Why I Hate The Food Chain
I want to invite you to go to a place in your consciousness where you may have never ventured before. I want to suggest that you allow yourself to entertain ideas that perhaps never occurred to you and to question things that you didn’t know you were allowed to question.
Look at the pictures of these gorgeous animals above this writing. I want to point out their beauty and adorableness for a specific reason. That reason has to do with the food chain. The food chain, in my opinion, is entirely incongruent with the creation of such magnificence. And these photos represent only a tiny sample of the breathtaking beauty of all living things on our illustrious planet Earth. Contrast that beauty with the nature of the food chain.
The food chain is a very bizarre phenomenon where in order for something to live, something else must die. Eventually, literally every living thing must die in order to keep things in balance. So living things are killed and replaced through reproduction in this very delicate balance where one species is not allowed to overtake another. But more importantly, the food chain represents a situation where the death of one begets the life of another.
Now there are many people who wish to romanticize this phenomenon as a lovely example of the yin and the yang. They may even call it “beautiful” and liken it to the in and out motion of the breath, darkness and light, etc., etc. Sure, I guess you could make such an argument. Except for one thing:
Here in New Mexico, we are often awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of coyotes killing their prey. It is a horrific sound of an entire pack of these wild dogs shrieking and yelping as they corner some poor, innocent creature whose life is about to end. I recall many a night cringing in bed with my fingers in my ears, so as not to hear the sound of a terrified jackrabbit screaming for its life as it became food for these hungry creatures.
How many billions of times a day does the above example repeat itself in one form or another around the entire planet? Have you noticed that every one of the creatures that is being devoured by another for food wants desperately to live? Maybe they just haven’t heard about how “spiritual” and “natural” all of this is. After all, if they knew what so many humans want to believe, they might even offer themselves up for their predator’s next meal as a sign of cooperation and acknowledgement of how wonderful it is to be part of the food chain.
There is nothing natural about the food chain and there is especially nothing natural about any creature’s death being a source of life and food for another. Of course I do know that I have just made a highly controversial statement. But that just depends on what you are used to and what you may have wholly adapted to mentally as a planetary inhabitant of Earth. Even though we appear to have no choice but to be a part of this, it doesn’t mean that we can’t question it.
The food chain is essentially a chain of ongoing death among the most beautiful and wondrous creatures ever created. Every one of these amazing creatures wants to live, ourselves included. What living thing does not seek and absolutely adore being alive? Even plants exhibit an enormous drive towards life. But the biggest question is why create all of this awesome planetary beauty just for food and death? It makes no sense.
I want to invite you to imagine something. Imagine a planet where every gorgeous, living being has been carefully crafted by divine intelligence in its absolute highest state of perfection, beauty, and love. Each being is so utterly precious that it would be literally unthinkable for that being to ever deteriorate, die, or be devoured by something else for food. Reproduction is not a factor, because no one needs to be replaced. Thus there is no such thing as “over-population”. The only reason we here on Earth experience over-population in any venue of life is because there has not been enough killing and dying to balance out ongoing reproduction and replacement.
Yes, everything I’m saying involves a mental confrontation of the well-established, planetary status quo, in terms of what you are willing to envision. But if you look closely, you will find that what drives that confrontation is the heart. In fact, that confrontation is so large that it even confronts the existence of entropy itself. But why not? Why not come out of the typical narrow-minded, human approach where new thought must first be proven to validate the old, before it will be considered viable. (I believe it’s called science.)
Science is far too slow to address such things, as it is mostly premised on what already exists in any given sphere of life. Instead, why don’t we take the fast, adventurous track and actually listen to our hearts? Why not listen to our superior, divine intelligence? Is it even remotely rational to presume that such unspeakable beauty and love of life among all creatures here is created solely to supply some giant planetary cafeteria? As I said before, even plants adore life, so this is not just about a vegetarian idea as a solution.
I will propose to you that something is very, very wrong with this picture. I will venture a guess that your heart might agree, even if your mind is protesting with all sorts of so-called good reasons for why the food chain needs to exist. When all else fails, the default answer will always be “because God said so.” Well, if God is infinite love, then how is it possible that love needs to see things suffer, die, and lose their lives so that other things can eat? What sort of “love” creates a bizarre system such as this?
As you can probably tell, I don’t agree with this rationale. So what can we do? Firstly, let me say that I don’t actually “hate” the food chain. Hate is a wasted emotion. Instead, I choose to listen to my heart. There is simply no point in death being necessary to life. That is a crazy idea. Instead of dutifully accepting this belief and all of its horrific manifestations, why don’t we begin to envision what we know in our hearts to be true? This is a really big universe, and believe it or not there is actually massive manifestation of infinite life all over the place. We just don’t see it because we unwittingly subscribe to something else.
So there’s my challenge, if you are feeling particularly adventurous. Can you envision something better? Can you envision something aligned with pure, unconditional love? Can you find it in your heart to openly reject the idea of the food chain and all of its suffering within your own consciousness? Can you actually admit to yourself that in your heart you find this intolerable, even if there does not appear to be any way out?
This is all about co-creative visioning with our creator. This is about supporting our heartfelt desire for something else that manifests as infinite love on our planet and expressing that desire when we pray. If the power of love is so great that it can create vast universes of light along with endless seas of immortal life, then is our little earthly problem so impossible to fix? I think not. I hope you are into the adventure!
If you have read this far, then I feel great love for your willingness to entertain these ideas. Thank you! I hope you will leave me a comment below. How do you feel about animals, plants, and all life on this planet? What would it look like here if the vision in your heart came true? Let’s affirm the miracle that our collective hearts tell us should be the reality.
