NO TIME.  Are we ready to relegate our traditional concepts of time to status of organizer?  Are we ready to let time be the pure motion that it is?  Why is this important?  Because in no-time we have access to all of creation.  In no-time scripts and contracts can be rewritten.  In no-time we can step through the doorway that separates our reality from the All. 

In no-time, we can only live in the moment-the point of pure creation-since no other moment exists.

The divine feminine.  As we awaken to the truth that we now live in a post-shift world, notice what changes have resulted from all of this work.  For instance, time has become a tool of freedom rather than a constriction;  reality is being manifested consciously and with pure intent;  critical mass has achieved harmlessness; telepathy  and intution have opened to most; and our world has shifted to the loving and compassionate energies of the divine feminine.

If we doubt this changing of the guard and wonder what a new matriarchal alignment would inspire, probably the most obvious effect is the worldwide movement to live GREEN.  This flows from new depths of compassion and expanded interest in guaranteeing that the world will still be around and healthy for future generations. 

As we contemplate the feminine face of God, and who the divine feminine - the Goddess- is to us, we open our hearts and allow ourselves to feel the pure and truly unconditional love that has waited so patiently to be noticed and welcomed.

Our success in this post-shift era will transpire in direct proportion to the love we give it.  Let's give it a lot.  Namaste.

~ Daniele DeVoe/Sarrin & the Ancients



...By way of summary, a higher system can incorporate a lower one into its service and can transform the lower.   Or the converse can happen-the higher can be incorporated into the lower and the transformation is reversed, inverted, with the lower transforming the higher.  In our legends and fairy tales, the magnificent king makes an error or acts in a base manner and is turned into a beast, or the handsome prince is made a frog, and in both instances their high human cortexes are incorporated into their animal brains-and lord help us! 

Or rather, lady help us, for she alone, through her nurturing kiss and inherent wisdom, can bail out the male from the predicament his intellect constantly brings him to.

The creator-created dynamic of our nature centers on two pivotal areas of evolutionary development:  the heart thumping away in our chest, one of nature's prime and primary achievements;  and the prefrontal cortex, there behind our brow.  The solution to our violence and our key to transcendence lies in translating nature's newest creation and most fragile experiment, our fourth brain, into our own experiential venture.

To give us our worldy experience, this vastly complex brain, itself an intricate balancing of frequency fields, translates from even vaster fields that are infinite in extension and dimension.  More and more, all experience is being interpreted by the new science and an infinitely interwoven complex of resonant frequencies that selectively modulate to form worlds, bodies, thoughts, emotions, rocketshps, and sonnets.  More and more researchers say in a mounting clamour of consensus:  "It's all just frequencies!"  If they are right-and they seem to be-our mystery has just grown immeasurably deeper.  Follow the dynamic of  creator-created long enough, however, and a workable solution to this mystery will emerge, along with a key to transcendence of its dark opposite-violence.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

Do you want to know where I found my model?
An upright tree; it bears its branches and these, in turn,
their twigs, and these, in turn the leaves.  And every
individual part has been growing harmoniously,
magnificently, ever since God the artist created it."

Antoni Gaudi


"We're basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."  ~ Terrence McKenna

"Our modern society is engaged in polishing and decorating the cage in which huwo/manity is kept imprisoned."  ~ Enlightened Anarchism



my words are like the stars***

adapted by William Arrowsmith
from Chief Seattle's speech as recorded by Dr. Henry B. Smith

Brothers:  That sky above us has pitied our fathers for many hundreds of years.
To us it looks unchanging, but it may change.
Today it is fair.
Tomorrow it may be covered with clouds.

My words are like the stars.  They do not set.
What Seattle says, the great chief Washington can count on
as surely as our white brothers can count on the return of the seasons.

The White Chief's son says his father sends us words of friendship and good will.
This is kind of him, since we know he has little need of our friendship in return.
His people are many, like the grass that covers the plains.
My people are few, like the trees scattered by the storms on the grasslands.

The great - and good, I believe - White Chief sends us word that he wants to buy our land.
But he will reserve us enough so that we can live comfortably.
This seems generous, since the red man no longer has rights he needs to respect.
It may also be wise, since we no longer need a large country.
Once my people covered this land
like a flood-tide moving with the wind across the shell littered flats.
But that time is gone, and with it the greatness of tribes now almost forgotten.

