Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Update on World's Vertebrate Loss

My sense that we are in trouble - big trouble - solidified when I read a report in 2014 that since 1970, humans had wiped out just over 50 percent of all of Earth's non-human vertebrate creatures. 

Intuition tells me (and I am confident I am not wrong) that humans cannot survive on Earth once we have lost all (or virtually all) other vertebrate life, because the life-sustaining functions of our biosphere depend upon ecosystems mostly intact, even if not healthful.

We (some humans) might be able to survive that loss, but it would be just that: survival. My sense is that most will question whether there remains any value in living in a world in that condition. Aside from the sheer physical and health challenges that would result, we would also be reckoning with the moral dilemma of having destroyed so large an amount of living beings. When we consider that all Life is truly One, we will find ourselves living out the final breaths of global suicide.

My "Doomsday Dharma" (my proposal that we ought to begin to stop trying to "save" the world and begin to learn to love and care for one another as we find ourselves in this hospice situation together) was predicated on this group’s 2014 report about the loss of 1/2 of the earth’s vertebrates. Today's update predicts a much more rapid die-off than I had envisioned just two years ago. 

This October 2016 report suggests that we will lose fully 2/3 of all vertebrate life as soon as only 3 years from now! That is much more rapid than even my own most dismal assessments, where I had calculated maybe 30 to 40 years for total vertebrate loss. Based upon this new report (assuming current trend in rate of loss), the most generous projection for a habitable Earth may be down to 25 or fewer years.

Shocking. Sad. 

And a wake-up call to begin learning to love and care for one another now more than at any other time in human history.

May all beings be well and free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Make McDonald's Make Meatless

Sign this petition to encourage McDonald's to make a meatless burger, in part to accommodate Millennials, 12% of which are vegetarian: https://www.change.org/p/mcdonald-s-it-s-time-for-a-healthy-meatless-option

May all beings be happy and free!

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Racing Extinction and SAM

Racing Extinction: A powerful new website and film: http://racingextinction.com/

And SAM - Social Action Machine: https://socialactionmachine.com/

Join me in signing up and participating in more actions to help save our beloved, divine Biosphere!

May all beings be well and happy.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Oct 4: Feast of St Francis and World Animal Day

Two celebrations of animals happen on October 4th: World Animal Day and the Feast of St Francis, a day in which some churches offer blessings for animals and pets and animal welfare, rescue and education are highlighted.

Let's hope that any "feasting" that happens on this day is fully vegetarian!

World Animal Day: http://www.worldanimalday.org.uk/about_us
Feast of St. Francis: http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/st-francis-assisi-feast

Here are some things you can do:

Read this article about a Buddhist who liberated rabbits (click here).

Make a donation to World Animal Protection by Oct 6 and your donation will be matched, dollar for dollar! https://www.worldanimalprotection.us.org/donate-today

May all beings be well and happy!

Anthropocene Anthropodenialism

I've thought this for years: we are intently looking for "aliens" while myriads of species have yet to be discovered here on Earth.

Recently, we discovered a new species and it went immediately onto the Endangered Species list. There are surely, and will be many more, entire species that we wipe out before we ever discover them.

This comes in part because of our misunderstanding of our place on this animal planet, and therefore our relationship and responsibility toward others.

Of course, animals have every right to be here as we have. I don't like the insistence of those who continue to say that we are the pinnacle of conscious evolution, nor ideas that we are the only beings who can "understand" our divinity. We may be the ones who have most forgotten it, based on how we behave toward others.

Here's an enjoyable article worth the read. It includes numerous links to other important and moving reports, articles and videos.

"Even Charles Darwin was ridiculed for claiming the lowly earthworm showed intelligence. Darwin pointed out that humans are animals over a century ago, but today he'd still face the same anthropodenialism.

"This outdated notion is based on a fundamental fallacy that assumes our unique form of intelligence makes us this planet's only true beings.

"The more we actively observe altruism and justice and pain and love and fear and play and politics and romance and commitment all around us, the harder it is to maintain a destructive distinction between us and them. And the more we click, the more clearly we see the fundamental problems of the Anthropocene Era and its rising seas, poisoned waters and mounting extinction.

