VEGAN SANCTUARY

Linking a Revolution

2011-03-31T20:26:00.000-07:00

Besides going vegan, volunteering one's time at Animal Acres is one of the best ways to help farmed animals.

And when someone volunteers at a farmed sanctuary like Animal Acres they are directly helping animals that have been rescued from the fate of being another countless victim of the meat, dairy and egg industry. However, there's also another way of volunteering one's time that can help save countless farmed animals lives too and it's nearly as easy as just turning on your computer.

From Your Computer Comes A Vegan World

Social activism creates change in the world when people communicate with one another and the ideas behind that activism spread within a community, then beyond. When one human empowers another to make the connection from, what they sense is true about the world in their heart, to doing the right thing in their lives.

When people volunteer to make a difference in the world not only do they help those in need but they also empower others to communicate and spread the word. This is what assists getting people involved in the specific cause as well.

This is what effective activism is all about. Not telling people what to do...but encouraging them by example and engaging them to see for themselves what is really happening in society.

Great activists change the world by laying down the foundation for other people to make the connections to other people and so forth and so on. This is so much different and extremely more successful than demanding or commanding that people change.

Empowering others to see for themselves is how revolutions start and today it's actually easier than ever.

We see this type of foundation for change happening right now before our eyes with the uprisings in the Middle East.

Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, cell phones etc are playing the main role in keeping the momentum continuing for the usually voiceless masses by making communication simple and by exposing the oppression to the world.... in real time.

Animal activists have this same power right now. The power to connect to other potential future vegans by using the Internet to be a very effective uncensored news agency and a revealer of oppression, cruelty and truth.

We have the opportunity now to spread the word so to speak, by showing the images of oppression and violence. When we share the videos that reveal the reality of how animals are violently turned from living, feeling beings into unnecessary food items we make that unjust universe known.

We live in a time that no matter how hard the animal killing industries try they can no longer censor the images and reality of where our animal food comes from. The lies, myths and walls that have been erected to specifically prevent people from seeing for themselves the misery, death and pain they actually cause when they themselves buy animal products... are now disappearing.

Even though bills are being passed

as this post is written to outlaw filming undercover video in businesses that kill animals for food products the censorship is slowly however, coming to an end because we all now possess the power of the internet at our finger tips.

It's now up to each and every vegan activist to volunteer our time in sharing the images of truth with the rest of our social network. The videos available online now are some of the most important tools we have in changing the world for the animals.

Yet, it is impossible to change the world without taking action.

The non human animals need your volunteer efforts now.. to paste that video link in an email, tweet it to a twitter, or link it on that "friends" Facebook page.

This is why people volunteer in the first place. They want to make a difference.

If we do nothing at all the world remains a cruel and more hopeless place where apathy becomes the actual camouflage that maintains the cover for those who continue to abuse and exploit.

We can easily see in politics here in the US as well as throughout the world that those who are overwhelmed by greed, selfishness and hate need to maintain their power with lies, fear and violence.

We live in a society where extreme violence toward non human animals is completely accepted because those who might actually care, or who might demand change or who might fight the powers that be are kept ignorant of how their meat and dairy is created.

We now have the opportunity to challenge a violent system of oppression with a simple few clicks from our computers. It is we animal rights advocates who now have the power to awaken the world to a possible future without so much ignorance and so much killing.

By simply volunteering a few minutes of your life to posting this video here on the pages of your social network contacts, your twitter followers or email contacts we can slowly destroy a world built on speciesism and controlled through ignorance.

I can tell you now for a fact that these videos are having an effect and are waking people up and changing their lives.

Living vegan not only entails a life that refrains from causing harm to others but also includes recognizing that we can change the world by educating other humans of what the consequences are when they eat or wear animal products.

There is no such thing as humane meat.

Be a sanctuary for others, go vegan and share a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-xLc0C8u9Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUkHkyy4uqw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWVu1Pnc-iQ

Thankful, Grateful....Mindful

2010-11-23T23:32:00.000-08:00

7 Suggestions On How To Integrate Being Mindful With

Living Vegan

It's always the perfect time to be thankful, grateful and mindful about the lives we live.

This is the time of year however when we Americans supposedly take time out to reflect on what it is specifically we have to be thankful about.

Rather than write about the usual hypocritical aspects of what Americans now unashamedly call Turkey day I think it's rather important to notice the relationship between being thankful, grateful and mindful with living vegan.

Living vegan is easy. It's very simple. It's not born from some magnificent sacrifice and there is really nothing that remarkable about it. The only thing remarkable or special in regard to being vegan is when we realize that 99% of our neighbors are not vegan.

Living vegan is not a diet. It's not a fashion or lifestyle choice either.

Being vegan is about opening our hearts and minds and about expanding our moral concerns to everyone.

Yes, everyone.

So with the above idea in mind (no pun intended, yet definitely noticed) during this time of year we can look at what it means to integrate and incorporate being mindful into our daily lives as vegans.

Since being thankful and grateful fall under the umbrella of being mindful we'll focus (no pun intended again but noticed once more) on bringing mindfulness to living vegan.

Being mindful or mindfulness comes directly from the teaching of Buddha himself and has become a main part of the Buddhist tradition.

Being mindful simply is about being purposefully aware.

Being mindful is about noticing what we are experiencing and what our responses might be to that experience. Being mindful is about contemplation and focusing ones attention.

While there are certain activities involved with being mindful it is not a technique but rather a way of being.

It's not about doing something but rather about connecting and being aware.

Mindfulness is a subtle activity and you are in some ways...doing it right now while reading this.

There is something real and extremely beneficial to be said about deliberately transforming our moment to moment experience of the world and becoming absorbed in the present moment.

Mindfulness can feel like the ah ha moment we can sometimes experience.

In that brief flash of insight we notice our own attention being focused and we're automatically absorbed in the ...what's happening now moment.

When we have insight like this it really feels as if time is slowing down. This is because when we're truly focused on something time disappears.

We all know the saying that a watched pot never boils. This is because when we're focused on the water in the pot our perception of time changes because we're being mindful to the situation. That is the beauty in being focused and in deliberately paying close attention to what is important.

This is where the practice of mindfulness can benefit our living vegan.

Being mindful is about paying attention and attempting to understand our own minds. This can help lead to self knowledge of who we are, why we are drawn to living vegan and why the rights of non human animals matters to us.

Being mindful helps us see the big picture of our being vegan. To discover what's important and what's not.

Mindfulness is one-third attention training, one-third being focused on a very important aspect of who we are and one-third of everything else.

OK, I made that very last bit up about mindfulness but it sounded very Zen and actually made sense. This is really because being mindful is a very open and simple concept.

Anyway...

Here are 7 suggestions on how to bring mindfulness into being and living vegan.

These are not rules or techniques and certainly not a to do list but rather some simple ways to incorporate mindfulness into your own veganism.

1. Self Inquiry. Self reflection with some type of inner growth work.

Learning about who we are through introspection.

Asking ourselves important questions and attempting to find the answers.

Personally connecting to what it is that drives or draws us to living vegan.

Being vegan is something which takes place and happens within us.

Becoming vegan is not something that is an external something or that takes place outside of us. It happens inside and that is where we begin to investigate as well.

2. Study.

Read, listen, research. There are so many important books, websites, podcasts and other resources from which we can learn everything we need to know about animal rights and living vegan.

Studying is about understanding the theories behind what we feel so that we might know which action to take.

Studying is important so we can have a more reflective attitude toward being vegan.

We all should know the difference between an abolitionist vegan and an animal liberationist vegan.

And those are just the A's.

Not everything is found in books however, so this can also include studying nature or our own relationships with others in regard to our veganism.

This is about connecting the dots, growing in wisdom and understanding the principles about being vegan.

3. Personal, mindful practice.

Finding something that takes you beyond yourself yet where you can also become mindful about being vegan and contemplate it. This can be anything from practicing meditation, practicing yoga, hiking, running or even gardening.

Something where you can connect your thoughts about being vegan to an activity and then connect with it on a regular basis.

This is where you can notice the connection to moving, breathing and being alive. This is where you make the connection that we animals are all the same. We move, we breath, we feel.

4. Finding a teacher.

Looking for guidance and direction from someone. Someone who can give us advice, who we can learn from and who we have a connection with.

The truth is we can learn from everyone and in a very real sense we can make everyone we meet into our teacher.

The world and our own perception of the world becomes a very different place when we treat everyone as if they were our teacher.

We can learn a lot about being vegan from people who are not vegan.

We can learn incredible truths about compassion and kindness from people who seem cruel and who mention that they're not concerned about the lives or well being of other animals.

We can discover new aspects about ourselves when we see how others shut down at the mention of our veganism. We can also learn from others how and where we close up or shut down too.

This is easily noticed for example when we walk directly past a homeless human and we fail to stop and offer help.

5. Community.

Humans are social animals and we need to be with others.

It's very important to feel we're part of a community.

That we belong somewhere. That we fit in and connect with others in important ways.

That we share ideals and values with certain other people.

Every major social and political movement throughout history thrived and succeeded by building a community of support and collaboration. A supportive group of other people helps us stay focused on the journey ahead.

Being with other vegans who get us, who think like us can help round off the rough edges that we've built up from living in an animal eating/wearing/exploiting society.

The consequences of not having a community or belonging to a group is alienation.

Feeling cut off from the world can make us believe that we can't fulfill our role or purpose in society.

6. Volunteering/Giving back.

This is compassion in action and the essence of living vegan.

Being a mindful vegan is all about volunteering to help relieve the suffering in the world and to making the world a more peaceful and loving place.

On the outer level it's all about making a difference for others, being generous to others and being connected to our altruistic nature.

It's not about writing a check (although money is always needed when animals are being rescued and need to be cared for).

However, on a more mindful and contemplative level it's about giving without expecting or wanting anything in return.

It's about focusing our attention on dropping the need to be recognized for giving back to others and or for receiving attention from our giving back to help.

So being mindful about giving back might be doing something compassionate or kind without anyone else ever even knowing about it.

7. Being thankful/grateful.

In the context of being mindful it's important to focus on being thankful and grateful.

The world is not a worse place than it was in the past. We have so much to be thankful and grateful for

about being alive today and that we are living vegan.

We have so much cruelty free food to choose from and so much positive vegan culture to become involved with. We need to learn to appreciate our circumstances so that we can become better activists and better advocates for the non human animals.

Living vegan makes a real difference.

Being thankful helps us stay focused on the actual positive aspects that we're doing something that is saving lives.

Every vegan saves approximately 95 farmed animals lives each year.

Being grateful when we are motivated by compassion, kindness and empathy.

Being thankful however does not mean we don't realize and recognize that it's far worse today for the 55 billion farmed animals being killed for food every year on this planet than it ever has been.

It's not a better time for the animlas raised and slaughtered for food than it was in the past. The same modern technology that makes our lives easier, more efficient is also the cause of so much greater harm and makes life a million times more horrific for the animals, whom we eat, wear or exploit.

Yet as vegans living today the burden is on us to help other humans discover a much more compassionate way of living on this planet we share with our fellow earthlings.

Becoming vegan is the only solution to ending the death and suffering being inflicted on the other animals of the world.

Being mindful on a personal level of what it means to live vegan is such an incredibly important aspect to developing veganism for the rest of humanity.

The implications of not being mindful about our own veganism is that we run the risk of losing focus and losing the power each of us has in helping develop the next phase of human evolution.

That evolution is human veganism.

And it will come about by our all being more mindful together.

Be a mindful living sanctuary to someone else's existence.

Go vegan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-schoeberlein/teachers-take-a-breath-in_b_768044.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?_r=1&hp

Inner Acres

2010-11-03T23:18:00.000-07:00

The Personal Lessons Learned About Living Vegan

From A Farmed Animal Sanctuary.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task.

But it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

Helen Keller

(1880-1968)

Cowboy and friend

Now whenever I spend a day at Animal Acres something within me opens up.

It used to be much more common for me that I would experience myself shutting down after being there.

Especially on that 50 minute drive back to Los Angeles where I would seem to focus on the fact that this beautiful safe haven for animals was a bit of a delusion and not the reality for which the vast majority of farmed animals live their lives.

