy?, if so what kind? electric? biological? by the way, i don’t think thoughts are thunk by human animals only, but human thoughts may just take a different form, though form describes matter and thoughts are not matter. so what are they?
quantum physics describes the smallest measures of energy. could they perhaps come close to describing the nature of thoughts? small but significant? many gurus teach that thoughts affect the totality of the grand whole of which we and all beings are a part. the oneness of all being. what comes to mind is how trees communicate with one another through their underground root systems, sensing when another tree is ailing and sending healing energy. thinking about thoughts is like putting an etheric jigsaw puzzle together. and while we’re thinking about thinking and thoughts, don’t forget to breath. if your spacebar got stock, your writing might look like this: don’tforgettobreath! 😊
When i was little, i tagged after my older sister who tagged after even older girls who called me “mousy” because i never uttered a word and if by rare chance i did, it was barely audible. Did you know that mice, when tickled, giggle, though at a frequency too high for us to hear but audible when slowed down? they love to be tickled so much so, that they follow whatever hand was tickling them. at a young age, my little squeaks were likewise inaudible. years later, after i’d become an animal liberationist, i got up the nerve to be heard and founded an organization, incorporated as a non-profit and called it ROAR – an aptly picked acronym, no ? ROAR is the sound we want all thinking hearts, feeling minds and courageous guts to hear. with sound, color, energy, we reach out. we Reach Out for Animal Rights!
one of aesop’s fables “the lion and the mouse” comes to mind. the lion catches a mouse under his huge paw. the mouse pleads with him to free her. “please” she begs. “you will see. someday i will repay you.” the lion scoffs at the idea – a tiny mouse helping him, the king of the jungle! nonetheless, he releases her. not too many days later, while stalking prey, the lion is caught in a thick roped net – unable to get free. he lets out a huge anguished roar. the mouse hears and runs to the lion’s side. she nibbles and gnaws through it, setting the lion free. “see,” she announces to the lion. “now you see, even a tiny mouse can help a great lion.” take whatever moral you wish from this. i like to think we all need one another, with all our strengths AND seeming weaknesses, which none of us are without. ❤️
n January of 2020, i hoped for a year humans would finally be able to see clearly, i.e. to have 2020 vision. of the dozens (well, three) books i read last year, two stood out as exceptional. they underscored the need for this clear 2020 vision, both of hind and foresight. they were: An Unnatural Order and The World Peace Diet. The former focuses on how and approximately when the human species began as herbivores in awe of nature, especially of other animals and at a certain point, primarily we started hunting other herbivores (non threatening, though hard to catch). in this book, an unnatural order, jim mason, surmises that men felt the need to prove themselves to women, whom they saw as godlike in their ability to push new life out from their loins. they observed women’s excellent abilities to forage. perhaps they observed lions and tigers, their strengths and agilities and decided to imitate them.
mason shows how this divergence from our true physiology as herbivores and our true psychology as gentle, empathic, communal, peaceful animals initiated a cascading effect that lead, physiologically, to ill health and shortened lifespans and psychologically to individualism, competition, male supremacy, brutality, hierarchical systems, racism, torture, slavery, class divisions, dominionist religions, wars, and all the ills from which we suffer today.
the latter, The World Peace Diet takes us on a spiritual journey to examine our shadow selves and the implications and ripple effects of our confining, torturing and killing sentient beings and eating them and milk and eggs stolen from them. The author, Will Tuttle, looks at the ramifications this has on the the spiritual, societal, economic, health and survival aspects always pointing to our true natures, not as predatory, individualistic, violent and heartless, but as herbivorous, peaceful, compassionate, communal and wise. he compares the hunting/herding culture’s science of logic and narrow focus that will tear apart a frog to understand each sinew and cell, rather than a science of intuitive wisdom, inter-being, with awe and respec for the wonders of life i.e. making connections rather than a killing.
these books, further deepened my understanding and made me hope that we humans would open our eyes and clear our vision to see how our first grand faux pas of hunting, herding, dome-secrating our animal kin has come to haunt us resulting in diseases, pandemics and their correlational “scientific” “cures” (based on confining, torturing and injecting defenseless animals with pathogens). the resulting drugs, vaccines, antibiotics which attack the symptom but not the cause (our consuming animal flesh and secretions) thus polluting and compromising our immune systems.
in addition, many, including myself, wondered if 2020 would finally bring an acknowledgment of the dominant role of animal agri-torture in the growing crisis of catastrophic climate change. we hoped people would finally open their eyes and see the connections between using so much of our major resources (land, water, petroleum) to feed and fatten animals and the unusual fluctuations in temperature, extreme hot, cold, floods, hurricanes, draughts and fires dominating the news and ending many lives, non human animals included.
robert louis stevenson said: “sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.” as more and more people make the connections, we affirm that the consequences of their compassion and kindness to all sentient beings and thus eating only plant-foods (i.e. going vegan) will lead to a delicious, joyful and sumptuous meal, indeed. This and only this can bring about a very bright and satisfying future.
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