The eating of flesh is a sacred act

Where Does a Smile Go

Those who are beautiful —
who can keep them as they are?
Unceasingly in their faces
the life in them arises and goes forth.
Like dew from morning grass,
like steam from a plate of food,
what is ours goes out from us.

Where does a smile go, or the upward glance,
the sudden warm movement of the heart?
Yet that is what we are. Does the universe
we dissolve into
taste of us a little?

Rilke, from the Second Duino Elegy

Rarely do I use a photo that I have not taken myself, but the above image of the polar bear fits in so beautifully with the Rilke poem that I had to copy it off the internet. It clearly shows an emotive mingling of spirit with the soulful demands of hunger.

This photo also holds memories for me of the seven years I spent working in Alaska: that majestic expanse of tundra, forest and mountains. I was lucky enough once to hold in my arms a winter overcoat made entirely from the small patch of fur found on the underside of the chin of the Alaskan muskrat; a coin sized piece of fur that is the softest and most delicate part of the muskrat. So small that the making of this overcoat took the lives of over 1,000 of these sentient beings.

Tragedy?

Not in context of its creation by the Eskimo woman who took her whole adult life collecting these chin furs in order to make this warm, stunning work of practical fashion.

The whole of the muskrat was used after it was trapped and killed. All the meat eaten, all the intestines used, all the fur used for various purposes. This is correct sacred living.

Vegans, and to some extent vegetarians, live an idealized Biblical inspired version of the world where the lion will sleep with the lamb. Yet we know the trouble the world is in because of the Bible’s and other religious texts’ view on where women (read Gaia) fit into the scheme of things. It’s all sky god. A male hierarchy of spirit driven priests with no fleshly, earthly, visceral birthing and bloody after-birthing of the feminine to balance out the masculine.

The animalness of humans is not a characteristic “of” life. It is a requirement “for” life.

To impose a spiritualist dogma that places humans above our animalness leads to an abuse of all life — whether trees or sheep — because of a disconnect with our evolutionary eons long DNA connection to all life on earth.

In my world view, serving guests a double roast of local grass fed lamb seasoned with my own grown garlic and rosemary serves to honour a ritual steeped in a tradition of respect for all life.

First and foremost, humans are — as are all species in the Animal Kingdom of classification — dependent upon their survival to the capture and consumption of other species. For our human ancestors this applies to the eating of other highly sentient, highly emotive, highly intelligent and socially oriented animals.

To try and deny this connection is a disservice to all the indigenous tribes still living on the land and close to the earth. They eat flesh. And this eating of flesh is a sacred act done in a reciprocal honouring of the ancient symbiotic act of life giving life through death.

How we choose to eat other animal flesh is where the discussion should take place, not whether we should or shouldn’t eat flesh.

The Polar Bear is bringing something to the table to feed her young. Will the universe she dissolves into taste of her a little?

(polar bear photo by Samantha photography worldwide)