The reality is that there are nearly 12 billion farmed animals killed every year for food in the United States. The reality is that the modern farmed chicken industry today will confine up to a quarter million birds in one building alone. The reality is that an industrial hog producer in America will kill nearly 80,000 animals in one single day. The reality is there are about 400 rescued farmed animals living peacefully at the sanctuary here at Animal Acres.

This massive imbalance of killing and cruelty versus kindness and protection is heart wrenching to say the least. One can't help but feel the weight of this reality bearing down and literally crushing any positive feeling, either about the sanctuary itself or what we as individuals might be able to contribute in helping bring an end to this violent and oppressive injustice our society calls, food production.

Yet now, after the end of each day and after having spent more time with the chosen few non humans at Animal Acres, I leave the sanctuary with more awareness about these thoughts.

I now leave with a much deeper acceptance of this reality and of the positive aspects of living vegan.

It's not just about the obvious connection to the animals and seeing them living happily and in peace. It's not just about recognizing their wisdom, humor, insights and how brilliantly they appear to live in the endless present that makes being around them so perfect and so rewarding. No, that's only a part of it all.

For me now, it's also the understanding that providing sanctuary for even one life matters immensely. Especially to that one life who has been given refuge.

I know this sounds quite obvious but sometimes it's the easily recognized and obvious things that are the big lessons and the ones which hit us the hardest when we seriously acknowledge them for the first time.

When we pause and think about the actions we take everyday for instance to protect our own lives or to increase our own well being we may also recognize that our life too is only just one life and yet worthy of sanctuary.

We do what needs to be done everyday for our own lives and it never seems meaningless or unimportant. So why would it be any less important to save or vastly improve another life?

When someone adopts one dog or one cat from a kill shelter it makes a huge difference to that one animal. It's never an unimportant or insignificant event for the life saved , especially on a personal level for that being.

And in this exact context the lessons I've learned and have found to be so moving about my time at Animal Acres is the awakening to what living vegan means when wrapped up in this specific sentiment.

Living vegan makes a huge difference in this context and understanding it as having meaning and importance has served as new inspiration for making it the foundation of a different reality than the one I used to stand on.

Although I've been living vegan for many years I never fully grasped that my being vegan was something that happened from my inner life and not something that came about from outside myself.

When we are able to discover it and sense it directly from within, it deepens.

When we find those places, those inner acres of meaningful terrain they can be the strongest ground we have to stand on.

This new foundation for me is one constructed on appreciation, contemplation and compassion.

And from this also comes the insight that living vegan is simple and not in any way at all very remarkable.

Being vegan is also not at all even the slightest bit challenging .

This to me, gives veganism a truth that cannot be denied.

In a world that's so brutal and seems so dismal it's not always what we do or who we are that means anything but rather how we connect those experiences to our inner life that can make a difference.

When we stop worrying about how nothing we ever do will actually make a difference and live with the knowledge that everything we do matters, we not only gain strength from our choices but we are able to notice that what we do... we can do quite well.

If in that moment whatever we are doing is actually our main focus and inspiration then everything else disappears and this becomes who we are and gains much more meaning.

Cleaning out one barn stall, carrying one bag of pig feed, feeding an apple to a goat resident all makes a difference.

The importance and meaning of whatever we do comes about when that activity is cared for and respected.

Nearly everything we do are just tiny activities but they can all add up. The same is true for every life that is given sanctuary.

The same is true about living vegan and in remembering the lessons we've learned when we're inspired by what is important to us. It's in those lessons that something important arises and something meaningful can be given back.

Living vegan is the most important step we can take when we open up to the idea of living compassionately.

When something is important and has meaning it's because we found that something in ourselves and then opened up to it.

Be a Sanctuary for someone,

Go vegan.

Click MP3 below to Listen

Someone

2010-10-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

We must begin seeing other animals as equal. Existence makes us all equal.

Alice Walker

Erin and Bruno at Animal Acres

You, are now in front of a computer reading this sentence. You, who clicked on an internet link which brought you to this blog is the same you who feels that you are one thing and the computer is another thing.

You, acknowledge the computer is only a physical object in front of you however, you also know that you are more than just merely a physical object.

You, have moods, feelings, thoughts, memories and expectations.

You, have wants, desires, awareness and personal characteristics that make you, who you are.

You, have a mental life, yet you are also more than just that specific dimension as well.

You, are that one, that place, where the world ignites around you or seems as if it illuminates from inside you and perhaps it feels as if you are noticing all of this from somewhere behind your own eyes.

These impressions, these feelings are merely the firsthand results of your own perceptions of what it is to feel like a self.

Even though none of these feelings, perceptions or experiences are you, (anymore than are your eyes, hands or mouth), the feeling of being a self exists.

And the boundless contents of who you are, are not just sensations, thoughts or experiences but are also made up of your assumptions of who you might be for example in a social context or of your ability to be kind, or of your level of confidence or lack there of.

All of these phenomenon add up to the complex notion that you are more than just a body or brain or even a mind.

You, are someone.

Although there are many mysteries in the universe that are unanswered and you may not actually know why you are a someone... you, do in fact know what it feels like to be someone.

It feels exactly what you are feeling right now.

Alive, aware and conscious in this exact present moment.

In simple terms, this is it.

In a more generous explanation it is the feeling that you are the emissary or the agent of that distinct and unique, internal dimension you might interpret as yourself.

But being someone is even more than just this.

The simple fact that your ideas, emotions and sensations all have a subjective quality is exactly what it means to be someone.

And without a doubt you can experience all of the above without ever even being aware of lets say, your liver, your lungs, your aging process or even your own thoughts.

Very often humans will make the claim that non human animals are unaware of their own lives or not conscious of who they are. But the very fact that we humans are not always self aware or conscious of what our body or brain are doing at any particular moment does not mean we're not a someone with feelings, needs or a life to be cherished and honored.

And all of this, makes you, being a someone, the most important substance in the world.

All of this ability to experience happiness or suffering, in this specific context, makes you the only legitimate sphere of concern as well.

Even when you care or have concern about others it all originates from you being a someone who has those interests with or for others.

Now with all this said we can pause here, reflect and realize we're

(you and I) not the only ones who must be someones.

There are others out there who also have similar qualities of subjectivity and similar components that make being a someone a very relative concept.

We notice that others are someones too on the basis that they declare they are alive and conscious beings through the outward signs they display.

For instance how do we even know that our human friends and family are someones like we are?

We can only infer that they are by relying on their reporting to us that they are.

Sometimes with our family and friends it can even be a bit too much reporting.

However, it's not just in words or language that matter in regard to this but rather a reportability based on external signals that are relayed to us which will make the case, that there is someone there.

This is true for not only humans but non human animals as well.

If you are possibly doubting this premise than you can sincerely take notice that there exists no sanctuaries or shelters for chairs or stones. None of us (in our right minds) have compassion for cars , ipods or sticks. And with this said it should be noticed here and focused on....that when it comes to ethical or moral concerns, being a someone is all that's important.

Being a someone is the only context in which happiness and suffering actually matters. Nothing else in the world has any value other than how it affects the actual or the potential experience of some-body who is a someone.

You are a someone and so is every other being that possesses the qualities of having a subjective component to themselves, even if they are not aware of that actual component.

This element might be what many call sentience or if we are generous to one another, consciousness.

Whatever differences we might have from another someone it is our fundamental similarities of being someone that make us all equal.

When we humans live vegan we become a sanctuary for other someones and our actions reflect exactly what it is that makes the world a better place.

When we choose to be kind and love all others and not just some, we make the world a happier, healthier and more preferable place for every-one.

When we become vegan we save the life of someone else and become a personal sanctuary for the many others who want to live and be loved just like, you.

Be a sanctuary for someone....

Go vegan.

Many of you might remember this song and video which was performed live a the 2010 Animal Acres Gala.

This song was written and recorded by Josh Auer.

The video was created by the fabulous Casey Suchan and Denis Hennelly of

Open Road Films. My sincere gratitude to everyone who made this work come to life.

Click here to watch the video

Josh Auer's music...

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dear-you-ep/id301749161?i=301749261

Being Kind To Others For Ourselves

2010-08-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~Dalai Lama

Besides the undeniable way in which Facebook helps organize our personal communities, it's also a great place to read comments from people who have volunteered their time and energy helping others.

Whether they've been volunteering at a sanctuary like Animal Acres or have been rescuing homeless animals, their enthusiastic posts sound like they're coming from people flying high on ecstasy at a rave or a love festival. This analogy isn't so far-fetched when you consider that the similarities in responses are not just a coincidence.

Over the past few years a number of researchers in the fields of cognitive science and psychology have shown that the love, compassion and kindness we express to others are much more conducive to our own mental well-being than we ever actually imagined. (Note: At the end of this post, I will provide links to these studies.)

The connection between being kind to others and the flourishing of happiness, whether that happiness is personal or on a global level, appears to be quite obvious.

(Since happiness is a rather vague word I will use it here in this post to mean the state of well-being)

There is a chain reaction when we are kind to others; the recipients of our kindness in turn feel better and thus act kinder to others, and so forth and so on. Kindness does appear to make life worth living.

One known fact in this chain that links us all is that each of us who is alive and conscious wants to be happy. Non humans as well as humans.

Every sentient being moves toward happiness and away from the absence of it. The basic principle that everyone longs for happiness and freedom from suffering is what causes us -- humans and non humans alike -- to feel compassion for one another.

Whether we're conscious of this principle or not, it's what helps make empathy possible.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~Plato

Put another way, the individual and collective goodwill generated by humans and other animals who are treated with kindness and compassion, and who pass this feeling along, becomes the greatest source of happiness that exists.

Simplified still more: To treat others kindly is to act out of concern for their happiness yet it also proves to be a path to our own personal happiness as well.

Although this is a bare-bones explanation of altruism and its consequences, it tells us that there is a clear connection between being kind to others and feeling better about ourselves.

We simply need to honor the fact that including other beings in our wish for happiness is actually what makes us feel better and is what brings about concrete benefits to everyone.

There is a beautiful, truthful, unified irony here in our being compassionate activists. For what we soon discover is that we can all benefit not only from our own kindness to others but also from observing another's kind deeds done for others. You could say that we can all band together to "selfishly" help those who cannot defend themselves or speak out. By "selfishly," we can say that as activists we all benefit from giving, nearly as much as our intended beneficiaries do.

photo:Cameron O'steen

This is not about so called positive thinking. This is about putting the Golden Rule into action and about actually doing something. Positive thinking never found a home for a shelter animal or rescued a dog from a busy highway.

The benefits of committing acts of kindness are backed up by scientific evidence. Computer studies have analyzed data showing the reactions of good deed doers. There has even been exciting new research done that involves studying the brains of Buddhist contemplatives with fMRI machines. The monks have spent decades meditating on compassion or sympathetic joy. Over the years, these people have actually enlarged the areas of their brains that are responsible for feeling love.

Results of diverse studies have also proven that people who volunteer, people who perform acts of kindness, and people who focus on love and compassion (that is, meditate) have all shown marked improvement in their physical well-being.

In addition, the studies have shown that engaging in acts of kindness brings about feelings of euphoria and joy, followed by periods of calmness.

According to Allan Luks, the former executive director of the Institute For The Advancement of Health who conducted research in this area, "These feelings involve physical sensations that strongly indicate a sharp reduction in stress and the release of the bodies natural pain killers, the endorphins." This initial rush, he said, is then followed by a longer-lasting period of emotional well-being.

photo:Cameron O'steen

So from this information we can hypothesize that whatever a person's current level of happiness is, it will generally improve when they are kind or help others in need.

Volunteering to help care for animals at a sanctuary or shelter, for instance, not only contributes to the happiness of the animals but also causes feelings of fulfillment and accomplishment and a stronger sense of love and compassion toward one's self.

These states of mind not only feel good and affect us, but they also spread to those around us. Love and compassion are seriously contagious

Although it is true that cruelty, hate, jealousy, spite and shame are also contagious, they merely promote and spread the same negativity which created them. And, importantly,

they are never sources of happiness.

Like the Buddhists who focus their attention with laser-like intensity on love for all beings, we, too, can also practice becoming specifically aware of our compassion for animals.

photo:Cameron O'steen

There is something about being purposefully aware of what it feels like to be compassionate that brings us closer to recognizing our own kindness.

