Dear Ecofems;
My, I'm into this now! I'm glad it's only been
two days since I posted, and it's raining out, so I
don't feel bad about not being home grafting or
planting or mulching. If I get too hooked on this
intellectual/spiritual feast, it'll damage my
commitment to sustainability, since it's 12 miles from
me to the nearest free, on-line computer.
As I recall Unleesh was one of the participants
in the last session of squabbling on the vegan issue,
and I avoided getting into it. Either she (are you a
she?) has calmed down a lot or she finds me more worthy
of respect. Thanks! And you've put me to some
thinking for sure!
I need to get hold of this book ("Sexual Politics
of Meat") that has been referred to several times.
Maybe someone can 'abstract' it for me in the
meantime.
Sustainability is my life's mission- to learn it,
to practice it, and hopefully show it to others. To
that end, I do occasionally partake of insects (though
to date I have not found them appetizing) and other
'unorthodox' meats when they come my way (rats, dogs,
and snakes perhaps being the most startling to ordinary
Americans). I have also regularly composted or
direct-buried my own waste since 1985. These things
may be food for tough thinking for other readers of
this list, but they're established results of tough
thinking I did long ago. I really appreciate that
there are other people on here who'll do the tough
thinking, and moreover, actually change their lives as
a result of it!
This might be somewhat scattered, as I've many
ideas loose in my head, and other letters to get to.
I'm not sure all the words are there in my post, but
the attitude of nature as being a resource for my own
well-being is certainly there. I think it is probably
there for every person who directly relates to the
natural world for their subsistence. I recall one
night about ten years ago going out under a new
crescent moon and seeing 400 tomato plants, just set
out the week before, gleaming with deadly frost. I
thought, if I was a little poorer than I am, if I
didn't live in a community which grew other things, if
I was doing this for real, I'd be facing hunger because
of this! I reflected that as a young person I'd
related to and appreciated Nature from a position of
relative insulation and independence from it; and then
determined that to live as simply and as close to it as
I could was the best way to preserve it. But I
reflected, in that cold moonlight: "I have only been
enamored of the carvings and inlays on the hilt and
scabbard of Nature's sword, and have not yet felt the
bite of the blade's edge on tender flesh! Nature is
full of processes that go forward independently of
human will, and one ignores them at one's peril"
I love the Permaculture ethic, where cooperation
is seen as the overarching governing principle in
Nature (as opposed to competition) and I seek to design
the ecosystem I'll be depending on for my subsistence
on that basis. But in the nitty-gritty of daily life
on the land, there is, I admit, an acquisitiveness, and
sometimes an adversarial mindset that is still with me.
The ideal, seems to me, of paradise would be to wander
around the orchard and pick fruit and eat. But the
real world isn't that easy, at least not till my fruit
trees get old enough to bear!
It was insightful of Unleesh to point out my 'resource'
attitude towards nature, including animals. I should
like to learn a better way. I wonder if there's any
other gardener out there who has a suggestion. Do we
just let the bugs eat the stuff up? Do we put up a
fence against the deer (much less shoot them!) or watch
them eat the veggies and go hungry ourselves?
Ultimately the world has too many people;and too
much greed among most of them. Naturally there is
going to be this sense of scarcity and competition
between us and other living things, for space, for
food, and so on. Tough thinking. One result of my
tough thinking on this one is to commit to never
fathering a child. I used to imagine that I might meet
a woman strong-willed enough to persuade me otherwise,
but my last girlfriend was about as strong-willed as
they come, and failed (and left!). Once I reflected in
my journal "Those tree-cutters and homesteaders in
Rondonia, Brazil; who are carrying forward the great
burning; they are not after big bucks. They are after
a bare subsistence. They are after a livelihood for
their spouses and children. We the rich cannot bid
them halt, unless we promise them the same. And so the
rainforest goes down, goes up in smoke. For love. For
love of wife and child, and house and home, and peace
and bliss and yes, wealth. If the world is being
destroyed for love, is there any hope for it at all?"