"At long last, science is finally proving something millions of humans who live with 'pets' have known for years -- that animals are 'people,' too."

Read more....

May all beings be well and happy.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Fasting For Farm Animals

There is a movement and you can sign to pledge you will fast on Oct 2 in protest of the slaughter and treatment of farm animals! 


http://www.dayforanimals.org/unite

May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

BBC - Horses Can Communicate With Us


No surprise for those of us with close relationships with animals, this BBC Science report about findings that may offer more tools and awareness for those concerned with animal welfare:
Horses have joined a select group of animals that can communicate by pointing at symbols.
Scientists trained horses, by offering slices of carrot as an incentive, to touch a board with their muzzle to indicate if they wanted to wear a rug.
The horses' requests matched the weather, suggesting it wasn't a random choice.

The scientists hope that other researchers will use their method to ask horses more questions.  Read more....

Might we also be able - and willing - to ask questions of animals like cows, pigs and chickens?

May all beings be well and happy.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Karaniya Metta Sutta

"Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!"

"Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings"

~ (excerpts from:) Karaniya Metta Sutta: The Buddha's Words on Loving-Kindness

Listen to "Sangha 'Round The Campfire" on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCPYcfvLl1U

May all beings be loved. May all beings be happy and well.

Friday, September 9, 2016

After The Harvest

A compelling and touching article by Robert Jensen, "After the harvest — learning to leave the planet gracefully" http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/harvest-learning-leave-planet-gracefully/

I share Koplin’s sense of our responsibility here and can relate to this; this is central to my own sense of what needs to happen now:

“He loved people and planet in a way that made him yearn for a graceful, peaceful ending, much as one wishes for a graceful and peaceful ending for a person coming to the end of an individual life.”

I would go further than the following, though:

“Koplin told me that he remembered the moment as a young person when he realized that every human being’s brain worked the same way, which meant that every human being alive on the planet had the capacity to experience exactly the same range of emotions as he did.”

I feel confident that I have direct experience that all animals also feel the same breadth – and probably similar depth – of emotional experience as humans feel. To whatever extent I feel despair, it is about how brutally we treat our animal brothers and sisters – having killed off 51% of all vertebrate life on Earth since 1970 – as well as how we are misusing the Earth herself. My pessimism for the Earth’s future centers around the loss of that Life, which – because we know we are One with all Life – is actually suicide.

We are now in hospice, or should be, all of us together.

“I’m the positive one — by placing my faith in our collective ability to bear the truth that is beyond bearing, I am affirming the best aspects of our humanity, just like my friend Jim Koplin.”

And I, too, am more optimistic than pessimistic. While I feel we have no long-term future on Earth, I believe that we can learn to truly love one another and become kind to one another. If not, this whole experience will in a sense have been a waste. The Eternal Dharma is the Message of Love, only Love. If we can “save ourselves” in any meaningful sense of that, I will be by our capacity to uncover and act from genuine Love for all beings.

May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and causes of suffering.

PS: And this, just in: Scientists find that at the current rate of destruction, the planet’s wildlands will be gone within 50 years.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Message from Chief Arvol Looking Horse

Please read this critical message.

Along with finding alternative forms of energy, we need to drastically reduce consumption of energy, including water, while reducing output of toxins into the air, water and onto the land.

Factory Farming consumes vast amounts of water, strips natural green lands (animal habitats), and results in pollution of air (methane) and water and land (waste products). Over fishing is contributing to the destruction of our waterways and ocean ecosystems.

Along with meditating together on our interconnectedness, actions like reducing the amount of energy and water we use and reducing the kinds of Earth- and ocean-damaging foods we eat are essential for our children’s future.

One big step, also a compassionate one, is to limit consumption of factory farmed and ocean harvested animal products.

May all beings be well and free from suffering.

Love,
Shivadam


http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/08/26/important-message-keeper-sacred-white-buffalo-calf-pipe

Important Message from Keeper of Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
8/26/16

I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations, ask you to understand an Indigenous perspective on what has happened in America, what we call "Turtle Island." My words seek to unite the global community through a message from our sacred ceremonies to unite spiritually, each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator.