Any skill requires that we practice and refine our technique if we are to become accomplished. The same can be said about practicing kindness; we need to payclose attention to our mind when it fills up with the desire to be kind. The more we perceive and recognize this desire in ourselves, the more effortless it might be to live compassionately more frequently.

Now, as readers of this blog know, the definition of being kind to nonhumans includes not eating them and not being complicit with their exploitation and their deaths, even indirectly.

Living vegan expands our thinking to embrace others' wants and others' happiness. When we begin to move toward this attitude and away from always thinking about what seems best for ourselves (the "me first" mentality), we actually walk right into our own happiness, sometimes not even consciously aware.

As an ethical decision that is based on compassion and kindness for others, veganism, when done mindfully, becomes a rational way to strengthen and reinforce our own happiness.

The entire notion of living vegan and becoming a sanctuary for others is simply about understanding that what would benefit ourselves, we simply do for others as well.

Live vegan, be a sanctuary for others.

It's easy and it's a beautiful feeling.

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”-Jean Jacques Rousseau

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=meditate-on-this-you-can-learn-to-be-more-compassionate

http://www.mindandlife.org/collaboration.html

http://www.upaya.org/newsletter/view/2009/11/30#story6

http://www.crystalinks.com/medbrain.html

HELP US PLACE 114 GOATS WHO ARE NOW RESIDING AT OUR EVACUATION CENTER.

The animals rescued from a cruelty case in April are now healthy enough for adoption.

PLEASE POST ON YOUR FACEBOOK, BLOGS, AND OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING VENUES THAT HOMES ARE URGENTLY NEEDED FOR OVER 100 RESCUED GOATS. WE NEED TO PLACE THESE ANIMALS TO ENSURE THERE IS SUFFICIENT ROOM AT OUR EVACUATION CENTER FOR THE SANCTUARY ANIMALS (IF WE NEED TO EVACUATE.

Please click here or visit our website for an URGENT ADOPTION ALERT to post and distribute.

http://www.animalacres.org/volunteer.html

http://www.animalacres.org/donate.html

A Sanctuary for Words

2010-07-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

Creature Quotes

Our ethical concerns are not merely just the products of what culture we were raised in.

Each one of us possess ethical and moral intuitions that have been hard wired into us.

Our concerns with right versus wrong are rooted in our biology. What is important to each of us in ethical and moral terms become massively empowered by our ability to speak, write and use language.

Whether we are the writer or the reader, the speaker or the listener, the vehicle of language, when operated intelligently, can drive us to expand our moral boundaries beyond our own family and friends and beyond our own species to embrace all other sentient creatures.

Cowboy at Animal Acres

Yet it is also language that empowers our hatred, prejudices, and ignorance. Sadly, when abusive thoughts produce abusive language, those who accept the words can be incited to demonize, to destroy -- even to murder innocent victims.

In other words, language can either be used to begin violence or to end it.

Most of the cruelty and killing we commit against the other animals is due to the speciesist vocabulary that we unwittingly employ every day.

Mere words can make nonhumans unimportant or invisible. Think of how often humans refer to nonhumans, whose gender we probably know, as an "it" instead of "him" or "her."

This is a simple way to reduce someone to an object rather than a person and to diminish who they are as living individuals. (All living animals are someones as well as persons.)

What does it mean when we call another human a pig or a chicken or a cow?

The mere fact that these names are considered deep insults when we use them in reference to human animals reveals a tragic insight into the way in which non humans are routinely perceived and treated through words alone.

But while language exposes severe prejudices, it also has the power to change peoples lives for the better.

Compassion and empathy can be deeply communicated through words which might enable people to feel love for others where they had shut down before.

Language written or spoken can be that external something that might provide insight in our minds and hearts. Words which are felt are like thoughts that find our emotions and can provide the opportunity to transform us forever.

Photo: Vanessa Woods. Lomela and Mwanda at Lolaya Bonobo sanctuary

Countless "Aha" moments that have changed our planet for the better have come about simply from words, spoken or written. From language properly used.

If you are an animal activist, there is no better way to share your wisdom and emotions with others than the words that fill this comprehensive new website....

Creature Quotes: Advancing Toward Freedom For All Species.

This compilation of moving and thoughtful quotes from deeply compassionate and deeply reasonable thinkers throughout the ages was edited and compiled by SBH Clay. It is a wonderful read and a powerful tool to reinvigorate yourself with brilliant words in the defense of freedom and equality for all species.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In that case, the plethora of photos of beautiful animals in this online book is the equivalent of 500,000 words. The vocabulary spoken by the animal's eyes peering out from these virtual pages is certainly capable of warming many frozen hearts.

I urge everyone who takes animal liberation and animal advocacy seriously to bookmark this page immediately.

Having a resource such as this at one's fingertips will no doubt aid you in reaching out and touching everyone around you...for the animals.

Blackie at Animal Acres

Be a sanctuary with your words.

Be vegan.

Click on link below to open the file and scroll to page 19 where you can read quotes from Vegan Sanctuary.

http://www.creaturequotes.com/PDFs/CHAPTER%2020%20COW-FOG.pdf

Who Are We To Judge?

2010-06-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

Medieval drawing of a cat being hanged after his trial.

The oppression, injustices and physical cruelties which humans inflict upon non humans throughout the world are without a doubt horrifying and deplorable. Yet, one of the most unjust and callous actions we take against the other animals is in how we judge them.

We commit the gravest form of discrimination and prejudice when we pretend we know what.... they don't think or what it is.... they don't feel.

And when we humans come to the short sighted conclusions about the other animals, we've usually arrived there without any sufficient evidence or real empathetic understanding.

We've raised the bar so high for the other animals to be considered persons with feelings and interests that even we ourselves cannot make it over such a high mark.

History proves that humans cannot live without illusion. We create false worlds to justify our behavior and fears.

Irrational faith and absurd belief systems seem to be our only way of coping with the reality that we are mortal beings, no different from the other animals of the world.

Like all the other animals we are born, seek mates (companionship) forage for food and then we die.

Just like the other animals we cannot control our own fate, yet we believe....

we can.

We judge the other animals as unaware and declare that they do not understand life and death. But the truth is we have no understanding of what happens to us after we die either.

We are like every other animal who has lived and died on this planet and like all other creatures, have no answer for why we're here.

Yet, we homo sapiens constantly pretend we know things we do not know and then judge the other animals as being ignorant of the world they inhabit.

In the big blueprint of life, we are no different than all the other animals.

Yet we humans still believe that we are different and somehow more .....important.

We imagine that a squirrel gathering nuts or a dove building a nest is doing trivial work.

We then go on to believe our shopping sprees, our sitting in traffic or meeting job deadlines are so much more important and substantial.

They are not.

In the big scope of being and existence it's all the same.

We've formed the notion that our consciousness and a concept of self is what places us above non humans.

We judge the consciousness of others so harshly while we fail to admit that we know very little about our own consciousness .

There are basic questions that no humans even have the answers to yet.

Yes, we know the brain is the source of mental life but we have no understanding of how it all happens. We merely recognize that the mind is what the brain does but we have no idea how it creates consciousness itself.

Yet, after all this we are still determined to claim that non human animals somehow lack this feature called consciousness. Which is something that we know so little about.

And all the while it appears obvious that the other animals brains create minds as well.

Where is our humility?

While we know many things about who we are as a species it's still a mystery of how our own thoughts and our moods can exist and become illuminated in a big clump of grey mass we call our brains.

The other problem, however, is we demand reportability about some one's subjective experience through words in order to declare such consciousness as real rather than allow for the simple observation that there is someone....there.

And while we do allow consciousness to be accepted on its outward signs for humans who cannot speak

(such as human infants)

most people will not grant the same for non humans.

Human beings also arrive at the judgement that the other animals lives are worth much less because their perception and thought go on without any consciousness.

Most humans believe non human animals don't think or understand what they're doing and therefore this somehow allows humans to feel justified in taking animals lives away from them.

But conscious perception is a very small part of what we ourselves experience. Here again we are to quick to judge the others when we ourselves live in a world that is nearly dream like and much more shadowy than we tend to admit.

Consciousness is variable for humans, it is not a constant state.

For instance the most accomplished musicians or athletes are usually not even aware of their own movements, they are usually not thinking about what they're doing....they are just doing and being.

Yet when we accuse animals of existing in this state.... it is somehow inferior.

Who are we to judge non humans so harshly and with such irrational arrogance?

The fact remains quite clear that we have been wrong about nearly everything in the past we thought we knew to be the truth.

In recent history for example, most people believed that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was stationary and the center of the universe.

Before Darwin's theory of natural selection was published humans believed they were created from dirt, with a divine breath in the image of a Father who lived in the sky.

Humans maintain that the other animals act merely by automated instinct.

Anyone who has spent time with a nonhuman knows this to be false as they can make decisions and choices where instinct could not be the main participant.

However, we ourselves realize that instinct when combined with raw emotions are the most intense and meaningful experiences we can have.

Our judgement that we are superior to animals because we operate with reason and rational thought has recently been proved to be false.

The brilliant neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has been studying humans who have brain damage either from strokes or other accidents...these humans cannot process their emotions or feel anything. These people cannot make decisions. He has shown that humans cannot think rationally without feeling a gut instinct or raw emotion first.

We've been wrong about ourselves, about our own minds and of course about our own place and importance in the universe. Through eons of our irrational judgments about animals we have misunderstood them completely.

Tragically, it seems true, that our judgment about the other animals has been and still is terribly wrong as well.

The consequences of making false judgments regarding non human animals is that it enables humans to murder them indiscriminately by the billions upon billions every year and thus bringing so much unnecessary violence and misery into their lives.

For thousands of years animals have been butchered, hunted and worked to death all because we have judged them unfairly and incorrectly.

It takes nothing away from us to end the false judgements we render against them. We lose nothing when we become more emotionally and intellectually honest when regarding who they are.

We do not become less alive or less human when we stop judging the other animals unfairly. In fact we know that by becoming more loving and compassionate toward the other animals it will inspire more kindness everywhere and bring about a much healthier, happier world.

This is a scientific fact.

We've taken away so much dignity from countless, magnificent, beautiful beings by judging them inaccurately.

If we can see ourselves in them, we can realize how much we all actually share.

If we can allow the other animals to simply live their lives without such negative judgement there would possibly never be a need for us to build sanctuaries for them.

They, like us, want to live a life that is free from suffering and filled with happiness.

Become a sanctuary for others.

Stop judging,

Live vegan.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

NINETY FIVE

2010-05-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

Ninety-five is the average number of animals spared each year by one person’s vegan diet.

Many people who have not yet ended eating and consuming animal foods often will after a visit to Animal Acres or another farmed animal sanctuary.

When a person can witness farmed animals-out of context- as always just property or as merely food animals but rather in context as real living persons who have a right to live their own lives, something shifts and a transformation occurs.

Over at the brilliant blog ChallengeOppression.com

(Animal Rights and AntiOppression)

Deb, one of the sites very talented bloggers has written a beautiful post about the new book titled Ninety Five.

Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs.

It is an anthology of photos and stories by No Voice Unheard which published one of the more powerful anthologies regarding non humans a few years ago,

One At A Time- A Week in an American Animal Shelter .

Sadly farmed animals are mostly forgotten about. They are always overlooked as individuals having any value or importance.

Their lives and deaths are never given any genuine or serious attention.

Yet, no caring, compassionate or moral person would ever agree that what is inflicted upon them should be allowed. But, this is exactly what happens because we never know them. We never see them for who they are. We never accurately look at their faces, hear their stories or ever know their names.

Besides visiting a farmed animal sanctuary Ninety Five may be one of the best places where people can discover the beauty, depth and personalities of the animals most people merely see as property to be turned into food.

Become a sanctuary for Ninety Five farmed animals a year.

Go vegan.

Ending Our Veganger

2010-05-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

We need only take a quick glance back through human history, watch any cable news network, tune into a reality TV show or read a few blogs and what becomes obvious are the ideas which divide people from one another will eventually unite them all...... in anger.

More than ever people today seem so angry, so ready to fight with one another, even when they're on the same team. Even when they share the same ideals and goals.

What is behind all of this anger? Why is there so much rage flying around everywhere?

