I was chatting with Anna Brix Thomsen this morning and we were discussing 'animal production facilities'. I did not realize the extent of these facilities - how big they are and how many of them exist. I also did not realize that these facilities are where the majority of our meat that we eat comes from as I live in an area of the United States that has been mostly cut off from the rest of the world, there are many beings that still farm here in rural areas, and I wanted very much to believe that these cows, pigs and chickens that I am eating had a good, happy life before they died.
So, this was a eye-opener for me. It -should- have been obvious that the majority of the meat that I consume is from/of living, breathing creatures that never see a pasture, a patch of grass, or experience the feel of a gentle breeze against their flesh ... obvious because there are very few actual working farms and farmers. Myself, I was raised to believe that farming was hard, painful, and non-profitable work - why would anyone accept the hard life of farming if they did not have to? There was someone else out there somewhere that would raise all happy farm animals for me to eat and not only were they really good at it, they were also content doing it! Go me! Within my imagination, it was a win-win scenario.
Anna suggested that I watch the documentary 'Earthlings'.
At 17:28 minutes out of 1:23:22, I had to stop watching. I stopped the documentary, shot up from my seat, walked out the room and began to pace. Within me I said, "I can't watch this ..." I soothed myself by telling myself that I 'don't have to watch this'.
I realize that this soothing of myself by telling myself that I 'can not' and 'do not have to' watch this is me trying to get away and not take responsibility for a reaction. And where I am reacting, I see that I have investigate. Another concern is that I left the room and became very uncomfortable with myself and myself in my physical body - there's something within what I was seeing at that moment about myself that scared me to an adrenaline-survival point.
The image is still burned into my mind:
A dog is thrown under a garbage crushing truck that is leaking liquid -- I thought, "Okay, okay. The dog is going to be okay. He's just under the truck and there's some sort of nasty stuff dripping on him. They're not going to put him in there ..." In the next moment, from a visual cue to 'go' from a man standing off to the side, another man throws the dog into the back of the garbage truck and they turn on the crusher...
This is where I stopped the documentary and experienced/directed myself with my 'I Can't Watch This' Character.
I'll be sharing self-forgiveness in my next blog.
Thanks for sharing Carrie. When I watched Earthlings I also wanted to get up and leave. And it is the same with the farms where the conditions of the animals are "out of mind, out of sight". This turning away from facing what is here, is exactly that through which we as humans are continuing to support the abuse of animals - and life in general. So it is a cool opportunity to make a decision to face what is here directly and to apply self-forgiveness for any reactions that come up, realizing that this will not go away by us turning our eyes away - quite the contrary. And we're here to support each other with how to face what is here in such a way that we can move ourselves to make the decision to stand up to change and make sure that abuse is abolished from our world for eternity and not hesitate or stop until not one single being is ever abused again.
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