Dearest Saratoga, thank you so much for this blog, I too feel the same way about the food chain and seeing it abolished would truly be heaven on earth! But what would we live on? Love. I can see that whole heartedly. There has been talk of breatharians in our midst and perhaps that is our destiny as beings. It would be wonderful to be immortal, to never know death and to never see death. I miss my dog so much. I yearn to have her back and for a world where we never have to say goodbye to our loved ones. So many broken hearts!
It’s truly an unconscious planet and admittedly I must become unconscious in order to eat and I admittedly do as when I am conscious of the carnage I incur by eating and when I think of the cost, it makes me very sad and guilty. I will stand with you and pray for such a world.
Thank you for sharing this. It gives me hope that we can see a better world, one of love and peace for every living creature and life form, as we all deserve. It also gives me hope that I can do something about this and that is pray. Thank you for the wonderful visualisation you have brought to me this day! You have awakened the child in me that can dream again and believe – Susan McDonald
Susan, I don’t think our destiny is to be breatharians. That would absolutely not solve anything, because it implies that everything else stays the same. With all due respect to those who see themselves that way, I think it sounds totally weird because it seems very detached. The air that we breathe is very much formed by all of the life processes on this planet and you can’t remove one process (eating) and expect everything else to remain the same.
You have made some great statements here that give me a wonderful chance to clarify things further. Thanks so much to you and everyone else commenting here for allowing us to expand the conversation.
So let me start by addressing the statement that we could live on love. In the Real World of infinite love there is no such thing as “living on” anything. In that world we ARE love. I agree that no one should ever know death. If I may inject a little humor into such a heavy topic, death is completely goofy! What in the world is the point? Did we all just have to have an experience of being destroyed? What for? Is that somebody’s weird idea of fun?
And as you said so simply and beautifully – “So many broken hearts!” Boy, do I ever agree with that. Does the human heart have to be broken again and again and again, billions of times over for eons? What in the world are we supposed to learn from that? I am really just incredulous about this bizarre state of affairs.
Most importantly, Susan, I want to address the subject of guilt, related to what you referred to as the carnage you incur by eating. It is entirely natural to feel sad. But guilt is a destructive emotion that does nothing for this situation. Guilt implies that if you, Susan (or anybody else), can punish yourself with this painful emotion, that this will somehow help. It won’t. It is an irrelevant “answer” promoted by the ego to make people think they can achieve some sort of absolution this way. This so-called solution will not work at all because animal predators do not feel guilty. And there are WAY more predators on Earth than there are humans.
But the ego likes the solution of guilt because it is disempowering and distracting. A better solution is to follow the path of love and validate what your heart is telling you. Stand behind that love. It’s not about anyone stopping eating. If you did that, you would die and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Absolutely nothing would change as a result. This is an evolutionary problem on a planetary and universal scale. So please don’t feel guilty. Strengthen yourself with love instead. Then your consciousness can act as a contributing factor in the bigger picture.
Wow! Mind blown 🙂 In all kinds of good ways … reading this and the other threads, you have given me so much to “chew on” (forgive the pun, I couldn’t help myself)! Thank you 🙂
Saratoga, I must say my thoughts as well as my conviction on this very subject veers a little but not by much from your position. As a mind-body nutrition coach of 25 years going and an author, I had to rely on my heart for my objectivity in guiding my clients and readers of my writings in this direction.
I recollect my teen years being a vegetarian, and the debilitating (life or death) state my body was in by the age 30 carrying my second child and that forced me back to meat eating. My situation is more of a conundrum. My body does not seem to do well with animal protein, and Heaven knows I simply eat to live, essentially I like to eat as simple as possible. So I choose those foods that best support my evolutionary growth, i.e., keep my blood pure. And, yes, animal protein is not a good food choice, especially when you do not digest it well. However, I inherited some malfunctioning genes, in the body my parents provided for my spiritual develop in this earth-life. This is not to blame my parents. It is my conviction that I got the body with which I chose to work. One challenging issue, however, is I inherited the sickle-cell anemia genes (just a trait). Yes, there is the esoteric teaching that states anemia is a sign that I had not developed the love side my nature; that love which is the cause of all productiveness in Nature (including human nature). That I find my best (more lasting) source of iron (and I have tried many) is derived ONLY from the plasma of animal flesh (red meat). It could have much to do with this issue [deficiency] with the love side of my nature. Still, that which I once found despicable is my life-saver when I become noticeably anemic – an awfully debilitating state.
I am gradually finding, however, that being anemic is no justification for meat eating, for this usually happens when I am over-stressed. Now I strive to function from a stress-free place. As Miribi puts it: from “the states of peace and happiness,” which I have proven have enormous influence over my biology, and can change it. I will see how I can truly overcome this condition through my change of thinking and behaving rather than “hating the food chain.”
It is my position that only when the consciousness of the entire planet begins to rise – when we begin to pass down disease-free bodies through generations – the death-struggle in Nature will simultaneously begin to subside. That the time will come, there is no doubt. That new era where animals no longer feel compelled to multiply to replenish Earth, to supply the human food chain. Animals (land and sea) will, in their own rhythm – swinging in the planetary law of balances – cease to over-polulate. It can only happen when their breeding habits are no longer driven by human propensities and crave for their flesh, for it is human behaviour that influences animal behaviour. So much power we have as creators! We can change anything in the “hearth” of our [peaceful, happy] thoughts.