We have been warned from ancient prophecies of these times we live in today, but have also been given a very important message about a solution to turn these terrible times.

To understand the depth of this message you must recognize the importance of Sacred Sites and realize the interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of the continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and our own Americas.

I have been learning about these important issues since the age of 12 when I received the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and its teachings. Our people have strived to protect Sacred Sites from the beginning of time. These places have been violated for centuries and have brought us to the predicament that we are in at the global level.

Look around you. Our Mother Earth is very ill from these violations, and we are on the brink of destroying the possibility of a healthy and nurturing survival for generations to come, our children's children.

Our ancestors have been trying to protect our Sacred Site called the Sacred Black Hills in South Dakota, "Heart of Everything That Is," from continued violations. Our ancestors never saw a satellite view of this site, but now that those pictures are available, we see that it is in the shape of a heart and, when fast-forwarded, it looks like a heart pumping.

The Diné have been protecting Big Mountain, calling it the liver of the earth, and we are suffering and going to suffer more from the extraction of the coal there and the poisoning processes used in doing so.

The Aborigines have warned of the contaminating effects of global warming on the Coral Reefs, which they see as Mother Earth's blood purifier.

The indigenous people of the rainforest say that the rainforests are the lungs of the planet and need protection.

The Gwich'in Nation in Alaska has had to face oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, also known to the Gwich'in as "Where life begins."

The coastal plain is the birthplace of many life forms of the animal nations. The death of these animal nations will destroy indigenous nations in this territory.

As these destructive developments continue all over the world, we will witness many more extinct animal, plant, and human nations, because of mankind's misuse of power and their lack of understanding of the "balance of life."

The Indigenous people warn that these destructive developments will cause havoc globally. There are many, many more indigenous teachings and knowledge about Mother Earth's Sacred Sites, her chakras, and connections to our spirit that will surely affect our future generations.

There needs to be a fast move toward other forms of energy that are safe for all nations upon Mother Earth. We need to understand the types of minds that are continuing to destroy the spirit of our whole global community. Unless we do this, the powers of destruction will overwhelm us.

Our Ancestors foretold that water would someday be for sale. Back then this was hard to believe, since the water was so plentiful, so pure, and so full of energy, nutrition and spirit. Today we have to buy pure water, and even then the nutritional minerals have been taken out; it's just empty liquid. Someday water will be like gold, too expensive to afford.

Not everyone will have the right to drink safe water. We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites, ripping out the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them as if Mother Earth were simply a resource, instead of the source of life itself.

Attacking nations and using more resources to carry out destruction in the name of peace is not the answer! We need to understand how all these decisions affect the global nation; we will not be immune to its repercussions. Allowing continual contamination of our food and land is affecting the way we think.

A "disease of the mind" has set in world leaders and many members of our global community, with their belief that a solution of retaliation and destruction of peoples will bring peace.

In our prophecies it is told that we are now at the crossroads: Either unite spiritually as a global nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives' eyes.

We are the only species that is destroying the source of life, meaning Mother Earth, in the name of power, mineral resources, and ownership of land. Using chemicals and methods of warfare that are doing irreversible damage, as Mother Earth is becoming tired and cannot sustain any more impacts of war.

I ask you to join me on this endeavor. Our vision is for the peoples of all continents, regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together as one at their Sacred Sites to pray and meditate and commune with one another, thus promoting an energy shift to heal our Mother Earth and achieve a universal consciousness toward attaining Peace.

As each day passes, I ask all nations to begin a global effort, and remember to give thanks for the sacred food that has been gifted to us by our Mother Earth, so the nutritional energy of medicine can be guided to heal our minds and spirits.

This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end of life as we know it. Starvation, war, and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the great myth of progress and development that ruled the last millennium.

To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction. You yourself are the one who must decide.

You alone – and only you – can make this crucial choice, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.

Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.

Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?