Even in the vegan, animal rights community as well…people are so quick to attack, denounce and defame each other that it’s really quite troubling.

However, rather than focus on the obvious defects that make the species homo sapien so impossible to live with we can choose to investigate what may be at the roots of our anger in a deeper context.

We live in a very apprehensive time. On some days you can almost hear the ticking from the bombs of peoples hostility. You can read it in their eyes and detect it from the lines on their faces. Our world is simply burning up with bad tempers and free range...rage.

Anger is what people do with their fear.

It's much easier to react with anger than to admit we're afraid.

It appears that even in the insightful, mindful, compassionate, and empathy driven community of animal rights advocates it's so easy for us to translate our fears immediately into anger at one another.

Our situation is this: most of the people in the world are afraid of what they can not control.

What frightens most of us is when we lose the ability to control what happens with the most important issues and aspects of our lives. We are a species who become nearly phobic when we lose control or even the illusion of control.

It may even partially explain one of the core reasons many people want nothing to do with living vegan or gaining knowledge about animal rights issues. It might not be that they don't care, but rather they're afraid. Afraid of becoming burdened with the knowledge of so much suffering and death caused by the hands (and mouths) of other humans.

Afraid they are taking on something they cannot control.

This might also be the source of so much of the anger present among many like minded, caring, ethical vegans directed at other vegans.

The intensity of feeling and knowing there is so much at stake and no way to control or put an end to it.

Fear comes to us and is born from perceiving a danger which seen or unseen waits right around the corner. For the masses of non human life on this planet the world is without a doubt a horribly dangerous place and the small minority of humans who have a deep empathy for animals can be overwhelmed by it all. Our awareness of what happens to animals on fur farms, in research facilities or in slaughterhouses can generate an incredible sense of fear as well as a devastating anger in each of us.

There is already so much unconscious fear for most of us wrapped up in the knowledge of our own inevitable/personal deaths that it would not be the theory of some delusional mad man to suggest that for animal rights advocates there is an extra anxiety and fear caused by our awareness from so much animal misery and death. We often feel helpless because it all feels so beyond our control to do anything.

Yet we owe it to the animals of the world, the people in our lives and of course ourselves to drop the aggressiveness toward one another and attempt to be kind and remain calm. We need to be able to find those openings where understanding, empathy and cooperation can squeeze through so that we can move forward together.

It is neither in defeating each other nor in beating each other up; but through cooperation and experiencing unity where we will be able to reach our goals and achieve real victories for non humans.

Part of the solution might be in letting go of our anger at one another and looking for ways we can find solidarity.

One of the pleas we ethical vegans often make to other humans, who wrongly believe it does not matter what pain or death may be inflicted on other sentient beings, is that we humans are much more similar to non humans than we are different. Why do we forget that bright pearl of wisdom when it comes to other humans who are actually vegan for ethical reasons like we are? We have so much more in common than we have in disparity. Yet, most of the time we fail to notice our hypocritical reactions and irrational behavior regarding this point.

We're so few in numbers and so far between that it remains quite critical for us to unite rather than fight.... each other.

None of the ideas above reflect the notion that we cannot have minor or major disagreements with what might seem the best approach for achieving non human animal's rights. Nor does letting go of anger at one another mean that we should also refrain from critiquing tactics which many of us may view as producing more harm to the cause than good.

However, dropping the anger means ending the personal attacks, threats and non stop drama which seems to have become more important than saving animals lives or in educating other people about becoming vegan.

We all need to put an end to our having to be right all the time in our arguments about animal rights or in proving other vegans wrong in their ways. It's about time that we also recognize how foolish we sound when we claim we are better, bigger and bolder vegans than someone else.

We are the only voice the animals have and we are wasting it on overly dramatic, dysfunctional and useless infighting.

When we self destruct everyone loses.

If we can possibly acknowledge and wake up to the understanding that the majority of anger which is directed towards one another is merely based on our fear of what horrendous and unnecessary atrocities are being committed against animals by other humans. We all share this stress and hardship. Maybe we can attempt to be kinder and more accepting of one another. Maybe we can all learn to live together more successfully as we all live with the same thorn in our sides.

As cliche and overused as any quote might sound....

Animal rights advocates need to be the change we want to see in the world.

It's time we recognize that what allows humans to cooperate with one another is the ability to get past the tiny differences and to find those greater, more extensive similarities and to build and work from there.

There is of course no guarantee that even the most reasonable and like minded people are going to agree about everything. However, allowing fear and anger to control our interactions with one another and let it hold influence on the long struggle ahead for animal rights is certainly unreasonable.

We ethical vegans are an open minded creative group and we can surely devise better solutions for resolving conflicts than we have been of late.

The reality is that if we wish to transform our culture into one that views animals as persons whose lives deserve equal respect we need to learn to make the best use of our time spent interacting with one another.

We need to learn to be calm, cool and collective, so to speak, if we wish to have any influence on the speciesist attitudes of our fellow human beings.

Veganism is a compassionate and rational enterprise. Speciesism is not.

Living vegan is so much about empathy and the ability to feel what another being feels, and in it's more cultivated form the capacity to deeply understand another's point of view.

Dropping our anger at one another may seem low on the to do list of vegan activities, yet as proved time and again with our consideration regarding the importance of non human lives, the power of kindness is eventually what makes all the difference in the world.

Don't be vegangry...

Be a sanctuary for others.

Be vegan.

listen here Why Can't We Live Together?

A RESCUE FOR FARMED ANIMALS

2010-04-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

All across the world from small rural towns to enormous, urban, metropolitan areas.
From high rise apartments to dirt huts... billions of humans awoke on Thursday morning the 15th of April 2010 just like every morning on planet earth and began their day by eating someone's flesh or drinking another species milk.
Imagine however about 60 men and women on this very same morning waking up from a night of sleep, leaving their comfortable homes and driving hundreds of miles-----to rescue and save the lives of former food animals.

This is exactly what the many caring volunteers and committed staff from Animal Acres did as they rescued 150 neglected nearly starving farmed animals from a dilapidated property near San Diego.

The volunteers had to make a “human fence” to herd the animals uphill to the trailers.

The rescue – under the direction of the Shelter Manager, Frank Allen took four days in total.

Over 50 dedicated volunteers showed up for this effort and the rescue would not have been possible without their hard work and commitment.

But with all that said and done it does not seem out of place to also briefly examine what is at work here and to notice the compassion and commitment of people who care and act so much differently than most other humans do.

Most humans ignore altogether the plight of farmed animals in order to have an obstacle or a veil so to speak, remain.
Without an ignorance the complicity in killing would have to be faced head on which would be a far greater challenge than most people are willing to deal with.

Yet there are those people who care enough to find the strength... to do what needs to be done because they have also found a place in their heart to love. To care.
And in their capacity to act on this love and compassion what is given back to the world is multiplied ten fold. For what comes back to the farmed animals here for instance is not merely love and a chance for a new life but also their dignity as living individuals, which, when they were seen only as property, ceased to exist.

For everyone who volunteered, donated money and have gone vegan, you are a sanctuary.

Thank you.

EMERGENCY RESCUE ALERT

2010-04-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

150 Farmed Animals Need Sanctuary!

click here to watch VIDEO

Over 150 animals are needing to be given sanctuary this week - and we need you to make their rescue possible with your donation today. Currently, all available Animal Acres membership funding is used to provide quality care for the existing sanctuary residents. We are not a large, well funded group, we do not have funds "in reserve", and we simply cannot act unless you act, now.

Animal Acres will begin this Thursday April 15th rescuing goats.

(Here above) the Animal Acres goat resident in charge of new goat greeting committee.

Animal Acres will work through Sunday the 18th to bring all the animals from San Diego to our new evacuation site on our premises.

An Animal Acres security rooster (above)

watching over the new evacuation site.

Please click link Here

To donate to our rescue fund.

Thank You!

http://www.animalacres.org/rescues/rescue_pcs.html

MOIRA NORDHOLT-Food Activist

2010-04-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

If we slow down enough to take a moment and contemplate about what the majority of people are actually doing when they sit down to eat a meal (usually 3 times a day) it can be quite a sobering wake up call. For what appears to be an ordinary activity that most of us hardly acknowledge is actually a continuous source for cruelty, violence and death.

Many of us realize that providing the much needed education and information to others about what happens to farmed animals who are turned into food is sometimes an insufficient guarantee for changing peoples habits of eating animals.

We've also seen over the years that promoting the notion that animals are being treated more "humane" and killed more kindly on smaller farms does not result in people going vegan at all.

But a more profound truth is that nothing will promote veganism better than veganism itself.

There is an empowering effect when people assist the self promotion of veganism by showing how delicious, clean, exciting, healthy, compassionate, non violent and easy vegan food can be.

This is food activism!

This is activism with the winning argument in it's favor

and

flavor.

When someone cares about another and puts that consideration into action it has the ability to change the world for the better and for everyone. Cooking, preparing and creating food that is born from a place of compassion and kindness is an expression of the golden rule in action.

The world is designed by the decisions each of us make and we as individuals are defined by the choices we make. Showing the world that we can eat, drink and be merry without the misery and death lying on our dinner tables is an essential form of activism that is often overlooked yet extremely important.

Moira Nordholt is someone we would call a food activist. She is a self-taught vegan chef who stumbled into food activism as proprietor of Banff, Alberta’s first vegetarian restaurant, long before the word "vegan" was uttered in beef country. Her time is now split between Toronto, Venice Beach and the open road, where she cooks delicious plant-powered food, consults and develops recipes for some of North America’s top spas and wellness centres, and contemplates life while riding her motorcycle solo to remote internal and external territories. (firehorserider.com)

Moira is the founder of feelgoodguru.com, an online playground celebrating people, ideas and things that make the world a better place. As well as contributing original recipes to books on detoxing and plant-based diets, Moira has written and self-published an eBook series called “Feel Good Fast” and runs an online companion quarterly cleanse helping people learn for themselves the ease and pleasure of cooking with seasonal whole foods to lose weight and feel great.

Moira is the host and organizer of the very popular annual Animal Lovers Brunch.

Her food is featured in the upcoming documentary about plant-based diets, "Forks over Knives".

Vegan Sanctuary had the honor of chatting with Moira about her work, her life and her yummy activism!

Philip:

Moira, thank you so much for taking time out to talk with Vegan Sanctuary. When did you first make the transition to living vegan and what inspired you to become vegan?

Moira:

Thanks so much for bringing me in to your conversation, Philip! I became vegetarian at 17 while living in Paris after several months of eating horse meat. I was a "jeune fille au pair" and that's what the family I worked for fed me. One day I looked in the mirror and made the connection to the old adage "you are what you eat." No kidding, I'd begun to look like a horse. From there, it was a slow evolution. I flailed for awhile as an uneducated and unhealthy vegetarian, surviving on junk food that I wasn't allowed to have as a kid, but I took an interest in nutrition and gradually gained balance the more I learned to cook healthy foods for myself. When I opened Banff, Canada's first vegetarian restaurant, I was eating the best organic foods, and I began to feel the undeniable effects of a high quality plant-based diet. I was putting in insanely long days in the kitchen with no sunshine and no breaks, then going for a workout at night, feeling stronger and more energized than ever. The diet simply proved itself in my body. For me, long before it was an ethical choice, it was simply a healthy choice. Of course, the more I learned about factory farming, the less I wanted animal products on my plate.

Philip: Yes. And it's basically now a fact that a plant based diet is much healthier for our human bodies than a diet based or centered on animal products. So, we also can't deny the fact that happiness is related to kindness and vice versa. So, understanding this facet, it would seem quite obvious if our condition or well being will generally improve when we live more compassionately, wouldn't it make sense that a vegan diet adds this aspect to the whole health argument as well?

Moira: Some of the happiest, healthiest, most fully expressed human beings I know are vegans. Yes. I believe that happiness, health, kindness and compassion are inextricably linked. To me, being compassionate means first being compassionate with myself. We've become so disconnected that most people don't even know anymore what it means to be compassionate with themselves. When I listen to my body it tells me what the healthiest choices are; when I listen to my conscience, it tells me what the least harmful choices are. To me it's about honoring that innate wisdom we all have, to find and maintain balance in body, mind and spirit - whole health. I believe that all real and lasting change starts right here.