But I will not mourn the passing of my people.
Nor do I blame our white brothers for causing it.
We too were perhaps partly to blame.
When our young men grow angry at some wrong,
real or imagined,
they make their faces ugly with black paint.
Then their hearts too are ugly and black.
They are hard and their cruelty knows no limits.
And our old men cannot restrain them.

Let us hope that the wars
between the red men and his white brothers
will never come again.
We would have everything to lose
and nothing to gain.
Young men view revenge as gain,
even when they lose their own lives.
But the old men
who stay behind in time of war,
mothers with sons to lose -
know better.

Our great father Washington -
for he must be our father now as well as yours, since George hs moved his boundary northward-
our great and good father sends word by his son,
who is surely a great chief among his people,
that he will protect us if we do what he wants.
His brave soldiers will be a strong wall for my people
and his great warships will fill our harbors.
Then our ancient enemies to the north - the Haidas and Tsimshians -
will no longer frighten our women and old men.
Then he will be our father and we will be his children.

But can that ever be?
Your God loves your people and hates mine.
He puts his strong arm around the white man
and leads him by the hand,
as a father leads his little boy.
He has abandoned his red children.
He makes your people stronger every day.
Soon they will flood all the land.
But my people are an ebb tide,
we never return.
No, the white man's God
cannot love his red children
or he would protect them.
Now we are orphans.
There is no one to help us.

So how can we be brothers?
How can your father be our father,
and make us prosper and send us dreams of future greatness?
Your God is prejudiced.
He came to the white man.
We never saw him,
never even heard his voice.
He gave the white man laws,
but he had no word for his red children
whose numbers once filled this land
as the stars filled the sky.

No, we are two separate races,
and we must stay separate.
There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our fathers are sacred.
Their graves are holy ground.
But you are wanderers,
you leave your fathers' graves behind you,
and you do not care.

Your religion was written on tables of stone
by the iron finger of an angry God,
so you would not forget it.
The red man could never understand or remember it.
Our religion is the ways of our forefathers,
the dreams of our old men,
sent them by the Great Spirit, and visions of our sachems.
And it is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead forget you and the country of their birth
as soon as they go beyond the grave and walk among the stars.
They are quickly forgotten and they never return.

Our dead never forget this beautiful earth.
It is their mother.
They always love and remember her rivers,
her great mountains, her valleys.
They long for the living,
who are lonely, too,
and who long for the dead.
And their spirits often return to visit and console us.

Day and night cannot dwell together.
The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man,
as the changing mists on the mountin side
flee before the blazing morning sun.

No, day and night cannot live together.

The red man has always retreated before the advancing white man,
as the mist on the mountain slopes runs before the morning sun.

So your offer seems fair, and I think my people will accept it
and go to the reservation you offer them.
We will live apart, and in peace.
For the words of the Great White Chief are like the words of nature
speaking to my people out of the great darkness
- a darkness that gathers around us like the night fog moving inland from a midnight sea.

It matters little where we pass the rest of our days.
They are not many.
The Indians' night will be dark.
No bright star shines on his horizons.
The wind is sad.
Fate hunts the red man down.
Wherever he goes, he will hear
the approaching steps of his destroyer,
and prepare to die,
like the wounded doe
who hears the step of the hunter.

A few more moons,
a few more winters,
and none of the children
of the great tribes that once lived in this wide earth
or that roam now in small bands in the woods
will be left to mourn the graves of a people
once as powerful and as hopeful as yours.

But why should I mourn the passing of my people?
Tribes are made of men,
nothing more.
Men come and go,
like the waves of the sea.
A tear, a prayer to the Great Spirit,
a dirge,
and they are gone from our longing eyes forever.
Even the white man,
whose God walked
and talked with him
as friend to friend,
cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers after all.  We shall see.

"The CIA, Hollywood & Bioterrorism"...

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING TO DANCE IN THE RAIN


Stroke of Insight
Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., Spirt of Maat
Dr. Jill is a brain researcher who had suffered a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain.  A brain scientist at Harvard, she kept track of what was going on in the 4 hour deterioration process which rendered her unable to walk, talk, read, write or recall her old life.  Jill recreates for us what it's like to live primarily in the right brain, based on her 8 year journey of recovery from the stroke.  This is the center for bliss and joy, the ability to live outside the box, intuition, empathy.  Another fascinating aspect, this is when we live consciously without the ego: no individuality or feelings of separateness.


Bleeping Herald:  Since you were able to experience first hand, living in your right brain, is it a lot easier to get there now?