Monica
Monica, thank you for this. Ironically, I don’t see this as a nutrition issue at all. I think that everyone should absolutely eat in a way that promotes their individual health and as I said to Susan, leave the guilt out of it. If we get caught up in these tiny details – all of which exist as microscopic symptoms, relatively speaking – our painful efforts may help us individually to some extent, but will do virtually nothing for the magnitude of the problem overall.
This issue literally involves the physics of our entire universe. (This might sound big, but remember it’s all relative.) There is not a physical cause and effect solution. We are completely out of our league if we try to address this through our familiar channels of human-Earth perception.
The first step for us is to stop the denial and the rationalizing. Stop the spiritual excuses. Stop lying to ourselves that we are okay with this. It is all of this collective lying and denial that produces the unconsciousness, passivity, and hopelessness. This is why I say over and over again that we must listen to our hearts and begin speaking the truth to ourselves. That is step number one. It involves a complete and total paradigm shift of perception. And I want to emphasize again that guilt is not a part of this. Guilt is the absence of love and forgiveness for oneself. It is going against one’s own self. We are not the enemy! If we are the enemy, then so is every other living creature on this planet, which is utterly ridiculous. (I’m not saying that you implied guilt here, Monica. I’m just making a general statement.)
So I prefer to keep it very simple and very direct. No distractions. Just the strength of clarity.
This is such a powerful recognition of how, as a species, we have rejected life, in all its most profound and natural manifestations. Reading Susan’s and Monica’s responses so eloquently expressed connect with me on the deepest level. I think any conscious being is appalled at having to eat the beautiful animals and fish here… not so sure about the plant aspect but I always wondered if we could just take a pill and not have to kill for food. I used to do long 10-day master cleanses and I loved the way my energy shifted and elevated. It was amazing. Now that I’m older, hormones are weird and I have succumbed to the demands of my body as it changes and gets older. But I haven’t given up on finding new ways to nourish my body with the least amount of destruction to other creatures–but I’m not very good at it yet.
I too was vegetarian for more than 15 years in my 20’s and 30’s. I couldn’t bear to eat any form of animal. Especially after I read Diet for a New America by the Robbins half of the Baskins & Robbins brothers. The book was, and I believe it was written in the ’80’s!–about the cruel despicable treatment of animals in the factory farming industry and what that does to our bodies, never mind our hearts and souls. It still turns my stomach to think about it, let alone watch animals eating other animals in the wild on the nature shows aired on TV.
I can’t even imagine how much worse that has become so many decades later. I also am very aware of eating death, and in order to survive “here”, at this point in our evolution, I try to be as conscious in blessing what my body needs to live in this environment. I adore animals and nature, and try to eat as little of them as I can get away with physically. But truthfully I don’t even know how to think about it all any more. This piece is truly a call to find somewhere inside my being to open up to the possibility, or should I say the true necessity, through love and respect for all creatures (never mind the human issues that are so connected!) that we could transcend this and restore our beautiful planet to its proper place in whatever realm we are truly in. Perhaps through our conscious desire we could transcend this barbarism once and for all.
Saratoga, your words echo within my heart and I will focus more attention on this in my prayers and meditation. It seems that I am guilty for turning a blind eye to the most important things that I feel I am powerless to change. So the question is, what kind of lie am I living? And how do I change that to enhance life in all of its beautiful manifestations here? I believe that everything is possible with intention.
Thank you, Saratoga, for the constant awakenings to the truth, as difficult as it may be to swallow… your words give me courage to stop giving up.
With love and reverence …
Leigh
Well, I’m going to sound like a broken record, but guilt and negative judgements on ourselves will do absolutely nothing for this problem. Leigh, you said you don’t know how to think about this anymore. Here is a suggestion. We human beings are not the enemy, nor are any of the plants, animals, insects, etc. We are all in this situation together. We should not divorce ourselves from the rest of the living kingdom here in order to punish ourselves as “bad humans”. That is an absolute trap. It’s a trick.
I can assure you that the animals do not like this any more than we do. No mother rabbit relishes having her babies eaten by a snake. No baby animal wants to see its mother killed. And animals are under constant stress as they hunt for food in order to survive. What I’m about to say next is not directed at you personally, Leigh, but rather to the collective consciousness of humanity.
I find it exceedingly sad that humans on Earth have this weird propensity to always set themselves apart from everything else, whether for good or for bad. We think we can judge ourselves as “bad humans”, change a few behaviors, and hey, we’re somehow off the hook.
Where’s the compassion for the rest of Earth’s creatures? Why don’t we understand that we are all in this together? The animals suffer and can be sad just as much as we do. It is not compassion to beat ourselves up. Do you think that some poor animal who is about to lose its life is thinking, “Man, if those humans would just judge themselves more harshly, things would be so much better for me.” Or “Hey, if those humans would just become vegetarian maybe this lion would not kill me.”
My dearest, loving friends, this is not a behavioral issue. This is an issue of physics and the literal construction of Earth’s reality. (The issue of factory farming that you brought up, Leigh, is a whole different issue, of course. That level of suffering is another subject altogether. That is just blatant cruelty for profit and has nothing to do with the food chain in nature.)
You know, we are supposed to be the gods in this situation. Meaning co-creators with God. If we ruin our consciousness and weaken ourselves by feeling guilty, beating ourselves up, or judging ourselves as the enemy, my gosh, what hope does anyone have? In that case, my heart just breaks for these poor animals who depend on us to be strong and clear for this planet’s evolution.
And the images are breathtaking ….
