(03-23-2010, 10:11 PM)fairyfarmgirl Wrote: Violence is any act that impacts the life of another. This is an inherently violent place, this Earth. The Earth is inherently violent. Just by being Herself she takes life and gives life. This is the act, the violence.
Even plants have feelings. When I awakened I could not eat anything and struggled with just living for in breathing I was killing another-- the act of existing was killing something somewhere. The clothes I wear. The furniture I sit upon. The car I drive. The food I eat. The Insects that meet their death at my hand and/or windshield. This is an act of violence. I had to then choose my life or the lives of others. Even committing suicide is an act of violence against self. Not eating is an act of violence against self. So what is one to do with all these acts of violence?
I made peace with it all for I had to choose life, my life and that of my child's. So I now eat and eat that which balances me and keeps me in balance. But I still struggle with the ethicalness of being here on Earth and the Violence of Living.
fairyfarmgirl
As usual I agree with what FFG says. I've found in my life that there are often no nice answers. I won't go into details here but perhaps you have had similar experiences. I don't agonize about it any more. I see problems with every course of action I can imagine. And often I feel I must respond immediately (that is a weakness of mine; sometimes I respond too fast when I could have taken time.) I do my best, listen to guidance if it's available and makes sense to me, and ... move on.
Meat animals are raised because they will be killed for food. If there were not demand for the meat, the animal would not have been born to begin with. Transporting vegetables is more expensive than transporting meat, per unit of food value. That means more "fossil" fuels are used, etc. I have a garden but that's not enough to feed my family, and the local "boutique" grower I know charges about three times too much. Choices. At least we eat only organic or natural meat. I don't want my kids fed with artificial hormones and antibiotics intended for other species.
One of my weaknesses is that I don't have much patience in a lot of ways. There's a lot here I don't have respect for, and I get irritated putting up with it. I don't know if the lack of patience has anything to do with red meat consumption. But I know my body feels tired without it. I think some chemical bodies need it and some don't. The only time I felt good when eating no red meat was when I ate nothing else either, a one-week fast. I think my body switched over to using ambient energy from the atmosphere, or something. At the end I was hardly even drinking water. I could have gone longer -- some people claim to go years -- but it became socially difficult, so I gave up the fast.
I don't feel right and wrong so strongly. Someone's a killer, someone's a saint, whatever, it could have been me. It is me. Someone's STO, someone's STS ... heck, everyone is both! And since I believe the soul is eternal, I can only wish those dying in the physical body (plants, meat animals, humans, myself one day, others on other days) a decent or even pleasant experience of it and moving on to the next thing.
By the way this artichoke is a "he" and a cannibal. I eat artichokes.
This was pretty rambling, sorry about that.