Blossomfire's Blog

PEACE meal

blossomfire — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:31:50 +0000

Whenever I leaflet about veganism and animal rights, I run into people with whom I become engaged in conversation. Very often they want to sign up for our e-newsletter “ROAR!” (Reaching Out for Animal Rights!). (If you’d like to sign up for our e-newsletter, simply go to our website goROAR.org (and click on “subscribe”). We’d love you to join our community.

The Look: Four Legged Person w/Horns in Forest

I’m currently writing an introductory email to a woman who is getting her Master’s Degree in “Peace and Transformation.” I asked her how she can be studying this subject and yet not be a vegan. It amazes me that people don’t make the connection. My theory is that if we want Peace on the Planet, Peace in our Hearts, how can we have blood, suffering and violence on our very own plates? I’m hoping the quotes below (by famous people) will convince her (and anyone else who needs convincing) of the need to go vegan and urge others to do the same, if we want Peace on the Planet.

Giraffe with head in clouds

Quotes linking Peace on the Planet with Peace on our Plates:

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“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” ~ Tolstoy

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“… there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil …. But millions of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. And that is the unpardonable crime.” Romain Rolland, author, Nobel Prize 1915

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“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more it is entitled to protection by (hu)man(s) from the cruelty of (hu)man(s). … The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948

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Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. Albert Einstein

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The meat industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this and the last century, all the natural disasters, and all the automobile accidents combined. Neal D. Barnard, M.D

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“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” Dr Albert Schweitzer 1875-1965

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“Thou shalt not kill” does not apply to murder of one’s own kind only, but to all living beings; and this Commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai. ~ Leo Tolstoy

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“If you have (hu)men(s) who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have (hu)men(s) who will deal likewise with their fellow (hu)men(s).” Saint Francis of Assisi 1181-1226

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“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” Pythagoras, mathematician

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In what state of mind was the first man who … brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, and ventured to call food, the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. Plutarch (Ancient Greek historian)

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“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they’re the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.” Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel Prize 1978

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“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” ~ Immanuel Kant

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A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses. ~ George Bernard Shaw

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If you’re not vegan, you’re not vegetarian. ~ V.L. Allineare

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An injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr

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Can you hear this?

“Animal liberation is also human liberation. Animal liberationists care about the quality of life for all. We recognize our kinship with all feeling beings. We identify with the powerless and the vulnerable * the victims, all those dominated, oppressed and exploited. And it is the non-human animals whose suffering is the most intense, widespread, expanding, systematic and socially sanctioned of all.” ~ Henry Spira (1927-1998)

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We have … treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. ~ William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays, 1922.

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In all the round world of utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses …. I can still remember as a boy the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughterhouse. H.G. Wells’ Utopia

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The awful wrongs and sufferings forced upon the innocent, helpless, faithful animal race, form the bleakest chapter in the whole world’s history.~ Edward Freeman (1823-1892)

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I felt the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other … but in their practice of killing animals for food and sport. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life.~Dick Gregory

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“Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. .”~Eugene V. Debs

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“All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life.” Buddha

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I have from an early age abjured the use of meat. And the time will come when people such as I will look upon the murder of animals the way we now look upon the murder of people. ~ Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519

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Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. Albert Einstein

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A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses. ~ George Bernard Shaw

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You dig?

towards an egalitarian, communally shared, sustainable, vegan, peaceful, just and loving world …

First post came second. Who’s on third?

blossomfire — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:28:13 +0000

This is my first blog, so hold on tight. We’re all in for a ride here. I’ll begin, water down a mountain, some flow of thoughts.

Bird's Sigh, View

Why I’m reaching out, my uniqueness to touch yours and truth to blossom, a fire to catch, a word, wind, the boisterous breeze and there it is ~ a prairie fire with only one spark. And the life I’ve lived up till these bones and muscles have sauntered across some speck of earth, experienced some semblance of a life, some brave miracle of interactions with the other, (others), self and sentience.

Path of Sun Sparkles (on E. River between 2 Bridges)

A firm believer in sharing those experiences, whispering to dandelion seeds, blowing and spawning, fetus, fertility, the magic of interconnectedness, of stars smiling and human hearts heeding the echo of … the infinite One, who We are.

So this is just a spot, a little dog devotedly checking in with the you … the eye, the ear of the x-factor, the all that is not me, but is the we. the silly, the friendly, excited, the zeitgeist and gutsy, the calm and clammy, the calumny, the luminous. Just a beginning, a baby of totter, an ink blotter of thoughts, feelings, frenzies and fantasies. Join me before the bulwark of time’s tyrannies triumph. Join me in peace and piecemeal. In passion and persistence. I am grace and with grace await. Your response.

What Breed of Dog are You?

blossomfire — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:25:42 +0000

I took two of our three dogs to the dog run this afternoon. Sun on face. In the center of a whirlwind of K-9′s smelling, playing, chasing. A woman sat next to me. What kind of breed dog? A King Charles and a Spaniel.

Diamond shadows drift above sleeping maid and dreaming dogs.

i thought that King Charles was a type of Spaniel, not a separate breed of dog. And of course, now that I’m here at my Googly eyed computer, I’m sure of it but that lead to her telling me that she had Googled the longest words, longer than antidisestablishmentterrianism. Her friend had mentioned a protein that was even longer. She told me that the longest single syllabled word was schmaltzed and strengthed. So words worked their way to writing and to the fact that she’s re-editing her first novel.

Her novel has a 75 year old narrator remembering her childhood from age seven to fourteen, a childhood which took place in the sixties. The mother is a hippie, she explained to me, so there’s a lot of sex, drugs and rock and roll, somewhat autobiographical.

I told her about my being in my sixties and having lived through the sixties, now thinking of relaying those experiences. In shorthand, I told her how I’d joined a non denominational Christian order, learning about the laws of creation, visualization, child of the Universe, you have a right to be here, no less than the trees and the stars. And yes I blossomed, like a missionary, full of purpose, salvation of life, no less. I wore a wooden cross on a string, walking through the streets of San Francisco, doing healings and drawing energy from … the One.

And is it so different from dialectical and historical materialism? The communism of communal life, of sharing the wealth and wonder of society and the means of making more wonder and more wealth. These laws that nature obeys, hard gravity, soft love, attraction of large and small bodies, laws of nature, laws of society, the dialectics of opposites, opposites turning into one other, day into night, hot into cold, up into down, the ying yang, the sing song sang of every bird, of every word by word, of every whirling world and orbiting orb.

Sky and Cloudy and Me

Curious dogs came by to smell my fast speech. Being the devil’s advocate of the spiritual within the political and vica versa. Tails wagging mainly because i love to pet, soft fur, the luxury and miracle of feeling touch. Did i make my point? You’d have to know me better. And you will. And it turned out that i had a contact of a publisher, a woman specifically interested in her genre, pre teen and teens. Vampires sell and suck. I’m just saying.

And I told her about Tolstoy being a vegetarian and revolutionary who abandoned his wealth to live amongst his serfs. And Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author. Was he murdered because of his political beliefs, his strong vegetarian stand? There, the waves, he in the boat, killed, drowned, the water washing, over. And over. So there’s more. There’s wet. There’s wild. There’s mystery behind and beneath. Sand in the dog run. Barks and bites. And duty calls. I bid adieu, much ado. About noting.

Eye to eye, touch to wagging tail.

Hello world!

blossomfire — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:50:55 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!