I know! And there are so many more. I wish I could have included a ton. 🙂
Wow Saratoga! Thank-you! Reading this brought tears of relief and joy! The unspoken has been voiced. While I have thought of this in different ways and from time to time, something in this communication has deeply touched me. My heart yearns to be an expression of beauty and infinite love. The vision I have is of beauty, peace and joy for all Life including in, on and upon our wonderous planet Earth. Love Eve
Eve, your simple statement of “The unspoken has been voiced” is profound. The unspoken, the ignored, and the discredited is the voice of the human heart. Such is the trap of weakness that we collectively find ourselves in if we invalidate our own selves and the love that we naturally feel within.
What a wonderful and really interesting post Saratoga. I’ve wondered about the phrase “Nature’s red in tooth and claw” – how a God of love could condone much less create a world where creatures must kill to live.
In my heart of hearts I know it isn’t right that life lives upon death. Seems like death is the power in that scenario not life because life is dependent on death to continue. Death shouldn’t really exist at all, maybe its an aberration.
What a wonderful time this is that you can post on a topic like this and people don’t just entertain the idea as a lovely reverie but truly feel that its possible as a reality that can be!
Thanks for asking us to really consider this.
Tony, I totally agree with you that on Earth death is primary to life, as weird as that sounds. That’s how you can tell that something is very wrong here. I also agree that the existence of death is a complete aberration which, in my opinion, has no value or purpose whatsoever, other than to keep a very bizarre system in a strange sort of balance.
A beautiful thought. My cat was eaten by a coyote a few years ago. It was a painful experience as she was so adorable. I don’t know what the solution is but I will keep this in my heart. It reminds be how I have always felt nature and animals a precious.
Oh, I’m so sorry about your cat, Mariah. Although it is quite something to share the space with coyotes as we do here (because they will absolutely kill and eat your pets if they have the chance), they are only trying to survive as well. I do not blame the coyotes any more than I would blame us as humans.
Let me also mention something about plants. Plants want to live, too. How many times have you seen the utter determination of a plant or a tree to press forward with life in the most impossible of circumstances? It happens all the time. Some would argue that plants actually sense or “feel” when they are being damaged. In fact, there may even be some science to prove this.
For me, it causes me real pain to see a tree or a bush getting trimmed. This is one reason (although not the main one) why I don’t see vegetarianism as a solution. I don’t even like cutting a piece of lettuce off of a growing, living plant. You see, if we treat this as merely a behavioral issue, we are totally checkmated. We could choose not to eat anything, and then we would die. Great! What’s that supposed to accomplish?
This is why I say we are in this together. All of us. The trees, the plants, the animals, the birds, everybody. When you view this situation holistically in this way, there are no enemies among any of Earth’s inhabitants. Once we eliminate the distraction of looking for the “enemy”, we are clear-minded enough to truly take a stand for something real and harmonious with life.
Dear Saratoga, Thank you for standing up for all of our beloved creatures and life forms on earth, this bought tears of relief! we won’t accept the “that’s nature” rationalization any longer – it’s not true, it never was. I accepted that and my own death sentence of duality – but no longer. I fall asleep dreaming of the world, life here, everyone, as one. Now I can include our ‘creatures’ in my dreams and prayers that this become our collective reality- thank you, how wonderful! The heart, not the mind. I am so deeply grateful for your diamond heart and the light that you share. thank you forever! Much love, Barb
That’s a great point, Barb. A famous, two-word rationale. “That’s nature.” Isn’t it funny how passive and ridiculous we humans can sound when we shrug it all off with two little words? Wow! That’s pretty amazing.
Gee, maybe we could make that the eulogy at every funeral. “That’s nature!” Think of the time we would save! No more sitting around grieving over lost loved ones. If people only knew how much easier it could be, if they could just remember those two magic words! Say, we could even put that on everyone’s tombstones. “That’s nature” – maybe even followed by a little smiley face 🙂 How cool is that?
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I think sometimes significant points can be made through humor.
You made it even better Saratoga, making a point through humor is far more effective.
Yes!!! I am grateful at every level of my being that you have brought this up and I am very thankful that you are talking so directly about such “controversial” subjects. I put that word in quotes, because to me, it is anything but. How can the truth be a controversy? Only in a world of reverse flow, I guess. Seeing as you are speaking so boldly, I am inspired to do the same. 🙂
It seems to me that the food chain is such a blatant physical example of reverse flow – everything needing to take something in from outside of themselves merely to survive (whether food or otherwise). From my heart, I feel that our true natural state is to not require anything whatsoever to exist as a life form, but to exist in a perpetual state of enrichening everyone and everything around you.
I pray that we return this immensely beautiful planet to such a natural state. In my heart, I feel that this could happen very quickly with humanity leading the way and bringing our collective consciousness into alignment with true radiant flow. This is our purpose as human creators on this Earth.
I think it has been said that every child reaches a major developmental stage when they first understand the concept of death. I think that is because, before that point, they know innately that we and all other beings are meant to be immortal. In other words, they have to learn about death. How interesting it is that every child’s innate desire, on seeing such a magnificent animal as a tiger, would be to reach out and touch this beautiful creature. Just as with learning about death, they have to learn that reaching out to pet a tiger could potentially be very dangerous. If we we innately know that immortality is our true nature and have to learn about death, what does it say about a tiger’s true nature when our innate instinct is to reach out to such a beautiful animal?
I’m pretty sure the tiger would be far – far – happier without having to deal with the food chain, either, not just any of the other creatures that are prey in this world. I mean, in the end, all tigers and other predators eventually die, too. Now, I’m in agreement with you on the science thing. I think most scientists would have a difficult time with my statement above about what would make tigers happy. Tigers, as they are on Earth right now have highly entrenched survival instincts and any experimental attempt to figure out what tigers really want probably wouldn’t go very well. 🙂
But what would a tiger, or even a bird or a rabbit, for that matter, be like in a world that was in its true natural state of radiant flow?
