Respect for life (ritual, Creator, Earth, soul, grace)

[painted wolf]

In my spirituality, all things are created equil. Plants, animals, mountains and rivers. In the case of plants and animals we must eat them to survive, and in turn eventually be eaten so others survive.
there are several stories how disease came to man, but my personal favorite is something like this:

Long ago, man was not living in balance as creator had shown them. Men had forgotten to be thankful for the animals and plants who gave thier lives so that the people would have food and shelter and tools. Then the animals gathered together and Deer decided that he would punish man by making them sick. Soon the men were almost all dead and they cried out for mercy. Plants felt badly for the men and decided to give them aid in fighting the diseases that the animals had brought. Men begged for forgiveness for thier selfishness and rudeness, the plants also asked for deer to be lenient and it was decided that if men remembered to honor them then they would be safe.

It seems like just a simple story, untill you remember that all the diseases that man carries are given to him by other animals. (pure human viruses are beningn to the host)
SARS and Influenza from the inhumane and croweded animal markets of asia.
AIDs/HIV from apes whos forests are being desimated and they themselves are eaten as 'bush meat'.
"Mad Cow" and E-coli from tainted meat from the slauter factorys... and a new form of 'mad deer' from the midwestern US.
Monkeypox from pet prairy dogs. et cet....

Most of these diseases are from humans mistreating/ not honoring thier animal brothers. It would seem that men have forgotten thier lesson again. :roll:

wa:-do

[blessed]

may be if we didn't eat our animal friends there would not be as much as a problem each wiccan can interpet they're believes in different ways i personally follow the an ye harm none do what ye will to the book.

a lot more diseases are man made not by animals- through OUR negligence the animals are carriers.

[Green Gaia]

Originally Posted by blessed

may be if we didn't eat our animal friends there would not be as much as a problem

I tend to think this way too :wink:

[Runt]

Another Native American tale... (I personally like the trickster tales... I wrote this about a year ago; it is basically a "poetic" retelling of a tale we were told in class...it has a little section about how death came to mankind... this time because they were fishing improperly :P)

Where nothing dwelled but foam-topped sea,
there lay Got’at land.
And to this place Coyote came
to release a bit of sand.

Sand to make a prairie fair,
sand for hare and sand for man,
sand for clan and wand’ring beast,
sand stretching east, that was his plan.

To witness births of newborn creeks,
to Niakhaqshe Coyote went,
and in this place Coyote hungered,
and iron for a spear he bent.

The fish he caught were very good,
or fair should have been to him,
but on a whim Coyote threw
away a few from the nearby rim.

Silverside salmon were dear to him;
steelhead and fall salmon he favored not;
the small creek boded ill omens,
and so to man these laws he taught:

When salmon are caught one will die;
a guy perishes when male steelheads are found;
a woman’s death mound when a female is killed,
all when a skilled fisherman’s fish are drowned.

To his hut he took his fish,
and gutted them straight through.
And then he went and cooked them up,
and ate them in a stew.

The next day Coyote went to the creek,
and from a peak he searched for fish
to grace his dish that autumn night,
but to his sight barren was his wish!

Coyote summoned Wisest Filth, his friend,
and his council he did seek.
“Fairest Filth,” Coyote entreated,
“Why are no fish in the creek?”

Four lessons Coyote’s filth did teach,
about how to reach a desired end,
and then send Coyote out he did,
to bid his luck and his ways to mend.

“Until you’re ready to cook them,
silversides must not be cut up,
and when you go to cook them,
you must roast, not steam them up.

And not only must you roast them
but you must roast them in itsy bits.
head, back, roe, and body are cooked separately,
over four completely different spits.

Furthermore, you must cook it all
before you go to sleep,
for if you fail to do this,
then its fish the stream will keep.

Take care to obey this final rule
when fishing with a net:
make sure the salmon don’t leap over it,
or no fish will you get!”

[painted wolf]

Blessed-
The problem with disease is when it crosses from one species to another.... Influenza for instance came origionally from birds then mixed in pigs to create the infamous Spanish Influenza that killed 50 million people early last century... the biggest disease killer known to date. The same goes for all the killer diseases, eaven Anthrax is a cow virus that became adapted to people.