Know that you yourself are essential to this world. Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse is the author of White Buffalo Teachings. A tireless advocate of maintaining traditional spiritual practices, Chief Looking Horse is a member of Big Foot Riders, which memorializes the massacre of Big Foot's band at Wounded Knee.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Friday, August 19, 2016

A Spiritual Awakening


HSUS's Wayne Pacelle will be joining Oprah Winfrey on this Sunday's episode of "Super Soul Sunday" on OWN. Wayne writes:

Oprah and I share the belief that our lives are forever enriched by the many animals in our world. We are in the midst of a growing global consciousness when it comes to our treatment of these wondrous creatures. On "Super Soul Sunday," I sit down with Oprah to discuss my new book, "The Humane Economy," as well as this unprecedented spiritual awakening in our treatment of animals, and how it’s one of the fundamental questions in our society. 



Watch an exclusive clip of our conversation» 

I hope you will join us in this conversation and tune in this Sunday, August 21 at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. on OWN for a conversation that everyone should hear. 


May all beings be happy and free!


Thursday, August 11, 2016

Cashew the Cow and Vegan Cheese



On a small dairy farm in Pennsylvania, a Jersey cow welcomed her first calf – a baby boy with an inspiring story detailing the difference that compassion makes. From his first moments, little Cashew knew nothing but love from both his mother and his owner, a kindhearted woman who started the dairy with her husband because she loved cows and wanted to see them treated well. As a vegetarian, she wanted to be a different kind of farmer; she didn’t want to follow industry standards which dictate that the boys, who cannot produce milk, are slaughtered for veal or cheap beef in order to sustain profits.

Read more....

May all beings be well and happy!

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

World Elephant Day!

World Elephant Day is Friday, August 12th.

How will you celebrate and spread awareness on this special day?

Launched in 2012, World Elephant Day continues to shine global attention on the plight of African and Asian elephants.  Honoring this special day provides us with an opportunity to bring the world together to help conserve and protect elephants from the numerous threats they face each and every day.

Learn more....

May all beings be happy and free!

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Help Protect Big Cats

Camera CATalogue - a new website from Zooniverse and Panthera that allows citizen scientists like you to protect big cats by simply looking at and identifying photos of wildlife!

Today, Panthera works in 50 countries around the globe to protect big cats and their vast landscapes. Motion-activated camera traps are used to count cats and their prey species, identify where they live, and determine how conservation efforts are helping to protect these animals.

These cameras produce thousands of images of fascinating animals, from the iconic leopard and rhino to the lesser-known aardwolf and civet. While certainly high-tech, these cameras do not distinguish between animal species. That is why we need your help to identify the big cats and other wildlife in these photos.

Log onto the Camera CATalogue now and help identify the amazing wildlife in these camera trap images. It’s a fun way to spend a few minutes (or a few hours), test and improve your animal knowledge (who knew what a gemsbok was?!) and support efforts to better protect leopards, other wildlife and their landscapes…without ever leaving your chair!

Get started right now at www.zooniverse.org/projects/panthera-research/camera-catalogue

May all beings be happy and free!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

The Rights of Nature

Visit the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and sign the pledge!


May all beings be well and happy, free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Monday, July 11, 2016

Shop With Your Heart

Dear Animal Lover,

The ASPCA, long known for its great accomplishments in stopping and also helping to prosecute animal abusers, has a new campaign which engages your shopping dollars in the cause of kindness to animals.


If you purchase meat, eggs or dairy, you have more power than you know. By buying welfare-certified animal products, or more plant-based products, you send a strong message to food companies that you care about the treatment of farm animals.

Will you sign the "Shop With Your Heart Pledge" with me?

http://www.aspca.org/shopwithyourheart

May all beings be well and happy!

Saturday, July 9, 2016

New Movie: At The Fork

If you eat meat (or even if you do not), please consider watching this new movie, which follows the track of how your meat gets to your table, then share with friends.

Friends don't let friends eat animals!

Visit the website and watch the trailer:

http://attheforkfilm.com/

May all beings be free, well and happy.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Vegan Milk and Humane Meats

We're looking forward to trying Ripple Foods' plant-based milk. Check out this great info!

The Bay Area fosters a culture of forward thinkers and new ways to solve problems in our world, including in our food system. Ripple Foods is one such startup in Silicon Valley hoping to disrupt the dairy industry with pea protein.