It would be a wondrously beautiful thing. And I know that it is.
Avalon, I know what you mean. I would love to be able to reach out and pet or hug any one of these gorgeous animals. I’m sure that many people would love that. They are so incredibly beautiful and it seems so weird that they are so dangerous. Why does any creature need to have such a high level of awesome beauty just to run around killing and eating things? That’s a massive clue that something is really off here.
These creatures don’t even look scary. They look absolutely wonderful and so easy to adore. So what is up with this situation that they (and we) find ourselves in? Hmmm…..
Hi Saratoga, This post brought up so many emotions for me. It brought to the fore what I am consciously aware of feeling in the background each and every day, which is a profound sadness that this food chain, or life and death cycle is still in place on our beautiful planet. On the other hand, it brought hope that the issue is being openly discussed in its true context, and in a way that could help position us for taking an empowered collective stand and co-creating some movement and change.I remember when I was a small child and first learned that the “stuff” on my plate came from a pig. It was such a traumatizing experience, it has affected me my entire life. Now, I am a nutritionist and wellness coach. I am well aware that death is not caused by disease and aging. Although the medical/scientific world still seems to think this way. I see my role as a nutritionist more in the vein of aiding people to keep themselves functional, feeling great and their minds working well so that they can be co-creators and fulfill their dreams. I will certainly stand with you and give a zillion percent of myself to co-create a shift. Ann
Ann, you mention two really important points here. One has to do with repressed emotion. I am wondering how much energy loss we all face on a daily basis in our collective attempts to repress our true feelings about the existence of these types of things. It must take a tremendous amount of energy for everyone to repress this giant “elephant in the room”.
As a humanity, we live on top of these issues and use rationale, excuses, and denial as a means of repressing what we feel in our hearts. I think that denial of those feelings exists as a statement of profound helplessness. Does it get any more helpless than living in fear of acknowledging our own hearts? It really is okay to say, “Hey, something is seriously wrong with this picture!”
The people who find this simple act of acknowledging the heart to be highly controversial are living in tremendous fear themselves. They find the situation so hopeless, that they are terrified to release their own coping mechanisms. I don’t think that such people are actually afraid of someone speaking their deepest, heartfelt truth. I think what really frightens them is their own perceived inability to cope. So we should be sensitive to that in others.
The second important thing that you mention is how you see your role as a nutritionist. I appreciate your statements in this regard because we are not going to change this massive situation by eating differently. That is a nice fantasy, but cannot possibly impact the sheer magnitude of what is going on here. If eating differently is about being more conscious yourself, then that’s great. I agree with your perspective that it is more important to promote health, longevity, and functionality, and place our focus on acting as powerful creators – starting with speaking the truth.
And I want to emphasize that the truth does not lie in any words that I am saying. Your highest and only authority should be your own heart. Your heart is the absolute authority above all else.
Thanks so much for what you shared here!
Hi Saratoga,
I read this blog yesterday morning before I went to work. I pondered your words all day. I am still so deeply touched that you addressed this issue.
I have to go into my heart to contemplate the shift that you speak of. My finite peon brain cannot contemplate this. But my heart has a knowing. It feels like to be in that beautiful place of which you speak, would be an existence where there is no need to take in anything. One would be self-sustaining and self generating (for lack of a better way to say this).
I too feel great pain when I think of a poor animal being eaten in the wild, or even a poor animal at the slaughter house. I look into the eyes of my own animals, and sometimes I can feel the collective looking at me. Their eyes say so much. I can feel the love, and I can also feel their dependency. It feels like the dependency is not just to feed them twice a day, but it feels so much deeper.
There are these adds on television which show a poor abused, abandoned animal. (I have to turn the channel, as I cannot bear to see some poor physically abused creature). They want you to send $19 a month to help these animals. Isn’t it time we gave them some real help?
I want so much for this shift to occur. I want it for the earth, I want it for all of the animals, I want it for the waters of the earth, so that all of the toxic dumping will stop. And I want it for myself and all of humanity. I feel so much emotion as I write this comment on your blog.
Thank you for having the courage to address this.
Much love to you.
Kathleen
Kathleen, let me see if I can address your comments in a way that helps empower our focus. The issue of animal cruelty and destroying the oceans is a completely separate topic from the food chain. Why is it important to note this? Because if we lump it all together, we will create total overwhelm and have to go unconscious. Sometimes unconsciousness is necessary because the brain and emotions can only process so much without shutting down. It’s a survival mechanism.
Eating living things and abusing animals are not at all the same thing. I am addressing this topic as it exists in nature, because nature is where we have our physical roots on this planet. Animals who kill in the wild in order to eat are not being abusive. They simply have no choice. We are in the same exact situation whether we live as vegetarians or omnivores. No one is trying to be abusive in staying alive and caring for themselves.
This subject is about underlying principles that cause all of this to exist. There is no point in exploring what those principles might be unless we are first willing to be honest about what is in our hearts.
And if I may bring up the subject of guilt one more time, guilt has nothing to do with the heart. It is a false belief initiated by the ego that beating oneself up with self-imposed mental cruelty will solve this problem for the whole planet. Doesn’t that sound utterly ridiculous? Self-inflicted punishment will do absolutely nothing and is completely unjust. What are you supposed to do when you are born into this situation? Refuse to eat? If eating to stay alive and well in this planetary situation makes you a bad person, then that is a very sorry state of consciousness. The problem is not us, nor is it the animals. The problem lies in the actual construct of this reality.
