I can no longer watch TV
Cause that shit really melts my brain
I think I’m what they call sensitive
And easily thrown off my game
All that bloodshed and pettiness
Just makes the world seem so insane
And I just feel drained
When I go to do my food shopping
And all I can see is the packaging
One big mountain of garbage
About to be happening
And I walk past my own self-loathing
Like I walk past animals in the zoo
Trying not to really see them
And the prison they didn’t choose
If I should ever quit your spotlight
I hope you won’t think me wrong
Says the poet to the moonlight
Says the singer to the song
It’s enough just to stay upright
Upright in every single way
Pour your love into your children
Until there’s nothing left to say
Pour your love into your children
Until there’s nothing left to say
Showing posts with label animal rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal rights. Show all posts
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Learning about love~
Love is said to be the feeling-tone of the universe. It is also called bliss or bliss consciousness. It is our goal, as yogis, to expand our sense of Self to include all beings, all of existence. Union, the meaning of yoga, is this, a visceral recognition of the quantum oneness of all that is.
Our culture doesn't equip us for this. We learn that love is something that is conditional, tempermental and exclusive. We are allowed to love our family members, our pets and our "one true love", and to an extent our friends. There is no allowance to be in love with others, or to care too deeply about our neighbors, strangers, or animals that are considered "useful" for food or other "uses".
This leaves the one Self shattered into bits and pieces. Why can't we love and respect the life of others. Why can't we be extremely generous with neighbors, strangers, or other species without being considered wrong or inappropriate? Why can't we fall in love with everyone we meet, without wanting anything from them? The one Self that is the entire universe, the one Cosmic Consciousness, also called God by many people, is in ALL equally. Omniscient, omnipresent, invisible and everywhere simultaneously, equally in trees, people and animals of all shapes and kinds, rocks, the earth herself.
Our society encourages a disconnected pity more then sympathy. What about empathy? If we take a moment to imagine ourselves in the same situation as the people, animals, or planet, I mean really think for a minute, we can feel a little of what they may feel. How would we change our reactions? Would we stop supporting the exploitation of children for cheap labor in coffee and coccoa fields by supporting fair trade chocolate? Would we purchase only fair trade teas to end the exploitation of women in the tea lands? Would we think again about paying for someone else to slit an animals throat (or worse) for us to eat it? Or change our minds about how acceptable we think wool is when we know that the world's major suppliers rip large areas of flesh off of the sheep without anesthetic?
Part of the course of enlightenment is is shining the light of consciousness to all the dark places within us, making peace with what we find. We also have to shine that light on all of the dark corners of our lives externally, learning the truth behind what we purchase, therefore vote for. We need to know where it came from and where it will go. In this truthfulness and open search for justice, we find an integrity developing. And from there, unconditional love arises, because we can see what others may see and relate to what they feel. We can empathize, see ourselves in them, and them in ourselves.
Some say that unconditional love arises in response to a recognition of the divine in another. We love that holy essence, the universal being. We can be in love with anyone and everyone, for me that means feeling strong, unconditional love for them. But ultimately we recognize that the love is not coming from them or because of them, but in reaction to finding our Self there, the love comes from within us, the other is a mirror of the Divine source and essential substrate of the entire universe: one ecstatic, fluid ocean of pure conscious love-bliss, of which we are all a drop.
Our culture doesn't equip us for this. We learn that love is something that is conditional, tempermental and exclusive. We are allowed to love our family members, our pets and our "one true love", and to an extent our friends. There is no allowance to be in love with others, or to care too deeply about our neighbors, strangers, or animals that are considered "useful" for food or other "uses".
This leaves the one Self shattered into bits and pieces. Why can't we love and respect the life of others. Why can't we be extremely generous with neighbors, strangers, or other species without being considered wrong or inappropriate? Why can't we fall in love with everyone we meet, without wanting anything from them? The one Self that is the entire universe, the one Cosmic Consciousness, also called God by many people, is in ALL equally. Omniscient, omnipresent, invisible and everywhere simultaneously, equally in trees, people and animals of all shapes and kinds, rocks, the earth herself.
Our society encourages a disconnected pity more then sympathy. What about empathy? If we take a moment to imagine ourselves in the same situation as the people, animals, or planet, I mean really think for a minute, we can feel a little of what they may feel. How would we change our reactions? Would we stop supporting the exploitation of children for cheap labor in coffee and coccoa fields by supporting fair trade chocolate? Would we purchase only fair trade teas to end the exploitation of women in the tea lands? Would we think again about paying for someone else to slit an animals throat (or worse) for us to eat it? Or change our minds about how acceptable we think wool is when we know that the world's major suppliers rip large areas of flesh off of the sheep without anesthetic?
