We Are All Connected
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

By Stephanie Bell
September 2013

"In the outer world the signs are all around us. Daily we see the physical signs of our ecological crisis: the glaciers melting, the floods and droughts. We may also sense the deep anxiety of a civilization that has lost its way, forgotten its primal connections to the sacred that alone can give real meaning...The first step is to recognize what is happening. We can no longer afford to be blinkered by the surface values of our materialistic culture...We need to relearn the wisdom of listening to life, feeling its  heartbeat, sensing its soul...All of life is sacred, every breath and every stone. This is one of the great secrets--everything is included."
~  Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
 
I read Vaughan-Lee's essay "The Call of the Earth" over the weekend in Parabola and was so moved. I continue to marvel at how simple the root of our world's complex and myriad problems really seems to be: in short, that we've forgotten all life is interdependent. Humans are part of, not separate from, the web of life, but living as if we are superior/separate allows us to justify and perpetuate countless horrors against "other" (in whatever way we've defined the word over the centuries).
 
Which brings me to PETA's latest expose [Please urge Linda Bean to stop tearing apart live, conscious animals] (please read/watch/share--it's compelling and I know how hard the investigative team that broke this case worked to bring these horrors to light), a perfect case in point. What gives us the right to inflict such needless pain and terror? Because animals taste good? Because it's profitable? Because we can? Because they are "other"? Because we delude ourselves that they cannot suffer, contrary to clear science? Or that their suffering, palpable though it may be, is worth our pleasure for one  meal?

As I always think in the depths of my despair: "It's a vegan world if we want it."
 
For animals everywhere, including the beautiful creatures who inhabit the sea, thank you for listening and watching, for taking action, and for asking the difficult questions that must be asked. In doing so lies hope.


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