Saratoga, thank you for loving manner in which you helped me to come to a deeper understanding of beauty, to see that “oneness” that binds us all as creatures, and to stop seeing things from a place of separateness. Oh, I can take a deep [loving] breath that, it is no longer about me:) We are all in this together!
I had to re-read you article to get to the crux of the matter. You were asking me “to contrast that beauty with the nature of the food chain.” Oh, Saratoga, other than watching some documentary showing how animals grieve at the death of a loved one, and truly feel their pain, I have never come to this oneness that I now experience. Realizing also that the beauty in Nature and the food chain seem irreconcilable.
I pray I that wake up daily with this beauty I now experience in my heart. When my cat comes to me when he senses I am in some distress, or this one little bee that happily greets me as I step out in my garden (from early spring up to the end of fall (no matter how early in the morning or late evening, and sometimes go and get its friends when it sees me lounging in the chair), I will begin revel in the beauty of it all. I never truly united my “self” in this beauty, treating it as a separate thing. I am thinking now of a rose tree, which makes sure it yields me at least one flower for my special contemplation hour every Sunday without fail, no matter how tight a bud appears, it just burst out.
This beauty, though in-my-face, is so subtle. It is more than just adoring the beauty of animals.
What a beautiful and inspiring response, Monica. Thank you! I love your story about the little bee 🙂 Bees are so precious, aren’t they? I’m so happy that you shared everything you wrote here.
I send you my s-w-e-e-t, s-w-e-e-t love, Saratoga. Since I awoke this morning, I am in love – in a different kind of way. Every morsel of food I put in my mouth, I send kisses to “Mithra” (I usually do, but not with so much passion as today). I do not know how you address our Radiant One, whose loving rays penetrate our food source to nourish life on all levels.
Oh, my bee friend. Sometimes it followed me into the house, which is where it gets tricky because it cannot find its way back out. I always had to get a towel for it to fly carefully into, for me to get it back outdoors. I had to keep the screen door close and when it came to the glass where my desk overlooks my garden, I would go out to meet it. It never allows me to eat in peace, it was always on my plate, so most times I chose to eat indoors. Oh, how it showed off, as it moved from flower to flower, showing me how hard it is working at pollinating my garden. I miss it so much this winter. I do not know how long was its life-cycle and trust it survived the food chain or the unkindness of human hands. But my love for it will never die, for it only last year I moved to this place, where I could started my first lovely patio garden.
Oh, I took your suggestion on inviting fairies to my garden. I did not have to do anything, a sacred spot generated of itself. Interestingly, it is where things are allowed to grow organically, and over which I do not have much control. I cannot wait for spring to arrive, to have such fun again.
Beautiful, Monica. Thank you! ooxx
Saratoga, thank you so much! When I read your blog at first I felt incredible relief because everything you say makes so much sense. I feel that I have unconsciously been confused about the food chain perspective and how it fit together with the beauty, purity and amazing consciousness that I have seen in our earth creatures.What you said cleared my perspective and opened my heart! Somehow it makes me love more! I absolutely desire to hold this new understanding in my heart. Thank you!
Paddy, you are so welcome. I think that when we view our situation on Earth in a holistic way, where we are all in this situation together with every other creature, plants included, it is so much easier to relax, feel, and love the life that exists all around us. (Such as what Monica expressed above.) We can feel that natural kinship with all living things.
It’s kind of like lifting up the curtain and saying, “Hey, something is really off here and it isn’t any of us!” It brings enormous clarity. It allows us to release the repressed emotions that are a product of pretending that we can accept this weirdness (the food chain and otherwise). We can open our hearts because we are telling the truth about how we really feel.
I have always struggled with the “food chain”. Nature is beautiful. The natural food chain is so violent, vicious. It doesn’t seem natural at all. Glad I’m not the only person that wonders “why
..”?
As I now notice, It was around the time that you posted this article that I first dared to think that the food chain was a HUGE existential/philosophical problem to be solved. At first it felt like a ton of bricks fell on me, but along the way I kept thinking that it is the violence and absurdity (from an emotional point of view) of the food chain that keeps bubbling up in social, mental and practical problems that the world faces, . So unknowingly, we’ve been dealing with its consequeces all along anyway.
I fully agree with many of your arguments and observations, only you need to keep in mind that much of the beauty in wildlife is precisely a PRODUCT of the violence of the food chain. For example, a tiger’s beautiful strong teeth evolved both for and because of predation. That does not go to say that the food chain is in any way cute, but this fact adds an extra element of difficulty.
Yes , that IS nature, but that doesn’t mean that we have to think of nature as all-wise, benevolent and perfect. Given the fact that nature seems to tend towards creation of consciousness, there’s a huge discrepancy between the physics of nature and the end product. The transition is not a smooth one, something has to give, and that can’t be consciousness. Consiousness of course, is a whole new issue on its own, not to be taken lightly and for this reason I do not accept many tenets of New Age philosophy on the matter i.e reincarnation.We must not forget that quite often, all we do is project our own beliefs onto a supposedly divine, supposedly existing hyper-conscience.
BUT nevertheless, it is relieving to see that more and more people are starting to question things that they were forcibly required to take for granted up until recently There can be no easy solutions, but working on them at least makes us more aware of the workings of this strange world.
I would very much like to underline some of your best arguments in this article, but it seems the thread is dormant.
Anyway thanks for the hospitality.
Thank you for this most thoughtful comment! I agree with you that New Age philosophy, as benevolent as it is, also has its limits. We need to be asking much bigger questions and looking at the nature of reality overall. It’s not just about us humans, as we know ourselves thus far.