Philip: Taking time out and cooking a vegan gourmet meal can almost be a bit like a meditation or a healing yoga class or even therapy. I mention this and make those analogies here because it can be very difficult living as an ethical vegan in a world where most people chew animals up at every meal and they do this at least 3 times a day. The death of so many farmed animals can become a painful fact for many ethical vegans and increasingly a great source of suffering for the people who care about farmed animals. Maybe talk a bit from experience about how cooking and preparing creative vegan food oneself can actually help heal and create a more optimistic outlook for this dilemma that many animal rights people face.

Moira: We tend to want to find someone to blame for the madness - anyone. But let's not forget while we're practicing compassion for animals that our fellow humans, the ones who are overweight, undernourished, unconscious or ignorant, sick with diabetes and heart disease and cancers due to poor diet, they need our compassion too. We all hate to see any living being suffer, whether it's a cat with fleas, cows being trucked to slaughterhouses, or a whole country of human beings in warfare. It can be overwhelming when we allow ourselves to become aware of all the suffering that goes on in the world. Some people choose to remain blissfully unaware. We each have our way of dealing with our grief and anger over it. For some, it can spur great action; for others, it can be paralyzing. There are medical doctors out there now prescribing plant-based diets to alleviate human suffering. There's a new doc - Forks Over Knives - coming out in September all about this. I believe we're on an evolutionary path towards a more sustainable, healthier way of eating that will make all of us look back at eating animals as very unsophisticated or barbaric. Yes, for me, cooking is meditation in action. I believe that anything done with intention becomes a prayer and prayers have mysterious ways of manifesting. Taking the time to prepare a delicious and beautiful meal for yourself with the intention to nourish your own body is a powerful act that should not be underestimated. It's such a simple thing we can all do every day that potentially reduces suffering on so many levels, starting in our own digestive system!

Philip: Why do you think so many people fail to notice the fact that they've been indoctrinated into consuming animals almost like a religious belief? How is it that most people see eating animals as a choice they are making rather than what they've been told to do over and over and over?

Moira: I think we're all walking around at different levels of awareness. In many ways we're still cavemen. So much of our eating is done out of unconscious habit. It's very complex because food is so tied to our emotions and memories and perhaps even the memories of our ancestors. We're hypnotized daily by the food industry. There are very effective forces at work in the business of burgers and fries persuading the masses to hoover it up. It's a very difficult nightmare to wake up from... Yet there are clear indications that there is a food evolution taking place and it's picking up speed...

Philip: Yes it is and many people who have evolved and become vegan want to find effective ways to educate others on living vegan. Many of us attempt to reach peoples hearts and minds but often forget about peoples stomachs. I think your polenta pizza, your veggie sushi and your spinach empanadas for instance are sure fire paths to a vegan revolution. Why is it that so many vegans forget that great tasting, adventurous vegan food is just as effective in getting people to stop eating animals as lets say handing someone a pamphlet on the horrors of the modern slaughterhouse?

Moira: People can tune out to the pamphlets and demonstrations. I know I don't want to be solicited as I'm coming out of Whole Foods, no matter what the cause. But if someone invites me for a meal, I'm in. Every meal shared is an opportunity to create the world you want to live in. Great food can be a delicious and convincing introduction. If you can dazzle someone's tastebuds and make them feel incredible after eating your food, you've won a battle that didn't even exist. Food is the one place where, no matter what our beliefs or level of awareness or consciousness, we come together to share and celebrate. If you make the food special, you can see the lights going on. People start to ask questions and request recipes. The comment I get most often is "If I could cook like this I'd be vegan." So I show them how easy it is and encourage them to try it for themselves. When people have the right tools and the support of a community, they feel empowered to change. It's happening. There are so many resources available now for someone who wants to evolve to a vegan diet.

Philip: That's so true. It just needs to be demonstrated and people will see how amazing vegan food is.

OK, I'm going to get all woo woo on you here if you don't mind....

So, there are episodes with our own experiences and there are forms of well being.... that override all others and transcend the normal daily aspects of our regular experiences. What I'm getting at is I'm thinking of veganism here as an easy gateway to spiritual experience, to living what someone might call a spiritual life and to those types of feelings....of compassion, of love and kindness in general.

Do you think there is this specific perspective and awareness that seems to take place within us when we eat and fill our bodies with foods made from kindness and non violence?

Moira: You know I love the woo woo;) I can't claim with certainty that everything I eat is made in a non-violent way. I hope that the rice I eat was planted by happy California farmers and that my quinoa was grown on South American land that has been peacefully tended by generations of proud growers, and that no snakes, grasshoppers, butterflies or rodents were run over or ingested by harvest machines...But it would be naive of me to think that everything on my plate was obtained fairly, happily and non-violently. What I can claim with certainty is that everything is energy. We know that animals fear death and that animals in our food chain suffer intensely. This is the energy I choose not to put in my body because I can't imagine that energy to be nourishing in any way. On that level, we truly are what we eat. Imagine having the energy of the fear of a thousand cows inside your belly? That's what a hamburger is to me. But let's not assume that everything that's vegan is healthy and full of good vibes. There's the junk in boxes that comes off assembly lines around the world. I don't even consider that "food". It's filler. Crunchy, salty, sweet and fatty mouth amusement. Eating this industrial sawdust void of real nutrition and filled with chemical additives, even when free of animal products, is not conducive to a spiritual life. These are empty calories we consume out of boredom or lack of imagination. Eating this stuff fuels a toxic food industry, turns us into zombies and keeps us in the nightmare. I also consider not just the food I'm eating but who's preparing it. Nothing comes close to food you prepare yourself for healing energy. It's extremely rare in a stressful restaurant environment for the chef to be mindful, peaceful and joyful. Consider that the energy of the chef is always in your food. Let's hope he or she is feeling non-violent when you order your garden burger... But yes! At the risk of sounding completely woowoo, there really is a deep spiritual element that accompanies eating low on the food chain and high on energetics. I've seen people almost levitate after eating a plant-based meal made from real, fresh, whole foods prepared with intention:)

Philip: What is some simple advice for someone who wants to be a food activist and start utilizing food as a way to spread the vegan message?

Moira: Healthy is sexy. Everyone wants it. People are becoming more and more aware of what's in their food and making the connection to their health or lack of. They're looking for answers. Live by example. Get healthy yourself and when people ask how you keep your skin glowing gorgeous, why you never get sick, or how you still fit into your grade 10 jeans, give them your plant-powered secrets. Learn to make one or two show-stopping vegan dishes and share them widely. Take them to dinner parties or invite people over to dine. People will ask you for the recipe and be astonished there's no cheese or ground beef or heavy cream in it.

Philip: I like it. I think that's all so important. What was your motivation for creating Feel Good Guru?

Moira: I love to help people make simple changes in their lives that can have profound effects on their world. I wanted a brand that would reflect my passions for creativity, wellness and optimism. I miss the community of incredible healers, teachers, seekers, foodies, artists, entrepreneurs, humanitarians, animal lovers, activists, adventurers and world changers that sprung up around my restaurant and I wanted to get that back on a global playground to celebrate people, ideas and things that make the world a better place.

Philip: Moira, thank you so much for taking the time to talk, your support of Animal Acres and of course all the wonderful ways you help spread the vegan message and help humans and animals feel good. Everyone needs to check out your website too.

Moira: If any of your readers would like help getting cleaner, greener & leaner with their lifestyle, I'm launching my spring cleanse on April 11th - Feel Good Fast. Join in. It's free!

http://feelgoodguru.ning.com/

Feel Good Guru's Polenta Pizza

2010-04-01T12:17:00.001-07:00

Feel Good Guru's Polenta Pizza

It’s really hard to find a good prepared vegan polenta crust for pizza, yet it’s soooo easy to make. Don't be intimidated thinking you'll have to stand over the stove stirring constantly for an hour. With this easy-shmeasy polenta crust, you whip it up, cover it and walk away. The polenta takes the shape and size of the pan you cook it in and browns up in the oven on a cookie sheet. Simply top with your favorite sauce and toppings, or follow the recipe below for a perfect vegan polenta pizza!

Polenta Crust:

2 cups organic polenta or cornmeal
4 cups water or vegetable broth
1 tsp sea salt
tiny drizzle of olive oil

Bring water or broth to a boil in a 10 or 12-inch diameter pot with sea salt and olive oil. Whisk in polenta slowly until it’s all incorporated. Give it a stir for about a minute, then turn the heat to low, cover the pot and leave it for 40 minutes.

Turn off the heat and allow to sit for another 10 minutes. Turn the pot upside down, carefully dropping the polenta onto a cutting board, and slice it through into two equal round pizza crusts.

Bake on a cookie sheet for about half an hour at 350 or until crispy around the edges.

Heirloom Tomato Sauce:

This can be made in advance. Quarter a pound of heirloom tomatoes and place face up on a lightly oiled roasting pan. Drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Add 6-8 whole cloves of garlic and roast about half an hour or until lightly caramelized.

Pulse with an immersion blender or mash with a fork. Add your favorite seasonal fresh herbs.

Toppings:

Slice and chop any and all of your favorite seasonal market veggies and herbs and/or the following:
Maple Shiitakes - in a frying pan on medium, toss sliced shiitakes with a little splash each of tamari and maple syrup.

finely sliced red onions, zucchini rounds, Tofurky Italian sausages

Herbed Cashew “Cheese”:

1 cup organic cashews (you can used almonds as well, just soak them overnight in spring water)
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tsp Himalayan sea salt
1 tsp fresh basil or your favorite seasonal herb
1/4 cup spring water

Blend all ingredients in a food processor and add water slowly until a thick, cream-cheese-like consistency is formed. You want to be able to form little “cheeseballs”, so careful not to add too much water.

Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. (I enjoy a clove or two of garlic and sometimes more lemon juice, depending how juicy the lemon is;) Use a teaspoon to form little balls to arrange on your pizza.

Bake pizza for another 10 minutes just to heat toppings. Garnish pizza with whole fresh basil leaves.

moira nordholt
www.feelgoodguru.com

@feelgoodguru on twitter

LIVE VEGAN FOR THEM

2010-03-31T02:08:00.000-07:00

Go Vegan For Them

JUMPER- Mud Lover, Movie Star, Outlier

2010-03-03T23:57:00.000-08:00

A Story Of Success

"No one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone,"

Malcolm Gladwell

In Malcolm Gladwell's best selling book "Outliers" he tells thought-provoking stories about people whose achievements in life fall outside normal experience. People like the Beatles and Bill Gates for instance whose extraordinary success and accomplishments are so far out of the ordinary that they represent something analogous to one single day that falls below freezing in the middle of a hot summer.

That is an outlier.

Something or someone that appears to deviate markedly from other members of the sample in which it occurs.

In the book he demonstrates that our understanding of success has much less to do with ones talent and ambition and much more to do with ones surroundings, their family, people whom they knew and most importantly being in the right place at the right time.

In other words those who have been able to excel in the world and really "make it big" so to speak, have done so with opportunities that were provided externally and with a whole lot of luck mixed in as well.

But imagine how different the notion of "making it big" in the world might be if we were a someone born into the body of a farmed animal.

Someone who is raised simply to be killed. The idea of success would be even more preposterous than the notion of one freezing day in the middle of an August heat wave.

So here it is then..... following this sentence.... an exercise in creativity, imagination and deep empathy.

Suppose we were a pig living our life trapped inside a few feet of steel bars on an industrial farm.

Suppose that success is, as Gladwell infers in his book, terrifyingly contingent. That in order to escape from what is the normal life of everyone else, our situations need to break just right for us and we need a huge amount of help from those around us.

But now imagine that those around us who control our fate have been told over and over via a misinformed culture that they must eat our flesh to be healthy. To use our skin as clothing and other products is a necessity as well.

Imagine that those who control our lives are convinced that our lives don't matter.

Then realize our body and the life contained within are actually their property, their path to prosperity and profit and..... we have no voice.

The notion of achievement or success within these circumstances and these predicaments looks nearly non existent or quite different than what we would imagine success to look like.

When we live as a being whose life has little joy, is filled with misery and pain the concept of success changes completely.

Success might result in that we feel the warmth of the sun on our back for the first time as we are loaded onto a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.