Part of the course of enlightenment is is shining the light of consciousness to all the dark places within us, making peace with what we find. We also have to shine that light on all of the dark corners of our lives externally, learning the truth behind what we purchase, therefore vote for. We need to know where it came from and where it will go. In this truthfulness and open search for justice, we find an integrity developing. And from there, unconditional love arises, because we can see what others may see and relate to what they feel. We can empathize, see ourselves in them, and them in ourselves.
Some say that unconditional love arises in response to a recognition of the divine in another. We love that holy essence, the universal being. We can be in love with anyone and everyone, for me that means feeling strong, unconditional love for them. But ultimately we recognize that the love is not coming from them or because of them, but in reaction to finding our Self there, the love comes from within us, the other is a mirror of the Divine source and essential substrate of the entire universe: one ecstatic, fluid ocean of pure conscious love-bliss, of which we are all a drop.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
How to Boycott Palm Oil and Save Orangutans + Rainforests!
by - Jocelyn Broyles care of care2.com
It came to my attention not that long ago (sometimes I’m very behind in these things) that Palm Oil is one of the world’s largest ongoing environmental disasters and the primary destructive force behind the rapid extinction of the orangutan. The good news is, each and every one of us can help put a stop to it.
In order to plant palm trees that produce oil-rich seeds, virgin rain forest in Indonesia, Sumatra and Borneo is clear cut. What remains is burned. This sounds bad at the outset, when you just think about the trees, but much worse when you think about the animals that live there, including orangutans. They are the world’s largest tee-living primate, spending 90% of their time in the branches and not on the ground. Their homes are cut down, and they are subsequently killed by hand or by fire. Hundreds of orangutans are slaughtered this way and dozens of babies orphaned each month, leaving us with a bleak 62,000 left in the world. It is estimated that they will be extinct in under 20 years at our current rate of palm oil consumption and planting. The orangutans are the biggest looser in this proposition, but many other animals are also dying from loss of habitat, fire and outright killing, including Sumatran Tigers, Sumatran Rhinos, Pygmy Elephants and Bornean Red Carnivores.
The palm oil industry presents other environmental problems including air pollution, and according to PalmOilAction.org, “This year Indonesia will be included in the Guinness Book of Records as the country which pursues the highest annual rate of deforestation. Currently an area of forest equal to 300 soccer fields is being destroyed every hour in the country.” Three hundred soccer fields every hour is a hard thing for me to get my head around, but it’s enough to make me read my ingredients before I buy.
That’s the sneaky thing about palm oil – we are often unaware it’s in our products, from cosmetics, to food to biofuel. We all heard about the two girl scouts, Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, who made news by asking Kellogg Company, the makers of Girl Scout Cookies, to stop using palm oil in its famous brand; and I found several great resources full of information on other products using palm oil:
Other Ingredient Names Used to Describe Palm Oil:
Foods/Brands Using Palm Oil:
“The Guilty Secrets of Palm Oil: Are You Unwittingly Contributing to the Devastation of the Rain Forests”
Palm Oil: An Environmentalists Perspective
How You Can Help or Take Action:
Great Ape Trust
Centre For Orangutan Protection
Orangutan Conservancy
- Jocelyn Broyles
[1] All data on palm oil alternative names taken verbatim from PalmOilAction.org
[2] AngelFire.com
Headline image from PalmOilAction.org. “These companies have verified that all of the products displayed as at 3/4/07 contain palm oil or a palm oil derivative.”
It came to my attention not that long ago (sometimes I’m very behind in these things) that Palm Oil is one of the world’s largest ongoing environmental disasters and the primary destructive force behind the rapid extinction of the orangutan. The good news is, each and every one of us can help put a stop to it.
In order to plant palm trees that produce oil-rich seeds, virgin rain forest in Indonesia, Sumatra and Borneo is clear cut. What remains is burned. This sounds bad at the outset, when you just think about the trees, but much worse when you think about the animals that live there, including orangutans. They are the world’s largest tee-living primate, spending 90% of their time in the branches and not on the ground. Their homes are cut down, and they are subsequently killed by hand or by fire. Hundreds of orangutans are slaughtered this way and dozens of babies orphaned each month, leaving us with a bleak 62,000 left in the world. It is estimated that they will be extinct in under 20 years at our current rate of palm oil consumption and planting. The orangutans are the biggest looser in this proposition, but many other animals are also dying from loss of habitat, fire and outright killing, including Sumatran Tigers, Sumatran Rhinos, Pygmy Elephants and Bornean Red Carnivores.