Dr. Jill:  Oh yes, you know, it's not that I'm separate from it.  It's kind of like the story of how the blue sky is always there and so I see the blue sky as the right hemisphere.  It's always there, it's always doing what it does, it is a constant entity.  The left hemisphere is the clouds and the clouds represent brain chatter.  The clouds come in, and the thoughts come in, and they block the view of being able to see the blue sky even though the blue sky is always there.

The brain chatter comes on line and then it's organizing and categorizing and dramatizing all of our lives in the external world.  But you can quiet that when you get rid of the clouds, when you allow the mind to focus away from those thoughts, then you reveal what's always been there - which is the existence of the right hemisphere and that peacefulness and that awareness that everything is one and everything is connected.   That experience of euphoria, if you're willing to let go of the left hemisphere clouds.

BH:  And the more you practise at that, the better you get.

DJ:   Well, you know, I'm coming from the other direction.  So when I had the hemorrhage and I lost the left hemisphere, I lost all the clouds.  I was open to this incredible experience, and then for me to actually be functional in the external world, I had to consciously choose to bring the clouds back so I could function like a normal human being.

My primary place is the state of being in the blue skies, and the clouds I can then just blow away.  It's a tool;  I'm so clear that my brain chatter is a tiny group of cells that perform a magnificent function and I have a say in whether or not that circuitry runs.  So all I have to do is to make the decision that in this moment I'm not going to think those thoughts.  I'm not going to run that particular circuitry, and I'm going to focus my mind on bigger things and block those clouds from being there.

BH:  It seems a lot of people don't have the understanding they are in control of their emotions, or the brain chatter, or what goes on in their brain.  Do you think if people had a little bit more knowledge about the workings of their brain that it would be easier to understand we are in control? 

... I love the part in your book where you discuss that when a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there's a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body, and then after that, any emotional response is just that person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.

DJ:  The 90 second rule and then it's gone.  It's predictable circuitry, so by attention to what circuits you are triggering, and what that feels like inside of your body, you can recognize when it has happened.  We all know what it feels like when we suddenly move into fear.  Something happens in the external world and all of a sudden we experience a physiological response by our body that our mind would define as fear.  So in my brain some circuit is saying something isn't safe and I need to go on full alert, those chemicals flush through my body on full alert, and for that to totally flush out of my body takes less than 90 seconds.

So whether it's my fear circuitry or my anger circuitry or even my joy circuitry - it's really hard to hold a good belly laugh for more than 90 seconds naturally.  The 90 second rule is totally empowering.  That means for 90 seconds, I can watch this happen, I can feel this happen and I can watch it go away.  After that, if I continue to feel that fear, or that anger, I need to look at the thoughts I'm thinking that  are re-stimulating that circuitry that is resulting in me having this physiology over and over again.

When you stay stuck in an emotional response, you're choosing it by choosing to continue rethinking the same thoughts that retrigger it.   We have this incredible ability in our minds to replay, but as soon as you replay you're not here, you're not in the present moment.  You're still back in something else and if you continue to replay the exact same line and loop, then you have a predictable result.  You can continue to make yourself mad all day and the more you obsess over whatever it is, the more you run that loop, then the more that loop gets  energy of its own to manifest itself with minimal amounts of thought, so it will start on automatic.  And it keeps reminding you, "Oh yeah, I was mad and I have to rethink that thought."

...BH:  Are people who take the time to cultivate their right hemisphere better at finding peace?

DJ:  A highly dominated left hemisphere extremist generally has a lot of stress in his/her life.  The difference, the advantage of living more in the right is that first of all, there is no measurement of time.  If you are in your space creating and the day goes by and you are not in a state of urgency, you're creating.  You're being, you're evolving something, you're using the essence of what you are to create something new and there is a joy and a satisfaction in that.

That lack of urgency, that's very different from sitting in an office being on the phone, being on the e-mail, text messaging every moment, never really connecting to the essence of what you are.  You're just acting like a machine that's in process.  That doesn't mean that you're not being creative in what you're processing, but you have to have the pause.  During the pause, it's an opportunity for healing, it's kind of like sleeping and waking.  In so many of our jobs that are left hemisphere dominant, there's just output, output, output, there is not pause, there is no refueling, no regeneration.

Overall, if you're going to look at the health of the organism, our traditional society is very unhealthy.  If you look at the mental health of our society, it's very poor and we don't even have a handle on a mental health system that can help us.  Most of us are not really tending to our own mental health, so how can we expect to have good overall mental health of our society?

