RE: Plants: Green Backdrop for Human Life? | EcoTrain Question of the Week
I love the point you make about seeing ourselves as a part of nature, not above it. We have a problem with hierarchies and elitism in general as humans, partiuwhen it comes to how we view other species.
I also resonate with how you talk about life eating life and the naturalness of that. We can make responsible choices about how we do that, but ultimately we cannot escape the fact that in order to survive we must eat things that are alive... or at least were before we decided to eat them. And this doesn’t have to be an act of violence. Life consuming itself is not by nature a violent act. We must give up our shame around this so that we can come into deeper intimacy with how we eat and actually become more non-violent than guilt will ever allow us to be.
yessss!! your last paragraph brings up so much passion in me! this deep sacred respect for everything we take in is so important as it is unavoidable and the furtherance of life is made up of this "i give my body for you" type of thing. it always strikes me as odd that by and large we do not connect this very sacred act of eating with our spiritual traditions (well some do, but for the masses it is more a "material" thing). i think humans have largely forgotten and are on autopilot- that's just food! (not knowing its source or previous life.)
the disconnection so many people have to what they eat i think is the root of this. it's also a fairly recent thing, too, for humanity as in the past most people were connected to their food. it's very humbling to grow things and eat them and even moreso to save the seed. it is so very empowering and truly i believe one of the most radical acts that humanity can return to. thanks for your thoughtful comment!