The palm oil industry presents other environmental problems including air pollution, and according to PalmOilAction.org, “This year Indonesia will be included in the Guinness Book of Records as the country which pursues the highest annual rate of deforestation. Currently an area of forest equal to 300 soccer fields is being destroyed every hour in the country.” Three hundred soccer fields every hour is a hard thing for me to get my head around, but it’s enough to make me read my ingredients before I buy.
That’s the sneaky thing about palm oil – we are often unaware it’s in our products, from cosmetics, to food to biofuel. We all heard about the two girl scouts, Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, who made news by asking Kellogg Company, the makers of Girl Scout Cookies, to stop using palm oil in its famous brand; and I found several great resources full of information on other products using palm oil:
Other Ingredient Names Used to Describe Palm Oil:
- Sodium Laureth Sulphate (Can also be from coconut)
- Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (can also be from ricinus oil)
- Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)
- Palmate
- Palm Oil Kernal
- Palmitate
- Palm Oil in Cosmetics
- Elaeis Guineensis
- Glyceryl Stearate
- Stearic Acid
- Chemicals containing palm oil
- Steareth -2
- Steareth -20
- Sodium Lauryl Sulphate
- Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (coconut and/or palm)
- Hydrated palm glycerides
- Sodium isostearoyl lactylaye (derived from vegetable stearic acid)
- Cetyl palmitate and octyl palmitate (and anything with palmitate at the end) [1]
Foods/Brands Using Palm Oil:
- Balance Bar
- Ben & Jerry’s
- Check out our “Candy List”
- Clif Bar
- Enfamil Products
- Food Crisps
- GeniSoy
- Girl Scout Cookies
- Glenny’s
- Harmony Premium Trail Mix
- Harmony Yogurt Flavored Raisin Nut Mix
- Jell-O No Bake Homestyle Cheese Cake Desert
- Jewel Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Little Debbie
- Luna Bar
- McDonald’s
- Mercer Vanilla Waves
- Met-Rx
- Milk (various products may contain Vitamin A palmitate)
- Mrs. Fields
- Nissin Noodles / Ramen
- Odwalla Soy Milk
- Pepperidge Farm
- Power Bar
- Quaker
- Raspberry Danish Fine Baked Goods
- Russell Stover
- South Beach Diet foods
- Soy Milk (various)
- Sun Ridge Farms
- Sweet’N Low
- Sunshine Cheez-it
- Walkers Snacks
- Whole Foods brand pie
- WorldWide Sport Nutrition
- Zone Perfect [2]
- Accem Scott
- Aloette Cosmetics
- Avon
- Borghese
- Bumble & Bumble
- California Baby
- Channoine
- Clinique
- Cornelia
- Cover Girl
- Day & Night Minerals
- DebLynne Soaps
- Dial
- Dr. Bronner’s
- Earth Therapeutics
- Ecco Bella Botanical cosmetics
- Genome Cosmetique
- Herbal Essences
- Hoffmans House of Treasure
- Island Soap Company
- Isomers Laboratories (makeup)
- Jerome Alexander cosmetics
- Juice Beauty
- Kiss My Face Big Kiss Organic Palm Oil Soap
- Lancome
- La Serie (beauty products)
- Mary Kay
- MD Skincare
- Mountain Country
- Neutrogena
- One With Nature
- Palmer’s
- Prai Beauty Products
- Protameen
- Pur Minerals
- Regena Cell’s Anti-Aging Cream
- Revlon
- Sappo Hill Skin Care Products
- Senna Cosmetics
- Sensaria
- Sephora
- Skin Biology
- Skin Scope
- Soma Therapy products
- South of France
- Tasha and Co.
- Urban Decay cosmetics
- ZENMED [2]
“The Guilty Secrets of Palm Oil: Are You Unwittingly Contributing to the Devastation of the Rain Forests”
Palm Oil: An Environmentalists Perspective
How You Can Help or Take Action:
Great Ape Trust
Centre For Orangutan Protection
Orangutan Conservancy
- Jocelyn Broyles
[1] All data on palm oil alternative names taken verbatim from PalmOilAction.org
[2] AngelFire.com
Headline image from PalmOilAction.org. “These companies have verified that all of the products displayed as at 3/4/07 contain palm oil or a palm oil derivative.”
Thursday, July 8, 2010
4 Questions about your milk...
FROM CARE2.com Please check out Care2.com, an amazing place to quickly sign petitions, glean info on subjects that matter to your heart and soul and do a little good in the world while you are online..........
______________________With many people now buying milk, cheese and other dairy products at local farmers' markets -- directly from the farmers themselves -- it is easy to be misled into believing that the animals who produced the milk are free of the pain and suffering inherent in factory farming.
Simply because the cows were fed organic feed or allowed to graze on grass without pesticides or weren't forced to ingest hormones or antibiotics like their sisters on conventional farms, does not mean they weren't abused.