BH:  You talk a little bit in your book about studies that have been done with Tibetan meditators and Franciscan nuns that show when a meditative climax was reached, certain areas of the left hemisphere had decreased activity.

DJ:  The beauty of this is that there are scientists who are open to recognizing these are realities.  Just because we may not understand them is no reason to say they don't exist or they're not real.  Now we have enough modern technology, and really open minded scientists saying, "Let's explore this."  So it's a very exciting time because the two worlds are facing eachother with curiousity instead of resentment.  And boy, what a difference that is!




          

'DO YOU BELIEVE THERE IS SOMEPLACE THAT WILL MAKE THE SOUL LESS THIRSTY?'

An addictive need, not an Authentic One ~

Having - the concept of ownership - is a fiction created by the ego to give itself solidity and permanency and make itself stand out, make itself special.  Since you cannot find yourself through having, however, there is another more powerful drive underneath it that pertains to the structure of the ego:  the need for more, which we could also call "wanting".  Some egos know what they want and pursue their aim with grim and ruthless determination.  The energy behind their wanting, however, creates an opposing energy of equal intensity that in the end leads to their downfall.  In the meantime, they make themselves and many others unhappy, or, in the larger than life examples, create hell on earth:





... A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice:  Evolve or die.  A still relatively small but rapidly growing percentage of humanity is already experiencing in themselves the breakup of old egoic mind patterns and the emergence of a new dimension of consciousness;

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.

. Eckhart Tolle, A NEW EARTH Awakening to Your Life's Purpose



WHEN UNITY WAS ATTAINED OF OLD
HEAVEN BECAME CLEAR BY ATTAINING UNITY
EARTH BECAME STEADY BY ATTAINING UNITY
SPIRIT WAS QUICKENED BY ATTAINING UNITY
VALLEY STREAMS WERE FILLED BY ATTAINING UNITY
ALL BEINGS WERE BORN BY ATTAINING UNITY
AND BY ATTAINING UNITY LORDS ACTED RIGHTLY
FOR THE SAKE OF THE WORLD

. Tao Te Ching

Releasing the Spirits Ceremony - Prayers needed for Buffalos Slaughtered in Yellowstone

Simultaneous prayer vigils are encouraged to pray for the 1,302+ Buffalo that have been carelesslly slaughtered this winter alone and the thousands more slaughtered in the past decade since the last Releasing the Spirits Ceremony was held in 1997!




From Chief Avrol Looking Horse
Mi-ta-ku-ye (my relatives)

I have been called upon to perform the Releasing the Spirits Ceremony for the thousands of buffalo that have lost their lives in the last decade, in the mountains of Yellowstone River Country.

Many, many generations ago, our relatives, the Pte O-ya-te (Buffalo People) came up from the Wind Cave in the Black Hills;  the heart of Un-ci Ma-ka (Grandmother Earth) and prepared the way for our existence.  From that time forward they gave of themselves for our survival, as long as we respected their gift.  They taught us how to live in an honourable and respectful way by example and through the teachings of the White Buffalo Calf Woman.  She brought the Sacred Canupa (Pipe) and also provided us with the knowledge of the sacred rites that are necessary to discipline ourselves.

From the Buffalo Nation, our ancestors learned to have an honourable relationship of being connected with Un-ci Ma-ka;  this "way of life" that identifies us of who we are as an O-ya-te (a People), with all its sacred teachings.  They understood the gifts from Un-ci and carefully lived in harmony with her well being.  For that reason, we hold them to be sacred. We co-existed in a good way until we were nearly destroyed.  Ob un-ka-so-ta-pi tka.  The sacred buffalo population in these mountains are the survivors of that natural way of life.  We are culturally and spiritually indebted to them and we still need their guidance, to remind us how to be at peace and harmony with Un-ci Ma-ka.

Let it be know that Yellowstone territory; the habitat of the last wild Buffalo Nation - is sacred ground, it has been a SACRED SITE for the First Nation's people, and for all humanity who hold deep respect for all Creation.  The Buffalo Nation has confirmed this fact; by where they have ended up, continuing to survive in their natural migration, struggling to live in a peaceful manner.  Our ancestors also gave us this message by fasting long ago, as they recognized this place of sacredness.  This understanding is how we maintain the balance on Un-Ci Ma-Ka, to protect these places, especially for future generations to come.