So it seems that maybe we have a couple of
'fouls' on the playing field. The first 'foul' is
people who don't depend on their own work on the land
calling the practices of those who do on the carpet.
(Thus, an organic farmer has a lot more right to
challenge a conventional farmer on his farming
practices than does an urban consumer). The second
'foul' is people assuming the prerogative to decide
concerning the lives and deaths of other species. I
guess my question about the second cry of 'out of
bounds' would be, how are we supposed to eat then?
Food means taking life, whether animal or plant. I
guess the only way out might be to make my diet 100%
from the dumpster, because there, all of the sins
involved in raising, killing, processing that food have
already been committed, and the only role remaining to
me is entirely redemptive; preventing the final crime
of its ending up in a landfill. (Y'all can tell I've
spent some years as a Christian by my languague here, I
just can't think of any clearer words right now!)
Not reaching any conclusions. Yes, crop rotation
works, and nitogen-fixing covers, and so on. There are
whole cultures on this planet gaining excellent
nutrition from vegan diets raised by more or less
sustainable methods. (traditional Asian wet-rice
culture comes first to mind) I've also never seen
human beings work that hard, till I saw rice-farmers in
Bangladesh.
Maybe Unleesh or someone else can point me toward
a good summary resource on human prehistory; the
transition between plant-eating and meat-eating
periods, and so on. The sources I've read sometimes
conflict; perhaps better research has cleared this up.
The human being as an omnivore, basically able to
utilize whatever she or he finds, seems to be the best
summary of it all, though. At certain periods one or
another dietary resource may have been predominant.
(and is today- the Eskimos exist on a nearly enitre
animal-source diet)
Here's an aside: I recall an account once of a
man attacked and mauled by a lion in Africa. Someone
else shot the lion before it could kill him, and he
recovered. When asked about the experience, he said
that the instant the cat knocked him down, he went into
a kind of trance in which he felt no pain, no desire to
escape, but only a kind of euphoria. It would be
wonderful to imagine that in every case of predation in
nature that such a natural anesthesia takes place, I'm
sure there are other accounts of the exact opposite.
I guess what I'm implying is that it might not be
unnatural, against our destiny, or evil to prey or to
be preyed upon. I would rather be taken out by a lion
than by any one of a dozen viruses and bacteria capable
of dealing us a slow and nasty end!
I guess the only response I'd have about the
subject of 'impulses' and controlling them; I'd prefer
to see people beat animals and kill them rather than do
it to one another. People living in a toxic culture
have to detox, somehow. I grew up in a home where my
dad beat my mom on a regular basis, and threatened to
kill her with a loaded gun numerous times. And yes,
I've been known to beat goats when they don't behave,
and kill critters for food. There probably is a
connection. I've dug many garden beds in anger, too,
especially when going through the ACOA healing process.
I neither dig beds or beat goats with nearly as much
anger now. But it had to go somewhere, strike ground
like lightning and neutralize. Now I know that if I'm
not doing something, ultimately, from joy and love, I'm
not in the best place regarding myself or the work. I
know I'll be asked, how can I kill an animal with love
and joy. Joy certainly, because my mind is on dinner.
Love? Yes, or at least working towards it. The goats
don't need a beating, they need better fencing, or
feeding, if they're getting out. Can I love a tomato
worm, too, and let it go on munching? Should I place
it gently somewhere else, and permit its many progeny
to return and eat still more?
Ultimately, we are in this world, and to live in
this world means taking life. To take less life than
the culture deems appropriate involves tough thinking.
How about this distraction- does anyone out there
consider resisting income taxes, which support the
military? I, for one, choose to live without enough
income for them to bother with; but that does mean I'll
be taking the life of an occasional animal now and
then.
Sincerely; and willing to think tough,
Bob the treeplanter
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