Success might be that our impeccable sense of smell will hopefully fail us on the day we reach the killing house so that the language of death is not comprehended in it's full extent, moments before we brutally leave this earth.

Success might mean that the human who is electrifying us before we are stabbed and bled performs their job properly because he has not yet been jaded from the vicious, repetitive work in a slaughterhouse which has the highest turnover rate of any profession.

Success in the world for people and animals owes something to parentage and patronage. No one rises up from nothing on their own. We all need someone whether it's family, friends or those others who believe in us.

Yet ironically none of the billions of animals killed this year for food will have ever been betrayed by friends..... for they had none to begin with in the first place.

If abandonment and loneliness means anything.... it is certainly defined by the way the animals raised for food will live and die in their short lives.

Yet this is not a story about loneliness and death. It's attempting to be a story about success. This is a story about someone with luck statistically far greater than blessed upon Mozart or provided any silicon valley billionaire. It's the story of Jumper a true outlier if ever there was one.

Jumper was the runt from a litter of piglets born on a gestation crate facility in the central valley of California. Her opportunity for success came about when a worker noticed and took pity on her as she was so tiny and so helpless. They contacted someone who kindly put them in touch with Animal Acres. Jumper was smuggled out and away to freedom. The downside was she would be taken from her mother who unfortunately at no fault of her own will suffer her entire life in a metal crate. Jumper's brothers were taken soon after to a slaughterhouse and her sisters to be used as breeding sows themselves.

The tallest tree in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through it's bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down.

Malcolm Gladwell

We know that success arises out of a steady accumulation of advantages, relationships and extraordinary opportunities. Animal Acres represents that combination of necessary resources in the climb to the top for this little piglet. It was here at the sanctuary that the kindness of strangers gave Jumper the greatest of opportunities which would propel her to fame and fortune.

Denis Hennelly and Casey Suchan two independent filmmakers took notice of little Jumper and decided she would star in their poignant new film Bold Native. This lucky break opened the door to the nurturing, affection and trust that Jumper desperately needed in order to adapt to humans and achieve a successful life at Animal Acres.

So weeks before the film began producer Casey Suchan set about getting the tiny Jumper accustomed to being held. Casey spent many days with Jumper, feeding her bananas and becoming her friend. Yet it didn't take long before Jumper learned to settle into a humans arms. When it came time to film she was more than prepared as she graced the big screen with a presence that recalls Kate Winslet on her best day. Jumper also became a favorite on the set and easily stole both cast and crew's hearts.

To this day Jumper still remembers it all and every time Casey goes to visit Animal Acres the little former runt talks up a storm and runs as fast as she is able...

to visit with her dear friend and mentor.

Jumper now lives her life like the most successful person in the world might live. She has round the clock care, nearly non stop belly rubs from her staff (volunteers and visitors), and she is free to run, to roll in the mud and of course most importantly to jump.

What more could a person ask for?

Our human minds are not sufficiently capable enough to understand statistically what someone like Jumper's success really represents.

Appreciate for a moment that there are approximately 300 million humans living in the US. The stories of human success are actually quite numerous and in the hundreds of thousands to say the least. Yet now fathom that more than 10 billion farmed animals are slaughtered for food every year in the US and the stories of those animals being rescued or making it to sanctuaries are perhaps in the hundreds.

With these lopsided numbers one can easily discern that the few animals living their life at places like Animal Acres are what we may describe without exaggeration as truly lucky beyond measure.

It may not seem to us at first glance that most all successful humans are the beneficiaries of some kind of unusual opportunity and luck. They are however much more the products of good fortune and additional help from others than we care to acknowledge. When this argument is investigated, studied, it is revealed to be the truth and the rule, not the exception.

Statistically however the farmed animals at rescue facilities and sanctuaries are even more the outliers in the true scientific definition of the word then are the few human billionaires, movie stars and big time athletes.

Plus the non humans liberated from farmed exploitation give us a concept of success we usually overlook. There is a real lesson to be grasped from all of the animals saved from slaughter houses and we rarely apply those lessons to our own lives.

In our human world of money, power, greed and consumption success means something very different from what in reality it might actually be comprised of.

The link we find between altruism and happiness shows us a path to success we unfortunately ignore. Living with compassion towards others and the connection it has to our own well being may lead us closer to understanding success than studying someone playing in a world famous band or running a fortune 500.

There is a form of well being that transcends our daily notions of what real success might resemble.

We see it all the time and have many examples of those persons, humans and non humans who are not just happy about their lives but in their lives.

We all feel it and have intuitions which run deep within who we are and signal to us what success actually seems to be.

While our concept of success often seems bound up with the belief in acquiring things.... it really arrives when we are transformed through kindness from ourselves to others and by kindness from others back to us. Transformed by experiences that bring us closer to love than to hate. Transformed by the experience of living in the presence of our similarities rather than our differences.

Yet.... the challenge for all of us is to begin recognizing these possibilities and living them.... through direct action.

Living vegan is an incredible step toward that transformation and a very successful way to bring real life benefits to those who may not have a voice the world can hear... yet have a life they cherish in the same way anyone who strives to make it big in the world treasures their own life.

In the same way Animal Acres provides sanctuary for Jumper and how Casey and Denis provided the necessary trust she needed to blossom into the big happy round love boat she has become we can all contribute to the future success stories of animals we will never even know by living vegan.

Be a success. Become vegan.

Rescue/adopt an animal!

Casey Suchan and Denis Hennelly can't stop talking about Jumper.

"We are very lucky to know this beautiful, funny, precocious soul. Making a film about animals' rights isn't the same as getting to know them as individuals and earning their friendship... Jumper brought spirit and meaning to an idea, and for this we are eternally grateful. She has blessed our life and our film and is a potent reminder of the millions of individual spirits like hers that are imprisoned each year in our country's factory farms. The film is for all of those who have not been saved."

_______________________________

About the song.

________________________________

The Pig Who Sang to The Moon is a beautiful and powerful book by Jeffrey Masson about the emotional world of farm animals. In the book he describes how pigs living on animal sanctuaries will make a moaning, almost sad yet musical sound when they mourn for the loss of one of their friends. He explains how pigs seem to enjoy the moonlight. He interviews people who share their lives with these highly emotional intelligent animals and they all tell stories of how pigs will make mournful sounds at night much like singing. All this while gazing up at the moonlight.

This song below is dedicated to Jumper's family.

Her brothers, sisters, father and mother.....who never made it out of that prison and were never given the chance to be a success.

This song is also dedicated to all pigs living as property on farms and who have not yet been saved.....Maybe even as a metaphor.... the ones who've already died are the Angels On The Moon.

Click Here to listen to ANGELS ON THE MOON

"Do you dream that the world will know your name? So tell me your name....."

Angels on the Moon

SHARON GANNON

2010-02-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

Yoga is an ancient sanskrit term that means to join, to connect and to unite.

Although yoga's origins are from India it predates Hinduism and is not tied to a religion. Yoga is open to any faith or none at all.

Yoga is not about beliefs, ideas, stretching or even practicing anything. It's really about a way of experiencing ourselves and about feeling/discovering who we are. Yoga is more about breaking the identification we have with our thoughts and then recognizing the conditions which have created those thoughts.

One of the best comparisons we may have to yoga might actually be therapy. Yoga is very much like therapy in that the goal is to change our state of mind or our state of consciousness.

When we investigate the nature of who we are and what we feel through a prolonged practice of introspection like yoga, it's merely another way of explaining what might also be called a spiritual practice.

In this aspect yoga is very much aligned with ethical veganism in that there is a transformation of the mind that occurs in the way we experience ourselves and who we are after we have felt something. They are also both about a way to liberation.

A liberation from the ordinary way we see ourselves, see our relationship to others and to the world around us.

When we utilize yoga as a tool to deepen the connection of our compassion for animals and others there is also a profound feeling of oneness and unity with others and with the entire world (universe) that begins to open up to us. Without a means to go inward and uncover those intimate, central properties of who we are, this task remains difficult to achieve in our everyday life.

Yoga does make the possibilities of this experience, this connection, this transformation which we can call spiritual, available to us and much easier to achieve.

Sharon Gannon

Part 1

Sharon Gannon is a 21rst century Renaissance woman who excels in many artistic, spiritual and social mediums. Sharon is best known for creating, along with David Life, the Jivamukti Yoga Method--a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings.

The Jivamukti Yoga method emphasizes vinyasa, music, meditation and chanting as well as a major focus on animal rights, veganism and political activism.

The Jivamukti Yoga Method is taught worldwide at Jivamukti Yoga Schools, and affiliated centers, which are in NYC, Charleston, Washington, DC, Toronto, London, Munich and Berlin.

Sharon is a pioneer in teaching yoga as spiritual activism and is changing the way that people view animals, spirituality, life, themselves and each other.

I attended her lecture The Diet Of Enlightenment at the San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference January 31. With an inspiring positive attitude Sharon explored the five yamas of Patanjali. Patanjali is the author of the ancient yoga sutras which is the collection of essays on the philosophy and practice of yoga. With wisdom and courage she related each yama to animal rights and living vegan. She was graceful yet explicit in a moving and humble way that any animal activist would be impressed by. Let it be known however, she was in no way preaching to the choir in this lecture. Although the audience was filled with wonderful compassionate yoga practitioners they were very much like the majority of humans and were completely un-informed to the realities of how non human animals are exploited and turned into food.

YOGA JOURNAL Magazine has called her an innovator and VANITY FAIR gives her credit for making yoga cool and hip. JANE Magazine nominated her as Gutsiest Woman of the Year and FARM SANCTUARY awarded her the 2008 compassionate living award. She is a long-time vanguard member of PETA and has helped with many of their campaigns.

She resides in a wild forest sanctuary in upstate NY, USA.

THE INTERVIEW

Philip:

The first question I want to ask you Sharon is simply.... what brought you to becoming an ethical vegan and an animal rights advocate?

SHARON:

In 1982 I saw a film, entitled “The Animals Film.” At that time I was an artist living in Seattle Washington where I was a musician in a band. I went to see the film with some of my band mates only because I had seen on the poster at the theater that Robert Wyatt had done the musical soundtrack. I was a H.U.G.E. fan of Robert Wyatt. He was the drummer and singer for The Soft Machine, which was and still is one of my favorite bands.

The Animal’s Film was a British documentary film made by Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux, narrated by the actress Julie Christie (who actually put her acting career on the line by being associated with this film. I have tremendous respect for her.) The film depicted our (human) exploitation of animals. The film covered many aspects in very graphic detail from the all too common and casual euthanisation of unwanted pets, to animals used for entertainment, to animals used for food and clothing, and as victims of military and “scientific” research. The last scene was of the Animal Liberation Front rescuing animals from a laboratory. The ALF appeared to me like modern day Super Heroes…I wanted to join up immediately.

But I faced (or thought at the time, I faced) a big obstacle---I lived in Seattle Washington, USA and I didn’t know of any members of the ALF in my town nor did I know any vegans. I was a poor artist living in a dark dank basement apartment. I didn’t have a car, phone or bank account. Non-the less,I decided after seeing the film that I would devote my life to doing whatever I could to stop the insanity I saw depicted in that film. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do at that point, but I knew that whatever it was it had to help the animals and it had to shatter the ignorance inside of us human beings who would think that it is okay to treat animals as if they had no feelings and existed to be enslaved and exploited by us.

Very soon after that film I became a vegan. Very soon after that I became a yoga teacher as a way to be more outspoken about animal rights. For me teaching yoga provided a better platform than music, dance, painting or any of the other artistic genres I had been working in.

The Animal’s Film was the first feature length animal rights documentary. Many other films since that time have borrowed not only footage, but formatting from that seminal and very important film. It was seeing this film that changed my life and moved me to become a yoga teacher/ animal rights activist.

Because it was a film that transformed me I feel obliged to share films with others. I make it part of my teaching to show films like this to students all over the world. Talking about the issue is one thing….when people actually have a chance to see the reality (albeit on the screen)….it can be very very effective.

Usually when I am on the road (on a teaching tour) I teach 2-4 workshop classes and during the last class I show Chew on This (a 3 minute film produced by my friends at PETA with the appropriate subtitles in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Russian or whatever is the language spoken in the country where I am). I also often show 10 minutes from the Chapter on Food from the Earthlings Film. After these films the discussion about the link between Yoga and Veganism takes on a depth, sincerity and zeal that would not be possible without seeing the films first. After viewing the film(s) there is little or none of the defensiveness that often comes up when there is just a talk followed by a Q&A about the vegan/animal rights issue.

