Noticing.

A tiny writing on a very large topic.

I’ve been enjoying my jaunt down memory lane and digging up a snippet or two to share and I am tickled at the response in common experiences (so many of us recovering from polyester!) But this week had me pondering on the ‘why’ of my Wuzzles and Snippets. The balance, thus far, has been very tipped towards Snippet without a lot of Wuzzle.

Today I am offering up some of the conflicts I struggle with in wanting people to see the devastating cruelty of animal agriculture (no matter the scale). And rather than graphic photographs to illustrate the unfortunate realities, you get some of my rough sketches for putting a gentler spin on a difficult topic.

It is challenging to express what I think about animal agriculture while still allowing space for compassion, engagement, positive conversations and creating enough room for empathy of all living things. I often sketch to relieve some of the distress I feel on witnessing acts of thoughtless insensitivity and it has become a way for me to process my anger and sorrow.

I know for myself that there is a limit to how much I am able to absorb without becoming so traumatized that I can no longer function. I can only have so many awful images in my brain, only so many gut-twisting, hand-wringing, full blown melt downs to contend with as I navigate this very thin line in wanting to educate myself, be aware, be conscious and an extreme desire to look the other way. My intense depression about our willingness to dismiss obvious suffering overwhelms and threatens to immobilize me at times. I fight the inclination to put my head back under the covers every single day. I just don’t want to hurt so much.

I have found that it hurts more to do nothing.

Perhaps it is the same for you. You surely have seen the reality of a dairy cow, the horror of a gestation crate, the grinding of male chicks. Egg laying chickens squeezed into tiny wire prisons, layer upon layer. The snipping of this and the snapping of that. The violence rendered to sheep during shearing. The devastation being inflicted on the creatures in the oceans. Fur farms. The PMU industry. The donkey skin trade. Lab animals. Petting zoos (where do all those cute little babies go?) The list of the horrors is very very long.

We are left with a vastness of suffering so incomprehensible as to render our ability to change the accepted norms almost impossible. Almost.

My route to change has been simple, if painful at times. It’s been about noticing. The noticing didn’t all come at once, but each noticing led to another and then another. I look back and wonder, how did I miss that? ‘Cos I missed a lot. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I chose not to notice. My love of cheese enabled me to look away from the reprehensible world of dairy for years. When that finally landed in my heart I thought I would curl up and die. I was so stricken at how I had manipulated my reasoning to allow myself such indulgences at the appalling cost of the animals involved. I haven’t quite forgiven myself for that, but one day I will.

When people tell me ‘but I like (fill in the blank) so much…’ I get it, I really do. And it hurts.

I suppose my rallying point is not being neutral on this subject. I have been blessed with opposable thumbs and those thumbs are going to hit the space bar and clutch the paint brush for as long as it takes to make a dent in the wall of disconnect and apathy towards all species, humans included. After the dent, I am going for complete demolition!

Silence is not the answer. And my heart has no room for a spin around the dance hall with Complacency.

There’s an awful lot to consider in animal welfare issues. How we are conditioned to view various species, how we presume to have greater moral rights than others, how we eat, our clothing choices, what we consider recreational, what we consider ours to use, misuse, abuse.

Farmed animals suffer in ways beyond imagination. They are no longer referred to, within the industry, as beings, much less sentient ones. They are numbers at best, machines most often, and waste products at worst. We have conveniently pushed aside the reality of millions upon millions of farmed animals. Instead, we sooth ourselves with the pictures we are comfortable with… the happy faced cow on the side of the truck heading to the local grocery store, the grinning pig extolling the delights of a bacon burger, the goofy eyed chicken keen as heck to pop out yet another over sized egg.

Surely local, small and organic is a solution to the inhumanity of industrial farming. Maybe, although my rambles around our neighbourhood indicate a lack of care for farm animals that is staggering in this area of affluence. Regardless of location, these animals are destined to end up on the dinner plate. Calves are still removed within hours of birth, the distress of their mothers ignored as the bucket and stool are placed for milking. Those calves, if male, maybe get a few weeks of life before becoming a veal cutlet. Their mothers are re-impregnated so that they can make another wee cow, perhaps this one destined for producing milk and once their milk production goes down, off to the slaughter house they will go. Or, if you prefer, abattoir, a fancy pants name for a knackers yard. Piglets are pulled from their mothers, the male chicks still get disposed of, the lambs become racks, shanks, chops.

Their sentience be damned. It may all happen on a smaller scale and with better living conditions but the story remains the same. Use, misuse, abuse.

Those turkeys that were strutting proudly on a Thursday, are gone on a Friday. Nobody sees them go, they just disappear in all their feathered glory. The flock of geese? Gone. The stock trailers come, and then they go, returning empty to get another load. We can hear them rattling down the road, we see them on the highway, we see the snouts pushed out, the cages tied down. A flick of an ear, the shine of a worried eye, the collective anxiety that triggers fear. Small, local and organic does not extract an automatic beautiful ending.

The only way I can process the agonizing reality of the world of omnivore, is to write, draw, and encourage my own limited reserves of compassion to grow. I have no wish to waggle an outraged finger at anyone’s choices. My finger has plenty to waggle at in my direction, more than enough to keep it busy. But I fervently hope to spark a tiny flame of inquisitiveness that might lead you to discovering your own way to putting less (no) meat on your plate, finding a plant-based milk and cheese alternative (so many options), ditching eggs from your diet, using cruelty free products, and making your own ripples in changing the world to being a kinder place for all of us.

Well. There you have it. A wee peek into a Wuzzle. If you read this far, I thank you! I understand how controversial animal agriculture can be for many folk. It isn’t a safe and friendly topic. It gets messy and complicated and highly volatile at times. It is incredibly emotional. There are a multitude of twists and turns in seeking the clarity of empathy, tolerance and cultural understanding needed to change a system of perception. Exhausting? Yes. Regenerative? Yes, absolutely.

If you are looking for a place to start in discovering more about animal agriculture, I highly recommend the following resources:

https://www.farmsanctuary.org Farm Sanctuary is a non-profit organization that pursues education, solutions to ending animal agriculture and compassionate vegan living. Plus tons of heart warming stories. Also hard stories.

earthlinged.org is amazing, and he doesn’t pull any punches on animal ethics and the environment.

Protest Kitchen: Fight Injustice, Save the Planet, and Fuel Your Resistance One Meal at a Time. Book by Carol J. Adams and Virginia Messina. This book is fascinating, empowering and inspiring.

Your feedback is always welcome, no matter what you have on your plate.

‘Til the next time, kristine