Heidi StephensonThe Ten Requirements (and reminders to self...)
Animal Rights Poetry By Heidi Stephenson From All-Creatures.org

Poems of compassion dedicated to the non-human animals who share this planet with us and the people who fight for them.

The Ten Requirements (and reminders to self…)
By Heidi Stephenson

After watching Extinction: The Facts last night on the BBC, the sense of urgency has just gone up and up... So many feel powerless about what to personally do...That was my motivation for this piece...

  1. Become a nonviolent vegan. Keep your cravings in check by developing empathy.
  2. Start growing in gardens, allotments, tubs, window boxes, (but respect wildlife corridors and need for food, and don’t use plastics, wire or pesticides.)
  3. Stop Consuming. Eat less. Waste less. Mend more. Share more. Appreciate more.
  4. Abstain from all Death cult ‘products’ now: wool, leather, fur, plucked feathers, palm oil, “Made in China;” check labels. “Do, as you would be done by” (the Golden Rule.)
  5. Educate yourself and others. Find out. Speak out! Use the internet; demand political change; demonstrate. Expose. Reveal. The truth must come out!
  6. Liberate…End the Cage Age. Become a protector, a healer. Atone for aeons of rapacious, destructive humanity through Right Action.
  7. Stop breeding. Give your loving care to those already in existence…all beings.
  8. Take responsibility for your carbon foot-print: stop flying, driving, bathing, ‘baking’ in over-heated houses, buying “new” homes and “second” homes. Think “local,” awaken to the wonders on your doorstep. Re-green the cities, to spare the greenbelt.
  9. Take your power back, and use it for Good. “Be the change you want to see in the world,” “Live simply, so that others may simply live” (Mahatma Ghandi). Remember that “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” (Francis of Assisi)
  10. Recognise that the only real ‘currency’ of any value… is KINDNESS.
    Please watch and share Extinction: The Facts.

©Heidi Stephenson, September 2020

FYI: From the BBC.co.uk: BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry, it’s due to rights issues.


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