Philip:

Each and every one of the beautiful non human residents living here at Animal Acres were destined for the slaughterhouse. It may sound a bit crazy but when I meet the animals here at the sanctuary or when I meet any rescued animal who's been given a new life they in some way represent to me the ultimate Jivamukti persons. Do you know what I mean?

Can you talk about Jivamukti Yoga, its meaning and practice?

SHARON:

The word Jivamukti is taken from a Sanskrit word:Jivanmukti, which is a combination of two words—jiva which means individual soul, like one’s personality or ego and mukti which means liberation, freedom, enlightenment. So a Jivanmukta is someone who is living liberated …who is in the state of enlightenment, which is what Jivamukti means.

The term Jivanmukta is equivalent to the Buddhist concept of the Boddhisttava—which describes one who has attained some level of enlightenment but has devoted themselves to helping others attain that enlightenment…before retiring themselves into Nirvana (total enjoyment).

What is realized in the yogic state of enlightenment is the Oneness of Being—all disconnection disappears. You do not feel or think of yourself as just a separate individual—a skin encapsulated ego. One realizes their inner and inter-connectedness with all beings and things—with all of life. A Jivanmukta knows themselves as whole as a whole/holy being…. a part of the whole web of existence—they have healed themselves from the disease of disconnection which is a pandemic in our Culture.

I appreciate your perception of the rescued animals at Animal Acres as Jivamuktas –maybe they are--but I do not know if that is a true perception or not. I don’t know if they are enlightened beings or not. To be able to see an enlightened being you yourself must be an enlightened being, because it takes one to know one. I don’t think of myself as there yet! Although I’m trying my best to work on it!

I do know that everyone of us finds ourselves in whatever situation we are in because of our past karmas. No one is an innocent victim. Now don’t get freaked out by that word karma. It is a Sanskrit term that simply means action. It does not mean ‘good’ action or ‘bad’ action--- it is neutral—it simply means action. Everyone’s actions are important--they determine how reality unfolds. How we treat others determines how others treat us. How others treat us determines how we see ourselves. How we see ourselves determines who we are.

Whew! So it all starts with how we treat others. If we treat others with kindness and consideration for their happiness this will come back to us eventually, but inevitably.

Dr. Albert Einstein reminded us of this fact or law of nature when he “discovered” that space is curved—what ever you throw out there will come back to its place of origin.

So the message is: be careful with what you throw out there. In other words be careful with what you think, say or do because you will be revisited by it. Only sow the seeds you want to see blossom. As singer/activist Michael Franti says in his song, Yes I Will:

“I believe that what you sing to the clouds will rain upon you when the sun has gone away and I believe that what you bring to the moon will manifest before you rest another day….” So treat others as you would want to be treated, I think Jesus said that! It is an old saying but one that is so easily put aside in our world today in the quest for “success.” Patanjali has a sutra in his yoga sutra: Maitri Adishu Balani PYS.24, which means: Through friendliness (maitri) and other such related feelings, like kindness, (adishu) your strength and success will surely come. Wow !--that is radical stuff for those of us who have been conditioned by a Culture, which has beaten it into us that the “Earth Belongs to Us”, and that it is our right to exploit the Earth and all other beings if we have the means and the might to do so. Yoga tells us that Might Is Not Right! Yoga tells us that through kindness and friendliness we will be successful.

I love the system and practices of Yoga because it provides us with the tools to dismantle our present culture—a culture based on slavery and exploitation of the animals and the Earth. Our present Culture has been at war with Mother Nature for at least the last 10,000 years. It was roughly 10,00 years ago that human beings started to enslave animals (the polite term is domestication). The enslavement of animals is the foundation of our culture and still is. The terms, “stock market” and “capital” all derive from our original culture, which was a herding culture where the central economy stemmed from exploiting animals.

I joyfully and unapologetically reject this Culture and embrace Yoga as a means to not only dismantle this Culture but to provide the tools to build a new way of life a way to live harmoniously with the earth and all other beings. This is why I practice Yoga—this is why I teach Yoga. Yoga means to come together to unite with….I want to heal the disease so rampant in our culture of slavery—the disease of disconnection. I am trying to start with myself—to heal myself—to try to see more clearly—to try to rid myself of the misperception that I am separate from everyone else. Yoga means connection. I like that! I want to commit my life to that.

I must admit that I still like living inside a house that has electricity and hot and cold running water, with a refrigerator and stove and I still find comfort in wearing clothes and bundling up against the cold, rain and wind. But I will say that I do question all these habits and addictions and often try to imagine myself living naked in the forest like the deer and foxes who we share our home with in Woodstock NY.

Philip:

You and David have brought so much awareness and activism into the yoga world about animal rights. You've been such an outspoken yogi for the animals over the years and have never wavered away from the issue of animal liberation at all either. What motivates you about the issue of animal advocacy and in making it such an important part of your yoga teaching?

SHARON:

Yoga means to yoke--to unite-- to come together. My teacher Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati often said, “Yoga is that state where you are missing nothing—you know yourself as whole and complete.”

Yoga and enlightenment are synonymous. Enlightenment is the ultimate coming together…where there is no disconnection. The yogi in the enlightened state feels/realizes the Oneness of being…all disconnection disappears.

So what is the biggest obstacle to this realization? Others! Perceiving yourself as separate from others. Deluded—thinking that others are separate and that what you think, say and do does not make a difference to them or to you. Most people spend a lot of time blaming others for their own unhappiness: If only my parents would wake up and understand why I don’t want to eat Turkey with them on Thanksgiving. If only my girlfriend was vegan then we could have better sex and then I would be happy. If the president of the United States passed a law, which disallowed factory farming then all our problems, would be solved.

The first step towards the realization of yoga is to realize that there is no out there out there—others do not exist as separate entities from you. Everyone and every situation that you find yourself in has come from you. You created the world you live in. How? From your own thoughts, words and actions—in other words from your past karmas. We live in the world of our own making. The Sanskrit term shunyata describes this. Shunyata means emptiness. Emptiness does not mean a void of nothingness; rather it describes a reality of infinite possibilities. With this concept of shunyata,the yogic teachings put the responsibility on what reality becomes on the observer. Whatever you see is a projection of your own mind. Your own mind is made up of your past experiences. Your past experiences are made from your interactions with others. Your perception of others comes from how you have treated them.

We all say we want a peaceful and happy world—we value ideals like freedom and respect. But if we cannot provide for others the very things we want for ourselves, and value most in life—then we will never have those things.

To put it bluntly: If we deprive other animals—and I say other animals because we are animals too--that is a biological fact. If we deprive others of what we ourselves value most…then we will never achieve our goals—we will never be at peace if we cause havoc in the the lives of others we will never be happy if we cause so many animals to be unhappy—(and enslaving them and taking away their rights and mobility does cause them unhappiness) then how can we expect to be happy? If we ourselves want to be free then it will not suit our purpose to enslave others.

We (human beings) keep animals as slaves. We have been conditioned by our culture to do this. We, for the most part think of it as normal to pen or cage an animal, to saddle a horse, to use, abuse and exploit animals for our own gain…not giving a thought to the animal’s happiness aspirations or freedom. This type of perception does not lead one to happiness and freedom, which are the goals of yoga.

So if you want enlightenment then it is quite logical ---treat others as you would want to be treated. Treat them as holy beings—not as slaves. Treat them as enlightened whole beings—as you would want to see yourself.

I realize that yoga may not be for everyone. Perhaps not all human beings really want to be free---to break free from the cycle of samsara-the eternal wheel of suffering. Suffering does have its upside---it can help to clear perception. Perhaps most beings love suffering more than any other pleasure. It certainly keeps things going around and around!

The Sanskrit word, samsara is made up of two words: sam which means same plus sara which means agitation. So samsara means the same agitation. Samsara is a way to describe life on Planet Earth for most of us.

Life gives us many opportunities many possibilities for enlightenment: to break free of the samsaric existence.

But remember many, perhaps most people don’t want to or aren’t ready to be free yet. But for those of us who are then a vegan diet is an absolute necessity! It is the first Big step.

Philip:

Something I've noticed over the years is that it seems so many people in the yoga world want to emphasize Ahimsa as a restraint regarding how we treat ourselves and being kind to ourselves rather than looking at the altruistic meaning it holds. I've always felt that ahimsa was about the importance of being kind to and about not harming others which includes not eating others. Can you explain ahimsa, it's non violent roots and your experience with this issue in the yoga world?

SHARON:

Patanjali lists ahimsa in the category of the yamas. Yama means restriction. Yamas refer to actions that you take in regard to others. Patanjali, let us remember, is speaking to aspiring yogis, those who are still seeing others--those who are not yet enlightened. To an enlightened being there are no others. An enlightened being sees only the divine (or their own-self) in all. So he says in the sutras, as long as you are seeing others, don’t hurt them (ahimsa) don’t lie to them (satya), don’t steal from them (asteya), don’t abuse them sexually (brahmacharya) and don’t be so greedy as to cause them to become impoverished (aparigraha).

If Patanjali had meant ahimsa as a directive to be applied to oneself I think he would have put it in the next category, which is called niyama. The niyamas are actions that you take in regard to yourself, and he certainly has a lot to say about that!

Philip:

When we choose to live vegan for ethical reasons we also want other humans who care about the world and what happens to animals to be educated with information about living vegan.

What is the best way to forward or share this message with others?

SHARON:

An affective activist has to have more of a greater purpose than just venting anger or to prove how much more they know about the issue than the person or people they are speaking to do. Allow your interactions with others to be guided by humility and respect not arrogance and anger. When you speak to others, who you would like to influence, speak to their highest potential. See them as good people. Speak to them as holy beings—as beings who are kind and compassionate. See them as people who are giving you an opportunity to be kind-- an opportunity to communicate non-violently. If you have contempt for them they will feel this and all chance of positive communication will be disallowed.

Remember everyone you meet is coming from you. If you don’t like the way someone else is acting. Say to yourself, “I have to stop treating people this way.” Search inside yourself and change what you don’t like about that person by ridding it from yourself from the inside first.

THE END OF PART ONE OF THIS INTERVIEW.

Sharon travels extensively teaching and presenting at American, European, Canadian, Asian, South and Central American and Conferences. She has produced numerous yoga-related DVDs and music CDs including the 2010 release of Sharanam, her solo duet album on the White Swan Label. She is a prolific writer and has authored several books: Jivamukti Yoga, (also translated into German, Russian & Italian) The Art of Yoga, The Jivamukti Chant Book, Yoga and Vegetarianism and Cats and Dogs are People too! Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Toward 2012, Music &Spirituality, Semiotext(e) and Yoga Journal. She writes a monthly essay called the Focus of the Month, which can be read at www.jivamuktyoga.com

Here is a selection from Sharon's new album Sharanam which translates from sanskrit to english as "refuge" or "sanctuary". Sharon's music is created from ancient mantras and meditation chants and are designed to lead us to the sanctuary we each have inside ourselves.

Listen here to OM SHANTI

Part 2 of our talk with Sharon Gannon coming soon.

Interview With Gary L. Francione

2010-01-06T16:36:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this interview are those of the author and guest and do not necessarily reflect the position or views of Animal Acres.

Vegan Sanctuary is honored to have Distinguished Professor of Law and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law & Philosophy at Rutgers University,
Gary L. Francione as our guest.

Professor Francione received his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Rochester, where he was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa O’Hearn Scholarship that allowed him to pursue graduate study in philosophy in Great Britain. He received his M.A. in philosophy and his J.D. from the University of Virginia.
Professor Francione has been teaching animal rights and the law for more than 20 years, and he was the first academic to teach animal rights theory in an American law school. He is well known throughout the animal protection movement for his criticism of animal welfare law and the property status of nonhuman animals, and for his abolitionist theory of animal rights.

Philip:

Gary, thank you so much for taking time to answer a few questions. I wanted to start on a positive note and make the observation that there appears to me to be a huge spurt in the growth of the non-violent abolitionist approach to animal rights. This increase appears to have happened in just the last few years. It feels like a real movement taking shape here again. Am I living in a bubble or being too optimistic?

