Friday, December 15, 2017

The Third Day of Christmas - Take the RED Pill!

Before I begin today's post --

I want to share a powerful quote by Eleanor Roosevelt and I want to ask you to be brave. Can you do that? Today's post is a bit of a toughie.

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you cannot do."

Read on fearless and noble reader for by doing so, I'm asking you to...


TAKE THE RED PILL


As you may well know by now I've taken a pledge to go Vegan for the month of January. The truth is, the second I started watching some of the documentaries on my list, it was game over for me. That was kind of it. There really was no choice to make because once I knew the truth about what really goes on behind the closed barn door and behind the locked office of big pharma, there was no going back.

In fact, the only way I can describe it is to say I felt like Neo in The Matrix when Morpheus offers him a choice between the red pill and the blue pill. 

He says: "Take the blue pill, the story ends. Take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."



I took the RED pill and I implore you to do the same. 

If you're anything like me, you don't want to watch animals being tortured. You know it goes on but you don't want to see it. You won't catch me watching Earthlings anytime soon. I can't handle it.

Believe me I KNOW, it's so much easier NOT to see it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening. It's happening. And it's happening at such an alarming rate that if people were to kill each other at the same rate we're killing animals on this planet, we'd be extinct in 17 days! Seventeen days people. That's insane.

If you want to see something really scary, just look at my face after a day of only gentle documentaries. I'm such a light weight. Gah!


So sad. So heartbroken. All I can do is take heart in knowing that I am doing everything in my power to not contribute to the carnage.

As mentioned, one of the best documentaries I have seen thus far is Vegucated it's just everyday ordinary people like you and me daring to try out a plant based diet for a mere six weeks and it fundamentally changed them. The film helped me make this choice. But there was another video I watched that spoke to me on an even deeper level and it was just one dude talking. One very passionate, dedicated activist dude, but he got through to me and I'd love for you to be brave enough to take the red pill and allow him to show you how deep the rabbit hole goes too. Well, not show you so much as use logic and reason to tell you and have you realize it for yourself.

His name is Gary Yourofsky and the video is of him talking to some students in a university lecture hall. The time you spend with Gary will not be wasted I can assure you, the man is powerful. My beautiful Sonya over at Be Love Infinity told me this was a must see and she was not wrong. Take a look here...




Listen - What goes on in animal agriculture is an ugly truth, but learning about it and educating myself was enough for me to say ENOUGH, we cannot keep doing this to innocent creatures. We just can't. And I know change is hard and scary and none of us wants to be traumatized but animals are being brutally traumatized every minute of every day of their too short lives.

That Eleanor Roosevelt quote once again...

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you cannot do."

A few days ago, I shared He Who Shall Not Be Named's story about cows and the mom and pop happy dairy farm. Now I want to talk to you about eggs. Surely eggs can't be bad especially when I buy them from free range happy chickens right?

I thought this for so long. I'd pay the extra 2 or 3 or sometimes even 5 dollars for the carton of eggs that I believed had come from the happiest most well fed chickens with a good life. Don't get me wrong, if a chicken is lucky enough to land on a small free range organic farm, they probably do have a decent life, but do you have any idea what the fuck goes on before they get there?! I'm not going to show images because I can't. I will not perpetuate the violence, but Ima talk about it. Oh you know Ima talk about it. Red pill people. Red pill.

Every single egg-laying hen comes from a hatchery. I bet you can guess what happens there. Eggs are hatched en masse. But what comes out of those eggs is anyone's guess. They can be boy chicks or girl chicks. Obviously the egg industry wants the girl chicks so they can lay eggs for our breakfast. But what about the boy chicks. Ever think about them? They are born into the world just like the girls all cute and fluffy and adorable and yellow. Look.


Omigod, so cute. I just want to hold them and cuddle them. 

But what actually happens is that all these newborn little babies get manhandled to determine if they are a boy or a girl. If they are a girl they go one way and if they are a boy - well one of a few things will happen. They will be thrown live into a grinder and killed. They will be stuffed one on top of the other into a giant plastic bag and suffocated to death - slowly and painfully. How is this allowed to happen? Why is no one talking about it?

ALL HENS for EVERY kind of EGG free range or not come from a horror shit show like this. And you don't even want to get me started on the transport of the poor baby girls as they go off to begin their life of servitude! There are no "organic" or "free range" regulations on the transport of the chickens.

Truly the only thing we can do is have compassion for them. Stop supporting these archaic inhumane industries that only care about money. There is an old Indigenous (Native American) prophesy that says:

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we CANNOT eat money.

Take a look at California...


Or what's left of Fort McMurray...


And this was after a pipeline leak in Alberta...


I won't further traumatize you by showing you the video of the starving polar bear but if you want to take a look, go here. Don't let the fake news fool you into believing that global warming isn't happening. We are killing our planet.

But the good news is, we can all make a difference by choosing to turn to a plant based diet. I'm sorry to be all doom and gloom today, but all of this information has hit me pretty hard. I'm sad. I'm angry. And I'm upset that I didn't take the time to look into this sooner. I'm furious that more of us are not furious. I'm sad that more of us are not sad, are not talking about this, are not demanding change, are not doing more.

However, my promise to you is that tomorrow we are going to explore a world in which there are people who are talking about it. Who are making a huge difference and Ima show you how you can get directly involved in spreading love and compassion too.


We must not only extend compassion to the animals, we must extend it to ourselves first.

With all the love in my heart...
Shan


5 comments:

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  2. Thank you, Shan! Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! For speaking up. For bravely exposing the reality, that is so inconvenient and difficult to look at, with so much grace and compassion!

    Truly, change begins with loving ourselves so much that we refuse to be hypnotized by the marketing schemes of corporations driven only by profit. We must realize that we are enough exactly as we are and support companies that put the well being of Earth, people and all living beings first.

    Looking at the state of the world, I have been asking myself what would make the biggest change in the shortest amount of time (because it feels like it is the 11th hour and if we don't take action now, everything will be lost) so I came up with this prayer/mantra/affirmation (whatever you want to call it) that began emanating from every particle of my being: "May the heart of all beings awaken to the beauty and sacredness of life." If we remember that our bodies, the Earth and all living beings are sacred and appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the life we have been given, we would never go unconscious and harm other beings, or pollute our inner and outer environment.

    We are in this together!

    Love,
    Sonya

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    1. From your lips to the ears of every person on this planet my friend. I really agree it is the 11th hour and I could kick myself for remaining blind for as long as I have but I'm going to make up for that by speaking out now. Thank you for helping. Thank you for clearing a path. Thank you for walking the talk and for sharing.
      With all the love in my heart.
      xoxo
      Shan

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  3. Like Sonia, I also commend you for writing all this down and being a part of letting the world know it's not ok to treat animals like we see in those videos. I too can't believe I've not realised this sooner, and am already making changes, looking at labels, eating more veg and beans and fruit than I have in a long time, and I've got a great new Vegan cookbook that looks like it will keep my tummy happy for a long while. The book is Vegan Richa's Everyday Kitchen by Richa Hingle. Have a look inside on Amazon, it's a true delight.
    I'm with you on the Veganuary thing, and am using the rest of this year to slowly get away from all the meat I've been eating lately and to introduce new things that serve me and the planet better.
    Keep up the good work, I do read every day even though I don't always get around to commenting xx

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    1. Oh Janice, this makes my heart sing! I love that you are already making small changes and are going to take the challenge with me. Seriously, if we each do this and get one or two more people to do this and they do the same... before you know it, we'll have a green planet again. I'm so excited. Thank you my friend.

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