These Buffalo that lost their lives in Yellowstone did not die by Natural Law, nor were their spirits honored with ceremony.  This is why we must go their to perform a ceremony to honor for those who lost their lives by human mis-understanding and pray to Wakan Tankan (Great Spirit) for pity of how gifts were unappreciated.  We must pray with all those who grieve and be grateful for them.  Many of the people who are deeply concerned of what has happened, in the manner in which their lives were taken;  we see this as an unnecessary massacre.  We have known that this particular herd is the last original Buffalo Nation that still follows their migration pattern, the little that is left in tact;  they are of our connection to our wellbeing of living in harmony. 

I humbly ask for all People to make their prayers on April 15th;  at high noon, for a healing of humanity - for the decisions that are being made with no regard for the sacredness of life, for the massacred Buffalo's spiritual journey - and to protect what is left - in understanding of what our journey in this life represents in being responsible!  We must pray for healing of the human Spirit, to understand the connection to all living beings on Un-ci Ma-ka.  In a Sacred Hoop of Life, where there is no ending and no beginning!

Can-te Mi-ta-wa I-ta-han (from my heart)
Chief Avrol Looking Horse
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe
   
"I want to see a mighty flood of justice ~ a torrent of doing good."
Amos 5:24

www.sdpjc.org

The great mistake of modern civilization is to encroach upon others' property as though it were one's own and to thereby create an unnecessary disturbance of the laws of nature.  *These laws are very strong.  No living entity can violate them.*  Only one who is Krishna consciousness can easily overcome the stringency of the laws of nature and thus become happy and peaceful in the world.

As a state is protected by the department of law and order, so the state of Universe, of which this earth is only an insignificant fragment, is protected by the laws of nature.  This material nature is one of the different potencies of Great Spirit, who is the ultimate proprietor of everything that be.  This earth, therefore, is the "property" of Great Spirit, but we, the living entities, especially the so-called civilized human beings, are claiming Great Spirit's property as our own ('HOW CAN WE OWN THE LAND WE'RE BURIED IN?'), under both an individual and collective false conception.  If you want peace, you have to remove this false conception from your mind and from the world.  . . . This false claim of proprietorship by the human race on earth is partly or wholly the cause of all disturbances of peace on earth.  

~ Excerpt from The Peace Formula, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, adapted slightly by moi



People of this culture are trying to reinvent the wheel in their attempts to find a way to live in the world.  We're behaving as though it had never been done before, as though we had no reference points from which to start.  What I'm trying to point out is that humans, people as smart as you and I, have lived on this planet for hundreds and thousands of years.  For much of that time people had a way of life that worked very well for them.

Now we are plummeting toward catastrophe, imagining that we have nowhere to turn for answers, when, in fact, there are people living on this planet now - descendants of those very successful people of earlier times - who know how to live.  And it's still possible for us to learn from them.

Aboriginal or Native people are still living essentially the same way people were living hundreds of thousands of years ago.  This is a way of life that "civilized" cultures have been stamping out for about ten thousand years.  The assault on native peoples started in this part of the world in 1492.

> One of the basic ideas of our culture is that people are fundamentally no good, that people are greedy, cruel, and vicious to the core.  That is our nature, so get used to it folks.  Get as much as you can, then get really good locks for your doors.

I want to change that basic attitude.  Not only is the world a sacred place, but we belong in it.  We're not alien monsters here.  We should stop perceiving ourselves in that way and begin to reevaluate our place in the greater community.  The view of this culture is that we are vicous beings, but still infinitely better than every other creature on this planet.  They are worthless beings we can kill off at will.  I'm proposing that we all belong to a community of life.  We are no better or worse than other creatures.  We have to begin to think of ourselves as members of the world community, rather than as rulers of the planet.  Our old vision of ourselves as the despots of the world, snapping our whips and making nature obey, might have thrilled us, but it's not working out.

*What's important for you to know is that the world religions of today are not the only religions.  They are only those of our particular, estranged culture.  I'm not advocating that they be abandoned, although perhaps, if we adopt a healthier vision, they'll die of their own accord.*

I'd also like to advise people against pinning their hopes on the utopian dream that we can become better than people have ever been before.  In this sense, our present system is a utopian system, one whose institutions would work perfectly if people would just be better than they have ever been:  our schools would educate;  our laws would be obeyed;  our governments would govern effectively and justly.  The success of tribal systems doesn't depend on people being better human beings;  and, indeed, that is why they succeed.