The company joins a growing list of game-changing food startups that have launched out of the lab and into the consumer market in just the last few years. Memphis Meats uses animal cells to make lab-grown beef, Impossible Foods makes a plant-based burger and Clara Foods uses yeast to produce egg whites without the chicken.

We’re told milk does a body good, but the dairy industry can be a dirty business, polluting our environment and pumping large amounts of methane into the air — the biggest contributor to global warming. And Ripple founders wanted to do something about it, so they turned to the humble pea.

Read more....

May all beings be free, well and happy.

Friday, June 10, 2016

The Chicken

May all beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Sad, But True (Almost)

Actually, far more people get off easy for abusing animals than are ever punished for it.



Let's stop abusing all animals, eh?

May all beings - without exception - be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Emotional Lives of Animals

Based on award-winning scientist Marc Bekoff’s years studying social communication in a wide range of species, this important book shows that animals have rich emotional lives. Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories of animal joy, empathy, grief, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense and experience have long implied.

Explore The Emotional Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff

May all beings everywhere be happy and free!

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Metta Day

metta (Pali: "love; loving friendliness, loving kindness")


"Be kind to all creatures; this is the true religion." - the Buddha

May all beings be well and happy!

Monday, June 6, 2016

The Bug Vac

Some time after I stopped killing bugs altogether (except the occasional aedes aegypti mosquito*), I discovered a device that has become one of my very favorite tools: the Bug Vac. 

 Bug Vac at Amazon.com

Its purpose is more to do with helping children humanely capture, study, and release insects and arachnids, but it works wonderfully as a household "pest" removal system.

With a wish to do no harm, this well designed insect vacuum-catcher has never harmed a single creature in all the many hundreds I have captured and relocated to the outdoors over the years.

If you too would prefer not to kill spiders, flies and other small critters that you don't want in your house, the Bug Vac will prove well worth every penny of its already low price!

It's extremely effective and also energy efficient. I only recently replaced the slightly worn down AA batteries I had been using for about 10 years' time.

Look at the Bug Vac at Amazon.com. While similar devices are offered, this is the one I recommend.

May ALL beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering!

---
* I more and more make exception with the unfortunate aedes aegypti mosquito, non-native, invasive species and confirmed vector of diseases including West Nile, Yellow Fever, Dengue and more recently, Zika. Prevention of breeding is far more effective than killing them, though. Learn more...

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Summer - Too Hot for Dogs!

Sadly, I see people walking their dogs in Phoenix when it is over 100 degrees outside. These are people who - giving the benefit of doubt - probably have not lived in the Valley very long.

If you can't hold your palm comfortably against the ground indefinitely, then it is too hot to walk your dog!! You have shoes. At these temps, your dog's feet will become painfully blistered, requiring a trip to the vet and follow-on treatment.

The ground surface temps may be as hot as 120 or more, while the near-ground temperature that the dog experiences is at least 11 degrees warmer than the temperature the person experiences!

Even worse and so tragically, really unconscious people may leave their pets (and even their children!) in cars in the summer in Phoenix, resulting in many deaths and serious injury each year.

If you see a pet in danger in a car, you can respond in various ways. Here is a great report from our local TV news about what you can and should do:

http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/what-to-do-if-you-see-a-pet-in-a-hot-car

May all beings be well and free of suffering and the causes of suffering! SVAHA

More Great Orgs

Check out the wonderful work of these fine Orgs:

ChimpHaven.org

AnimalPlace.org

May ALL beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Wayne's Blog

Visit the Humane Society of the US's president Wayne Pacelle's blog for lots of info, news and resources to help support animal well-being and happiness worldwide.

http://blog.humanesociety.org/wayne/2016

May all beings be well and happy!

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Report from the Mosque: Animals in Islam

Last night, we attended an open house at a Mosque here. The purpose was for people to come and learn about al-Islam.


Toward the end of the Q-and-A period, I asked the Imam (pic, above) the following question, which went like this:

"Asalaam aleikum. (He and most attendees responded, 'Waleikum asalaam'.) Hindu people hold the cow as sacred, as Divine Mother, almost like how Christians might view Mary. I grew up here, and most people I know keep pets in their homes - cats or dogs and such - and cherish them, consider them part of their family. My wife and I have a dog who is our 'child' in a very meaningful sense. I am wondering if in the Hadith or Qur'an there is any mention of our proper relationship with animals, and if you would speak to that?"