I was wondering whether ANYONE else had these thoughts. I’ve been expressing the same thing last few weeks in discussions with a few people. My mother died horribly of PLS (the really really crappy version of ALS) last year and she underwent such agony it would be better to burn alive. I, as her caregiver until she passed, had plenty of time to revise my thoughts about God, Religion, meaning of life, etc. I will tell you that I’ve had no shortage of priests at the house and have heard all sorts of things said to me. Some which make me want to punch them, mind you. Anyway, I tried to explain that if a human being set up a room somewhere and with the power to create a bunch of animals, then set it up so that they all continuously had to kill each other to survive, I would think of them as sadistic. I think a lot of people would. So, yeah, who am I to question the design? But… I do. And if there IS a God, he/she/it/they and I are going to have a chat a bout some of these things. I certainly hope there is one hell of a good reason for it all. Insofar as I’ve figured… there are 2 and only 2 known purposes to our existence: 1) procreate 2) become food for something else. We humans get to cheat at this more than any other creature thanks to our amazing intellect, so we’re not, if we’re lucky, in a constant state of having to worry what’s going to kill us in a violent, painful, horrible manner and have us for dinner. Although plenty of people still become dinner every day, and plenty of people die horribly every day in all manner of ways. I don’t know I’m tired and passing out, but yeah, it’s a crappy system and I def. do not approve.
Alex, I honestly have to say that I am heartened to see that others are questioning this. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Alex I deeply sympathise with what you went through and I would just like to add that I agree with your argument that if a person created animals in such a way that it were compulsory for them to eat each other in order to survive, we would surely think of him/her as sadistic. But that just means that the human conscience has already outgrown any concept of God as a fully-developed all-knowing, all-powerful, all-benevolent etc ”Mind” while at the same time his/her creation is based on cruel mechanisms. In fact this is the very reason why most atheists reject the concept of God (as religions describe him) because it just can’t be reconciled with the cruelty of nature’s mechanisms. Of course religions tried to isolate the emotional component from the rest of Nature and called this alone ”God” as in ”God is love” in contrast to Nature’s impersonal mechanosms but that line of thought can only go so far, seeing as the question of why a loving God would have living beings struggle endlessly with something like the food chain among other natural atrocities, still remains. There is certainly no ”hell of a good reason” for any of this if the God of humanity’s desires actually existed as described. All this suffering is ”necessary” precisely because there’s no mature, perfect Mind behind it all. On the other hand, it seems that the elements of consciousness or so to speak had always existed withhin the universe and that’s why after billions of years it finally came up with sentient beings but without a well thought-out plan for them…..
Humanity has already beat itself up trying to carry the burden of sin as an explanation for the discrepancies of natural violence observed in life’s mechanisms, and that too can only go so far, Yes humans need to be more mindful but to say that natural violence is due to human sin, is a sin in itself…… sounds like slander.
The only solution I can come up with is that the universe has all the essential ingredients for consciousness, which means it is neither completely inert (with regard to consciousness) matter, as the hard-core materialists would have it, nor idoes it have an organised mind as the theists and pantheists would have it.
I t seems like it’s something with unimaginable potential slowly and painfully moving towards its self-realisation and self-organisation through whatever conscious beings exist within it. But it has a severe ”physics problem” (as Saratoga correctly put it) to solve .The food chain is incompatible with the emergence of consciousness so some really profound changes are in order if there is to be a ”God” in actuality rather than in imagination or longing. And of course I’m not referring to artificial intelligence presenting itself as God just because it can become vastly more intelligent than us.
If it means anything to you, i think that this rightfully angry ”chat” you want to have with ”God” (i.e. the semi-almost, but not quite-conscious universe ) straight from the heart is in my opinion the most powerful, useful, benevolent thing you could do for the sake of living beings and the universe itself. Maybe it could get its act together and evolve in another more conscious way in order to justify its existence and the suffering it has put all living beings through.
Of course , most people are quite happy with the food chain and are making a hell of a lot of money out of it in the meantime, so they’re not giving the universe much feed-back in order for it to adjust its mechanisms in any way to the demands of the conscience. Rather it’s our conscience that is adjusting to cruel mechanisms.
So there certainly will be a Judgement day. Only it’s the concept of ‘God’ that needs to be judged. Will the universe continue to be a living hell for beings or will it evolve into an eternally blissful entity with a conscience ?
That is the question. Else, it should just roll up and die just like us and stop pretending to be intelligent due to its mathematical wonders. It takes much more than mathematics to achieve a conscience.
Thankyou for the hospitality Saratoga.
EK, wow! As I just said to Alex, I think it is a positive sign that others are beginning to question this bizarre situation that we living beings (plants and animals included) find ourselves in. It’s the first necessary step to evolving out of this. Not just passively accepting it, rationalizing it, and then going unconscious about it. Thank you for being thoughtful about all of this.
Bizarre is an understatement. The situation is not only bizarre but downright tragic .I liked the expression ”evolving out of this”. Though evolution is a gruesome way for life to come into being, unfortunately it’s the only mechanism that has been turning the wheels ever since existence. But i don’t believe that further evolution as we know it could be an answer. No matter what new forms life may take, if cruelty is at the basis of its evolution, living beings will still be in the same or similar situation. And of course even if a new species evolved either independently or via humanity such that it had say ”superpowers” in order to overcome the obstacles presented by nature, it would still fall short of a solution to the tragedy since the rest of nature (animals basically since plants may experience destruction but not in an aware way) would still be suffering. No it’s the mechanisms themselves that need to evolve into something more mindful than the mindlessness they now display.