Gary:

No, I think you’re right. In 2006, we set up Abolitionist Approach.com with the volunteer help of Randy Sandberg and it took off beyond our wildest expectations. I started developing this theory in the early 1990s but after I wrote Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement in 1996, most of the large organizations did what they could to keep my work away from animal advocates. The internet has now eviscerated the ability of the animal welfare corporations to control communication and it has also reduced the cost and other impediments to people from all over the world communicating with others. The internet is capable of creating grassroots movements and that is what is occurring here.

Philip:
Can you briefly explain the concept of the abolitionist approach to animal rights and what it actually means?

Gary:
The abolitionist approach: (1) maintains that we cannot justify animal use, however “humane” it may be; (2) rejects welfare campaigns that seek more “humane” exploitation or single-issue campaigns that seek to portray one form of animal exploitation as morally worse than other forms of animal exploitation (e.g., a campaign that seeks to distinguish fur from wool or leather); (3) regards veganism, or the complete rejection of the consumption or use of any animal products, as a moral baseline; (4) regards creative, nonviolent vegan education as the primary form of activism because the paradigm will not shift until we address demand and educate people to stop thinking of animals as things we eat, wear, or use as our resources. The animals covered by the abolitionist approach are all sentient beings; all beings who are subjectively aware. An animal does not have to have human like characteristics, such as human like intelligence, rationality, etc. to be a full member of the moral community.

Philip:
Vegan Sanctuary is the blog for Animal Acres which is a farmed animal sanctuary just north of Los Angeles. The animals all living here now were once existing as exploited disposable beings all destined for the slaughterhouse. They have all been rescued and given a new life and permanent home. One of the themes of this blog is that when we live vegan we function on a personal level akin to an animal sanctuary. Yet veganism can also be the most effective single form of political activism we can take for animals as well. In your opinion is living vegan as political as it is personal?

Gary:
Absolutely. I regard veganism as the application of the abolitionist principle to one’s own life. It is a rejection of the socio-legal concept of animals as things or as property. Veganism is a necessary step for anyone who says she takes nonviolence seriously.

Philip:
Can you talk a bit about the concept of Ahimsa and how it relates to animal rights?

Gary:
That’s a terrific question and I am glad that you asked it. Ahimsa is the principle of non-violence. It appears explicitly in several Eastern spiritual traditions, most prominently in Jainism. I believe that one of Christ’s primary goals was to bring the concept into Western thinking. In any event, I view the problem of animal exploitation as one involving violence. Violence is not going to be part of the solution. We need to shift the paradigm and have a revolution of the heart. If we are ever going to eliminate animal exploitation, we are not going to do so with hate and violence. We are going to do so with peace and love.

I am bewildered by people who advocate violence. If you destroy five slaughterhouses and the demand for meat remains the same, the demand will be met and new slaughterhouses will be built (or existing ones expanded). If you shut down a company that supplies animals used in vivisection but the demand for animals remains the same, someone else will supply those animals.

The pro-violence position characterizes the institutional user as the “exploiter,” the “enemy.” In reality, it is we—the people who demand and consume animals—who are the real “exploiters.” We have got to change ourselves before anything is going to change for animals.

I should say that a number of these pro-violence people are not even vegans. So they’re involved directly in exploitation but they think that they are morally justified in urging violence against others? That’s sheer hypocrisy.

Philip:
I've met a lot of caring and sincere people who voted for Proposition 2 here in California and what I noticed was that almost none of them were actually thinking this whole thing through in any critical way. There's a great deal of evidence that regulating or attempting to legislate the treatment of nonhuman animals doesn't work and actually makes the situation for them much worse. Can you discuss how an abolitionist approach would deal with a Proposition 2-type campaign and what would be the most effective path to take for farmed animals?

Gary:
I think Proposition 2 is a disaster. First of all, it is not even effective until 2015. Second, some of the practices that it purports to ban do not even occur in California or are on their way out anyway. Third, Proposition 2 is riddled with exceptions. Fourth, even if by some miracle Proposition 2 actually comes into effect in 2015, all that is going to happen is that hens will go from a from a conventional cage into one large cage called a “cage-free” barn. Let’s be clear: the hens are going to continue to be tortured. That torture is just going to have the stamp of approval of the Humane Society of the United States and the other welfarist groups that supported Proposition 2. Fifth, to the extent that this causes any rise in egg prices, conventional battery eggs will just be imported into California from Mexico
or from Oregon or Arizona. Sixth, all that Proposition 2 does—and I mean all—is to make humans feel better about exploiting animals. Proposition 2 has nothing to do with animals. It has to do with making humans feel better.

Animal advocates need to think a bit more critically. You’re quite right to say that the history of animal welfare is the history of miserable failure. But the large, wealthy national groups ignore this in favor of pursuing campaigns for welfare reform. Why? There are two primary reasons. First, large groups need a steady stream of fundraising vehicles and welfare campaigns are perfect for that purpose. These campaigns usually target practices that are economically vulnerable in the first place. That is, the large groups identify practices that are not economically efficient and that are being questioned within the industry. Although industry will put up a token fight and there is a choreographed “conflict” between industry and welfarists. The welfarists prevail and praise industry. Industry wins; welfarists win; animals lose. Second, welfare campaigns do not require that anyone really change themselves. You can be a “conscientious omnivore” and support these campaigns.

An abolitionist would not support Proposition 2-type campaigns. They are worse than doing nothing; they actually do greater harm by feeding this “happy” meat/animal products nonsense. Again, if anything is ever going to change, we need to get people to realize that we should not be consuming any animal products. We should be engaged in creative, nonviolent vegan education.

If all of the money—the millions and millions of dollars—that go into these welfare campaigns were, instead, put into a clear, unequivocal, creative campaign for veganism, we’d have many more vegans than we have today. That would make a difference and it would only snowball and grow. That would be meaningful change. That would start and develop the paradigm shift that we need to have meaningful change.

Philip:
What is the best way for an animal rights advocate to effectively express to others that attempting to merely reduce animals suffering will in the long run hurt the cause of animal rights and veganism?

Gary:
Advocates need first to educate themselves about this and many other matters. Most animal advocates do not read or study anything. That is why these large organizations can talk them into supporting nonsense like Proposition 2. I have been writing about the failure of animal welfare for over 20 years now. I have written books and articles; I have written blog essays and done podcasts. And yet, I frequently get emails from animal advocates asking me why I think animal welfare fails.

If you want to be an effective animal advocate and educate others, you have first to educate yourself. I suggest that advocates who want to understand the abolitionist approach visit our site http://www.AbolitionistApproach.com
Look at the teaching videos we have on animal rights theory, rights and welfare, animals as property, etc. Listen to the podcasts on these subjects. Read the dozens of blog essays that provide reasoned argument about the failure of welfare.

Philip:
What about the notion of getting beyond just discussing these issues with activists? I've found that speaking about living vegan to others that are open to the idea of living compassionately is really effective. For instance, in the yoga world so many caring people who have been led down the path to happy meat seem to be more open to the understanding that the so called “humane” methods of farming animals is a myth. Sometimes the non-animal activists who are searching for compassion in their lives can see this point even more clearly than many animal activists. Have you had this experience maybe with your students?

Gary:
Absolutely. Part of the problem is that the organized animal movement has become something of a cult. People are not allowed to question anything without being called “divisive.” If you object to welfare reform on the grounds that it is ineffective and counterproductive, you are accused of “not caring” about animals. Many “animal people” need de-programming in my view.

I find that non-animal people are much more receptive to the approach that I present. I make arguments. I give reasons. People can examine my premises and make their own assessment about whether my conclusions flow from those premises. I think that my position stands up to the tests of reason. And I think that it resonates with the non-violent orientation that many people have.

In any event, I get much more positive responses from students and members of the general public. Many “animal people” are, unfortunately, lost causes.

Philip:
When you wrote your 2007 essay We’re All Michael Vick, which was published in the Philadelphia Daily News (and is available on your website), it seemed to really spark a debate about what being vegan really means and taking seriously what happens to animals. Can you talk a bit on this idea and what you were attempting to convey in your article?

Gary:
I was motivated to write the essay in part because I thought that the coverage of Michael Vick was somewhat like the coverage of O.J. Simpson. I thought it was driven by racism, at least in part.

But what really grabbed me was that everyone was so very upset with Vick for what we all do: exploit, torture, and kill animals because we get pleasure from animal use. There really is no difference between Vick sitting around a pit watching dogs fight and the rest of us, sitting around the summer barbecue pit roasting their bodies.

The article got an incredible response. I received about 1200 emails in a week! Although many people were irrationally upset for comparing meat eaters to dog fighters, many people said the same thing: “You know, I never looked at like that. It makes sense and I am troubled.”

The most important step in the struggle against animal exploitation is to get people to see things differently. The Michael Vick essay got many people to do just that.

Philip:
So many animal activists view animal rights as a one-way street. They say
“I only care about animals. I don't care at all about any other political or any other rights issues.”
Yet these same animal activists will also be the first to lash out at gay rights or feminist activists for failing to notice the oppression of non humans. Do you suspect this attitude might be one of the main reasons we no longer have a legitimate animal rights movement anymore?

Gary:
I have for decades now been trying to link human rights and animal rights. In fact, the course that Anna Charlton and I teach at Rutgers University is called “Human Rights and Animal Rights.” Speciesism is immoral because it is like racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. We cannot oppose speciesism without opposing these other forms of discrimination. I am not saying that we have to be activists in all movements; no one has that sort of time. But we should at least in our daily lives reject all discrimination. I am terribly disappointed that the animal “movement” (I do not like using that term because I do not really think that any “movement” exists), particularly PETA, uses sexism supposedly to promote animal rights. Apart from the fact that sexism is inherently objectionable, its use makes no sense. The problem we are dealing with is the commodification of non humans; as long as we commodify women, we are going to continue to commodify non humans. So the exploitation of one group supposedly to help another is both morally and strategically problematic.

Philip:
Do you think adherence to traditional religions creates a kind of blind spot in seeing non humans as living feeling individuals or is it that their faith blocks the notion of animals being a part of the moral community?

Gary:
Sure. Most of the traditional religions regard non humans as spiritual inferiors who are here for our use. It is interesting whether those traditions accurately reflect the views of their founders or central figures. For example, there is historical evidence that Christ was an Essene and Essenes did not consume animal products. In any event, Christ promoted peace and nonviolence and he is used to justify wars. So the use of religious doctrines to justify animal exploitation is traditional, but so is the misuse of religion.

Philip:
I see similarities in how animal advocates believe that single issue campaigns, better treatment campaigns, or using violence in animal rights campaigns are somehow going to work. Are there similarities and, if so, what accounts for them?

Gary:
Yes, there are most certainly similarities. There is a similarity between those who promote welfare reform and those who promote violence. Both groups focus on institutional users rather than trying to educate the public so that moral thinking changes and demand for animal products is decreased. Both groups characterize the institutional users as the “exploiters.” The real exploiters are all of us who continue to consume animal products and thereby create the demand. There is a similarity between those who promote welfare reform and those who pursue single-issue campaigns (e.g., anti-fur campaigns) because both groups seek to characterize certain forms of exploitation as morally different from other forms. There is no morally significant difference between a conventional egg and a cage-free egg; there is no morally significant distinction between flesh and other animal products; there is no morally significant distinction between fur and wool.

Philip: Any final thoughts?

Gary:
Yes. I want to reiterate what I said earlier. The key to meaningful change is creative, nonviolent education. And to educate others, you must first educate yourself. Those who care about this issue need to learn the basics of animal rights theory to explain why we cannot justify animal use, however “humane,” and must understand the simple economics of animal exploitation to explain why welfare reform cannot work. Again, I invite those interested to visit our website. It’s a good place to start learning.

Philip: Thank you Gary for sharing your ideas here. It's much appreciated.

Gary L. Francione is Distinguished Professor of Law and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University School of Law. His books include Animals as Persons: Essays on the Exploitation of Animal Use (2008), Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? (2000); Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (1996); and Animals, Property, and the Law (1995). His forthcoming book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition vs. Regulation, will be published in March 2010 by Columbia University Press. He has a website at www.AbolitionistApproach.com.