Blessed and Maize-
while I can apreciate the sort of choise that become vegitarian involves I can't spiritually agree with it...
Plants are just as alive as we are and have souls that need to be respected just as much. I personally can't choose to eat plants and not animals as it would be unfair to my plant relations.
Plants respond to stimuli in much the same way as animals do. When a plant is being eaten it sends out complex chemical signals to all the other plants around it, warning them of the danger. This was best documented with the African Acacia. Trees around the 'victim' began to produce extra ammounts of the chemicals that make thier leaves taste bad and eventlually drove off the animals eating them.
In my relig. many plants are held to be sacred, such as Tobbaco, sage, sweetgrass and ceder... and eaven the humble Maize, squash and bean were honored as the three sisters.
they are all our relations....

Runt-
you found a coyote story I hadn't heard yet :lol:

[blessed]

ithink when it comes to the deseases think of it this way- if man let animals do as they please no slaughter houses to continious contact with humans and no up routing from their habitate ----than they probably wouldnt have diseases man CAUSES disease animal is made to CARRY it.

it has been proven that plants have no nervour system. no nervous system = no pain if you cant feel pain than you cant feel good which in my opinion means no soul.

Any living organism has defence against being killed plants are organisms :P

[painted wolf]

Blessed-
if a plant has no soul but is a living organism that can defend its life doesn't that make you wonder? Just because it doesn't have a system like you or I doen't mean it is without feeling, of cource it would not be like us, it is a plant not an animal.
can a living thing not have a soul?

If It can detect the damage done to it and respond then it must feel... It must be able to recognise that it is being hurt. That is the nature of feeling.

The argument for unfeeling is used with simple animals such as shelfish and sponges... they are animals, but they don't have nervous systems like we do. but do they not have souls?

In my relig. everything made by creator has a soul, plants, animals, the earth and the waters.

I do agree that slauther houses are bad things. That was the point of my message, that the modern way of doing things was disrepectful and causing harm not just to the animals but to ourselves. Humanity has lost respect for the lives it depends on.

wa:-do

[Green Gaia]

Painted Wolf, I see the point your making and I can appreciate it, but we have to eat something, and many who are vegetarian or vegan are so because they are concerned about the impact the have on the whole environment around us, including the animals, and they believe that by eating a vegetarian or vegan diet, there are having the least amount of impact as possible. It is quite impossible to never kill a living organism, we're doing it right now just breathing. But for me, I feel I don't need to eat meat and have an animal slaughtered that's been raised in deporable conditions just to become someone's dinner. It was different thousands, even just hundreds of years ago. Animals were respected then and were killed out of necessity for food and other uses. But we don't have to do that today, so I choose not to.

I'm not against meat eating altogether, and I certainly would never tell someone else they shouldn't eat it, but I do believe our society eats too much meat and doesn't know where or what conditions it's coming from.

Also for me, I just feel better phyiscally when I don't eat meat and instead focus on a plant-based diet. Maybe it's because I eat better overrall because I am more concerned now about what I put in my body. Another reason I stopped eating meat was because of health concerns associated with meat. It really worries me what is being put into the animals and the meat afterwards, growth hormones, antibotics, ect. If it's not something I would put into my body myself, I don't want it in my food either.

Ah, sorry I'll stop there, I can get a little long winded on this subject lol. ops:

[blessed]

i definately see your point about the plants but as maz said we need to eat something and as far as this planet goes it takes lot less ground et.c to grow plants for consumption than animals- plus it is true that the whole planet ould live on a vegetarian diet with no starvation. the cattle and pigs would stop being bred intensively and slowly drop in numbers until they reached a steady state. the money that was being spent on feed for the animals, slaughter houses and land could be used for land and seeds saving a lot of money and feeding more people.

i would never try to stop a person eating meat but it is important to aknowledge that this planet is in need of our help

[painted wolf]

I realize we must all eat... its the respect for what we eat I feel is missing. Sorry if I seemed a little prechy but I feel that plants deserve just as much of this respect as animals... ops:

I give as much respect to my garden as I do to the animals I raise for food. Although personally I prefer to let the men hunt as the animal has the chance to escape.

I personally don't see being vegitarian as the answer to solving our problems. The land required to grow the plants to feed all of us will be off limits to the animals. People will kill the animals for threatening thier food supply just as they do with wolves for 'threatening' their cattle. In many suburbs people like deer... at least untill they start eating their flowers... then they become a nucence.

deer and cattle can graze side by side. (although I personally prefer buffalo to cattle for several reasons. Helth and environmental impact for instance) The system was set up so that food for all was plentiful, somewhere allong the way convience replaced wisdom.

as for hormones in the meat, they don't have to be added... the same goes for the pestisides/ fungisides/ herbisides used on plants. Both can be raised organicaly.

wa:-do