I am not really big on celebrating holidays. The word HOLIDAY comes
from holy day. One of the most sacred holidays for me is Earth Day.
The only change I would make to the date of the celebration is to make
it 365 days of the year. I also love Mother’s Day, but for me it is
also every day of the year and it focuses on non-human and human mothers
who routinely have their young taken away. This callous separation of
close-knit families is always done for greed/profit. Whether it is a
human child sold as a slave to pay a family debt, a calf torn away from
his or her mother so that humans can steal her milk, a young elephant
stolen so he or she can be trained to do unnatural acts for human
entertainment, an adult chimp killed and her baby stolen for invasive
experimentation and a life of imprisonment or a puppy sold by a puppy
mill while still at an age where he should be with his mother….all cause
intense emotional pain for both mother and child.
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Most holidays have completely lost their meaning. Very few people
know that most holidays mean more than an extra day or two off work. We
are trained from early on in our lives that it is OK to have major
inconsistencies in what we say we care about and how we actually choose
to live our lives. When the Be Kind To Animals Week banner is stretched
across the same wall at the school where the hamburgers are listed on
the school lunch menu or we hear “peace on earth” repeatedly for a
holiday that consists of buying a bunch of stuff and eating animals, we
learn that holidays are not about their original intention.
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I
tabled at three large events for Earth Day week. Our table had
outreach material for compassionate environmentally responsible and
healthy food choices. We were the vegan table. Two of the events
included people selling or displaying baby goats, piglets and young
chicks. The food sold at these two events was 95% animal products. The
smell of grilling flesh permeated the air for both full days. One
person came up to our booth and said, “You may have the only booth that
is appropriate for Earthday.” I actually found a few other booths that
sold appropriate items like organic local seedlings and solar cookers
and some trying to preserve wild lands and care for animals. But, for
the most part, the events were just parties and most people attending
were not giving earth-friendly choices much attention.
My third tabling was at a local college. Most people zoomed by the
table not wanting to know about anything that may change their consumer
habits. One man was wearing a t-shirt that had the word PRIVILEGE with
the red cross-out over it. He was telling his friend that he would
never even consider being vegetarian. I piped in that he may not want
to wear that shirt while saying that. He was very quiet from that point
on.
.
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An older woman came by the table and quietly watched the Farm to
Fridge film I had running continuously throughout the day. This
incredible Mercy for Animals compilation includes a look at the violent
realities of food animal industries. This woman said to me, “We would
never do it this way. This is terrible. We do it the traditional way,
the kind way.” I asked her what the kind way was. “We just shoot them
in the head,” she responded proudly. Then she continued, “They send the
women into the house and then shoot them in the head. It is very
quick.” I asked her, “If it is a kind way, why do they send the women
into the house?” She got a distant look and then just kept repeating,
“This is awful, we do it the kind way….this is awful, we do it the kind
way.” I told her that in my family we decided that the kind way was to
not unnecessarily kill any living being. She grabbed a little literature
and then wandered off, still saying “We do it the kind way, we do it
the kind way.”
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I would love to see Earth Day not only celebrated everyday, but to
see it celebrated with some actual mindfulness about how our personal
choices affect the earth and all her inhabitants. We can all work to
make our local Earth Day celebrations retain some of the integrity they
were meant to have. Go ahead and get your face painted, dance to some
good music, celebrate with friends, and make sure that every booth,
product and message is consistent with caring for the Earth.
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Tabling is not my favorite form of outreach, but on my most sacred
of holidays, Earth Day, I am more than willing to give my time and
energy to at least trying to preserve a little bit of the original
intention of the day and be a voice for the voiceless.