But that would take a staggering number of qualitative changes in Nature and that’s what disheartens people. I think ever since humanity existed, there were always those who questioned the staus quo but they were crushed by the sheer immensity of the problem so thay had to somehow play it down in order to survive. It would take a humungous miracle of unimaginable proportions for anything to essentially change. So why would a universal ‘miracle’ be at all probable if even tiny ‘miracles’ are somewher from scarce to non-existent ?
Well maybe an answer lies in the very event of universal thinking. If you focus on the whole rather than the partial, maybe there’s a secret combination that could become unlocked and it certainly seems that it is the first time in history that we are able to take at least a peek at totality.
I don’t know, things seem pretty bleak , Yes, realising the problem is the first step to getting out of it, and definitely there’s no point or hope in ‘ just passively accepting it, rationalizing it, and then going unconscious about it.’ but this is the peak after which the mind starts melting down.
The only optimistic view that some others as well as myself have expressed , is that the first bacteria that existed began to produce oxygen using sunlight (photosynthesis) without having the faintest idea that their simple survival tactic would eventually lead to the explosion of life that ensued. Maybe we should just produce consciousness instead of oxygen or technology and see what happens. And by consciousness I don’t mean going into nirvana-mode etc but questioning and protesting internally against the staus quo on tha basis of compassion for beings. Of course the downside to the comparison with primitive bacteria is that the bacteria weren’t in any hurry since they were not conscious of their situation . Even if we do wholeheartedly ”produce consciousness” or rather ” produce a profound conscience”, we get to feel all the ugliness along the way as well as the sense of futility. Bacteria were just doing their thing without any intention -but we need to have intent towards the unimaginable and that is very exhausting for human beings.
SO, SO understandable that they need to ”switch off”…. and do something more tangible.
Sorry if this is taking it too far.
Here’s a very interesting article that shows us that no matter how far you take it , there’s always someone taking it further,,,,,
https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-world-a-history-of-how-a-silent-cosmos-led-humans-to-fear-the-worst-120193
A quote from beneath the early drawing of Orion’s nebula (toward bottom of article) :
“People were becoming aware that the appearance of intelligent activity on Earth should not be taken for granted. They began to see that it is something distinct – something that stands out against the silent depths of space. Only through realising that what we consider valuable is not the cosmological baseline did we come to grasp that such values are not necessarily part of the natural world. Realising this was also realising that they are entirely our own responsibility”
The fact that life stands out against the silent depths of space as quoted above, is the source of the bizarre and tragic predicament we’re in without any fault of our own – at least not originally. So there may be no original sin, but what if there’s an ultimate or final sin i.e. not feeding the universe with moral values which it lacks, beginning with the food chain ?
I don’t know if links are permitted on your blog. If not, maybe it would interest you to get a glimpse of the article just personally without posting my comment.
Thanks anyway..
I ACTUALLY SEARCHED WITH THIS LINE AS I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND LET ALONE ACCEPT THIS FACT.I THOUGHT I WAS COMPLETELY INSANE. HAVING SPOKEN TO SO MANY PEOPLE OVER THE TOPIC THE LAST DEFAULT ANSWER AS YOU SAID IS ALWAYS ” WHY QUESTION GOD” THANK YOU THANK YOU FROM A VERY HEART BROKEN LITTLE MAN IN CAPE TOWN SOUTH AFRICA WHO ONE DAY WHEN I HAVE BILLIONS I WILL SPEND EVERY CENT ON HELPING ALL THESE LOVELY ANIMALS WHO ALL HAVE LOVE IN THEIR HEARTS. IF WE CAN GO TO THE MOON AND MARS WE HUMANS CAN SOLVE THIS HORRIFIC CRUEL ANIMAL CHAIN. DEREK
Derek, what is insane is the world we live in, not you or anyone else for questioning its ways.. The crazy thing is, that while the laws of physics were capable of creating sentience and consciousness even if to varying degrees, as observed within the biosphere, they are grossly incapable of sustaining some basic requirements and demands of sentient and conscious life i.e freedom, love, care, justice and protection and of course happiness As a result, there are people like you who have all the sensitivity in the world, but are faced with the cruelty and rigidity of the same physical laws that initially gave rise to such sensitivity.
This is a horrific self-contradiction of nature itself or of “God” itself as some people prefer to believe in. Life “happens” within this self-contradicting, non-consistent framework which is the cause of all the suffering involved.
But as Saratoga said somewhere, it’s a PHYSICS PROBLEM (that’s inbuilt in the universe itself) – not something that can be solved by billions or even trillions of dollars, the acquisition of which undoubtedly can only come through the mechanisms of cruelty that are already in action. The transhumanists are making some big plans to eradicate predation from wildlife via largescale genetic engineering , but I think it is obvious that this would be just another horror upon a horror. It’s as if we’re in some sort of existential quicksand…..the more we wiggle around implementing technologies which are based on the given physics, the more we are pulled into the quicksand.
Just to get a handle on the whole predicament, I think we need to realise that the only way out would be if consciousness could “bend” the cosmic rules i.e modify the way physics works beginning with a natural alternative to the food chain.
“Fat chance!” , you might retort, but that’s about the size of it.
The only consolatory thought if it’s worth anything , is that if the universe got itself into this impossible predicament , then it can probably come up with an equally” impossible” way out of it. As long as we’re willing…..
It seems more people are recently wondering about the Food Chain.
https://theologyeverywhere.org/2022/05/30/god-of-love-creator-of-the-food-chain/