Below is a list of questions to ask your local dairy farmer, or seller, about their operation. These questions will allow you to make more informed decisions on where, or how, you spend your money.
Do your cows eat grass or are they fed organic feed?
Cows have evolved over millions of years to eat almost nothing but grass. Farmers feed cows grains in order for them to gain weight or so they produce more and/or sweeter milk. Grains are hard for cows to digest and lead to chronic digestive problems.
Another reason a farmer might feed their cows grains is because the cows are confined and have no access to fields or grass. Have you ever driven past feed lots with cows crammed together, standing in their own waste, with no grass in sight? Well that could easily be an organic dairy farm.
Do you separate the baby calves from their mothers?
Virtually all commercial dairy farms take the baby calves away from their mothers within a few days of giving birth. Separating a mother and her baby is an extremely traumatizing experience for the mother and her newborn. The reason farmers take the baby away is so they can steal the mother's milk that was intended for her child.
Many times a mother cow will call out for days trying to find her stolen calf. The sound of a grief stricken mother cow for her calf is heart breaking. Perhaps ask the farmer about that?
If the farmer claims that they don't separate the mother and calf, I'd be skeptical. Ask how it is financially feasible to run a dairy farm that way?
What do you do with all the male calves born on your farm?
Because male animals don't produce milk, they are virtually worthless to dairy farmers. Only one bull is needed at a time in most dairy farms, but since almost half of all calves born will be male, what happens to them? Most dairy farms sell male calves to crated veal farms where the calf will be chained or tied up, placed usually in a dark wooden crate or another tight spot to restrict movement, and fed an iron-deficient liquid diet so that when he is slaughtered several months later, his meat is pale in color.
If they aren't sold to a crated veal operation, they more than likely will be sold or raised as Rose-veal. Rose-veal only differs from crated veal in that the calves aren't restricted as much (although they usually remain tethered) and have access to sunlight.
What do you do when a cow's milk production slows down?
Most dairy farmers will slaughter cows after four years, or when their milk production begins to drop. Farmers want the most profitable animals possible and therefore don't wish to keep around cows that produce less milk. Dairy cows are usually sold to slaughterhouses and are ground up into hamburger meat at four years old, even though many can easily live longer than 20 years. If a farmer claims they keep all their older cows and/or bulls, they must have a tremendous amount of money and land, since keeping nonproductive animals is extremely costly, as any farm sanctuary can confirm.
Ultimately what it comes down to is the fact that cows don't produce milk for humans to drink; they make milk for their babies, just as every other mammal does. Dairy farming is inherently an abusive industry because it imprisons animals and forcibly takes what does not belong to us.
Drinking cows' milk is also a rather perverse act when thought about. Drinking the lactation of another species is strange enough. But to drink the milk of a 1,000 lb, non-primate animal, completely covered in hair and who eats grass, is even stranger. Any claim that drinking cows' milk is "natural" should be met with great suspicion.
To make your life simpler and spare the lives of dairy cows, skip the cows' milk, cheese and butter and eat plant-based "milks" instead.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Baby Chicks Suffer Cruely- please sign the petition to end this needless suffering
Click on the title to link to Care2.com's article on the egregious cruelties infiltrated by the group Compassion Over Killing in a California hatchery. This kind of abuse is NOT UNCOMMON in commercial hatcheries, factory farms, fur farms, slaughter houses and beyond. AND it is often defended legally as "standard practice" in the factory farm industry. WHY DO WE SUPPORT AN INDUSTRY WITH SUCH DEPRAVED AND VICIOUSLY CRUEL "STANDARD PRACTICES"?
Let us seek to end the callous bias against farm animals- all animals are beautiful sentient beings that do not want to suffer- kittens, goats, chickens, cows, pigs, horses, dogs, all alike. We can see it in their eyes. Live according to deeper truths. Don't be afraid to be different. Live from your deepest awareness and by the laws of your heart and you will be a gem in this world, a shining jewel of compassion, peace, health and an example for the next generation.
http://www.care2.com/causes/animal-welfare/blog/santa-cruz-district-attorney-refuses-to-prosecute-animal-cruelty/
Let us seek to end the callous bias against farm animals- all animals are beautiful sentient beings that do not want to suffer- kittens, goats, chickens, cows, pigs, horses, dogs, all alike. We can see it in their eyes. Live according to deeper truths. Don't be afraid to be different. Live from your deepest awareness and by the laws of your heart and you will be a gem in this world, a shining jewel of compassion, peace, health and an example for the next generation.
http://www.care2.com/causes/animal-welfare/blog/santa-cruz-district-attorney-refuses-to-prosecute-animal-cruelty/
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