In the same way, nothing that I'm proposing requires people to be better than they've ever been.  The new-age vision is that if people would just be better than they are now, if they would be more loving, raise their consciousness, and be more sympathetic and more sensitive, then everything would be wonderful.  Of course that's perfectly true.  But utopian undertakings never work.  Besides, people don't need to be better, because ther's nothing basically wrong with them in the first place.  For hundreds of thousands of years, people lived on this planet harmlessly - or as harmlessly as any other creature - so there's no need to change our nature.  If we put our hope in people becoming better, we're inevitably going to be sorely disappointed.  All the changes I'm talking about can happen without people becoming better than they have ever been.  People need only to continue being what they are.  That's the direction in which hope lies.

~ Carter Brooks, Carter Read Seed

WELCOME TO THE WORLD

The annual Canadian Harp Seal hunt is underway as of dawn today.  It's by far the largest mammal hunt in the world and the only commercial hunt in which the target is the infant of it's species.  For 6 to 8 weeks each spring, the ice floes of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the eastern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador turn bloody, as some 300,000 harp seal pups, virtually all between the ages of 2 and 12 weeks old, are beaten to death - their skulls crushed with a heavy club called a hakapik - or shot.  They are then skinned on the ice or in nearby hunting vessels after being dragged to the ships with boat hooks.  The skinined carcasses are usually left on the ice or tossed in the ocean.

Thousands of other wounded pups  (estimates range from 15,000 to 150,000 per year) manage to escape the hunters but die later of their injuries or drown after falling off the ice (pups younger than 5 weeks cannot swim).  The seals are hunted chiefly for their pelts, which are exported to NORWAY, FINLAND, HONG KONG, TURKEY, RUSSIA and other countries, where they are used to make expensive designer-label coats and accessories. 

AMONG THE MAJOR VENDORS OF THESE PRODUCTS ARE THE ITALIAN FASHION WEAR COMPANIES, GUCCI, PRADA AND VERSACE.

For more information on the hunt and surrounding issues + how you can help stop it for good:  protectseals.org   (blog doesn't support a link so type in browser)




Thoughts...

People disapprove of causing animals pain, but they think killing animals is OK.  We're not remotely consistent about this.  If killing animals was morally neutral we wouldn't disapprove of someone killing their pets, but we do.

We talk about not inflicting unnecessary suffering on animals to legislate against practises we don't like, fox hunting or setting cats alight for fun, but we assume that if we *profit* from some activity it is necessary even if we don't need to do it.  We don't need to kill animals for meat.  All that is unnecessary suffering.  We only do it on the assumption animals are there for us, material for not just our needs but our wishes, because of a superstitous belief that huwo/man life is radically different from animal life.  That's a factual mistake.  Animals manifestly have lives of their own, lives of value to them and killing them requires more justification.  Even creatures we don't easily or naturally think of, the more we find out about them the more we see them as fellow/sister creatures.  Darwin's last book was on worms.  He thought earthworms were complex, intelligent creatures.  He wasn't being absurd.  Earthworms seem to be (are) sentient creatures with strategies for dealing with problems.

The field where there are difficult problems is in the field of medical expirementation.  Of course, as members of the (")first(") world we've gained enormously from trying things out on creatures.  That doesn't mean it's OK.  We shouldn't expect disease-free lives.  It's a mirage.  It's part of a fantasy of immortality.  Struggling to get it at the expense of other creatures is silly.  As soon as we solve problems others come up.

Some (read ALL) tests are not necessary, some tests are dubious.

And even if huwo/man beings are saved it's still probably wrong.  These tests would be done much more effectively on a huwo/man.  Would you do that?  There are plenty of huwo/man creatures that we could forcibly experiment on.

But in a civilized society it's wrong to treat others as means.  It wouldn't make a difference to us if they were not very clever or if they were not able to speak or whatever characteristic it is you use to say that animal life has less value than huwo/man.  These are huwo/man creatures who are less reasonable than a beagle.

We have to accept that living in this fascinating cosmos means having a limited stay.  Demanding more is a mistake.

By Stephen Clark


( ( ( I am "standing and bearing witness" with those on the front lines in response to their call for the duration of the hunt via this blog, comments and other initiatives.  Please join me and the global momentum to end this epic brutality, it's only just begun and is slated to continue for 2 weeks. ) ) )