The Imam gave a pretty sweet answer. Between my poor hearing and his accent, I did not catch every word, but I got most of it. The Imam began his answer by saying it was a very good question and that he appreciated it. He explained that though Muslims are not vegetarian, they do keep Halal and Kosher rules, partly to ensure compassion for animals. He explained that Mohammed stopped the practice of using animals for "target practice" and that he told people who ride camels to get down off of the camels when they stop to meet, in order to let the camels rest; also, that no animal - bird, fish, etc. - should be killed or harmed in any way, aside from for eating them.

Afterwards, in the fellowship period, several people approached me to follow up. One was a US soldier who had served in Iraq since after the Gulf War who said he is going vegetarian now because he has come to see that "it is not right to kill and eat animals when we don't need to." Two separate Muslims came to me (one Egyptian, the other white American) with the following two stories from the Hadith:

There was a very bad criminal who one day found a cat out in the rain and took it into his home to dry and warm it, feed it, care for it, and that ALL of his previous sins were wiped clean by this one act. In the other version, it was a prostitute who saw a thirsty dog trying to get water, so she gave it water and all her sins were wiped clean.

Nice!

May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

World Animal Protection

We are World Animal Protection

We end the needless suffering of animals
We influence decision makers to put animals on the global agenda
We inspire people to change animals' lives for the better
We move the world to protect animals

Visit their site.

May all beings be happy and free!

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

If A Tree Falls

This 1988 song by Bruce Cockburn so beautifully, powerfully speaks.... And yet, so many years later, the "cortege rhythm" continues unabated....

The forests fall. Please listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErS9HCh8GfE

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing lobotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam -
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills -
Cortege rhythm of falling timber.

What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
These brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
Take out trees
Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day
Take out people who've lived with this for 100,000 years -
Inject a billion burgers worth of beef -
Grain eaters - methane dispensers.

Through thinning ozone,
Waves fall on wrinkled earth -
Gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
Speak of a drowning -
But this, this is something other.
Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
Where wild things have to go
To disappear
Forever

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

May all beings be well and happy.


Sunday, May 22, 2016

Goldfish Compassion

I can never forget the sad, but surprising and beautiful story about my goldfish.

I had rescued some "feeder fish," and they lived happily in my pond where they grew quite large. There were five, and one developed a classic case of "fin rot." In order to treat it, I set up a relatively shallow temporary hospital tank near the pond and put this fish in. I turned away to attend to something, and this was a mistake. The fish, unbeknownst to me, leapt out of the tub onto the dry patio. I returned a few minutes later and discovered, to my horror, the fish barely flopping and a bit parched. I quickly dispatched it back into the pond with the other fish, then watched hopefully to see if it would survive.

Very much to my surprise, I observed the other four fish swimming near the injured one. Working together, they proceeded to support their companion from underneath as they pushed him around near the surface of the water! They worked as a team, some supporting the fish from underneath, others flanking him, and taking shifts as they moved the injured fish forward so that water would move through its gills. Weakly, it struggled to survive, barely able to move its fins and gulp water as the diligent companions continued to offer their emergency services. I watched, amazed, for nearly a half an hour as this scene continued.

As with most fish, and certainly these, feeding time is a time of frenzied focus as they rush to eat their fill. I wondered if these, both the injured one and its helpers, needed to eat, and whether, if I fed them at this point, the helpers would abandon their friend for the food. As they had not been fed that day, I needed to feed them, anyway. I put the usual amount of flakes onto the surface of the water. But, surprisingly and very much out of character, not a single fish endeavored to eat a single morsel of the sinking food flakes. They, instead, continued to buoy the injured fish about near the water’s surface for many ensuing hours without so much as taking a bite!

Sadly, their efforts would fail. I later found the injured fish at the bottom of the pond. As I buried him pond-side, I reveled in the amazing lesson I had learned about the capacity for fish to exhibit compassion and self-sacrifice. What else could explain this behavior?


May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.