Posted on November 12, 2009 - by Rasham

Hug a Cow, Save the World?

Be the Love you Wish to Receive

Hug a Cow, Save the World

DISCLAIMER: I’ve no interest in policing the people of the state, of harnessing their hearts and demanding commitment and loyalty. I have no interest in profiting from financial contributions, or in funding the extravagancies of a starlet reflection.

All I Want to Do is Hug a Cow.

I was sitting in a warm space on an autumn morning when I became suddenly emotional: staring at the waxy coat of earthen greens on my plate I was engrossed by memories of grazing dairy cows and calves I had visually experienced in the early morning fog. This is a common sight on the hillsides bordering a California highway and so I didn’t treat it as phenomena worth attention at the time. But as I sat in the cafe with a warm bowl of sautéed chards and brown rice, my subconscious harmonized with the voice of Elliot Smith resonating in the atmosphere and I began to cry.

They were cows on the hillside, yes, but so much more than that: they were living symbols of the human force of ignorance, control, manipulation, greed, and cruelty.

They were mothers and their offspring surviving merely to meet the demands we have placed upon them, doomed to a fate as gruesome as the intentions that brought them to life. In that moment I felt as though I possessed a connection to these creatures, a responsibility to every cow, calf, pig, goat, lamb, dog, horse, reptile, cat, dolphin, whale; every living creature whose force of life had been exploited to supply our modern world with its accessories, extras and extravagancies.

I had decided long ago that I wouldn’t eat them, nor wear them, nor include their harvested ingredients in any facet of my life. But now it occurred to me that I could provide a service on behalf of all the mistreated creatures of the world in another form: I could hug them.

A hug may not seem an intelligible solution to the issues stirring around the farm and the factory, but I dare challenge that preconception. The power of a hug has many implications, many colors and shades, many layers of expression. It is its most precious manifestation that I aim to expound: compassion, acceptance, and most importantly, love.

Real World Animal Cruelty

Most animal-cruelty, vegetarian and vegan campaigns expose the brutality of the associated industries by publishing graphic images and investigative reports of animal abuse and neglect, torment and pain. To these I am open, but I can only take them in small doses, sipping an image for a few emotional tick tocks, and cherry-picking words from the horror scripts of the ‘Real World; animal mutilation and probing’. I applaud all those who are willing to withstand these truths and who are brave enough to absorb them as such.

For those who deny themselves the displeasures of an animal rights reality check I place no blame: people choose their cause in this world, whatever it may be, and hopefully it is to a positive cause they remain committed.

It’s also not surprising that ordinary folk choose to leave the blood, guts, and gore outside of their mental living rooms: no one feels they deserve to be the victim of blunt-force ‘FYI’ trauma, and so they treat it as they would the news of foreign war casualties from a battle afar; by turning it off and tuning it out.

As creatures prone to unconscious bouts of self-pity, we usually have little to spare. And though we may feel sorry for the animals, this sorrow isn’t enough to ignite the rebirth of thought.

About this ‘in your face approach’: it has the potential to perpetuate intolerance, to stifle opportunities for change by its aggressive undertones that outline its methodology. These wavelengths reveal the truth, yes, as an unrevised and unedited window into the world of our scientific, culinary, and fashion communities. But are we ready for it?

In my experience I find that people do not appreciate being told what to do, nor do they like to be smacked in the face with accusations of having been wrong in choosing this, or bad in doing that. It is hate and power and greed and inhumanity and injustice and selfishness which have manifested mankind as the greatest detriment to his habitat, the greatest threat to all of earth’s species. I don’t think that any ‘global cure’ could contain notes of these characteristic elements; rather, I believe that love is the only way to absolve 2400 years of harmful habits and ignorant consciousness. We simply don’t need to survive in this manner anymore; perpetuating hostility and wastefulness towards animals and earth simply serves no further purpose other than to lead mankind down an irrevocable path of monumental error and spiritual abolishment.

All You Need Is Love to Lift the Burden of Suffering

Love has the power to infiltrate every person’s inherent capacity to reconnect with humanity and re-engage his commitment to the earth and all her creatures. By expounding upon the belief in the power of love, I believe the individual mind will be offered a probable solution to the dichotomy that is currently seeping through the veins of mainstream mindfulness.

In order to access this love, a lot must be un-done, relearned, re emphasized; perhaps the most important of these lessons is to attend the task of re-defining our relationship with food.

During its process from plant/animal to supermarket the origins of our meals has become obscured. The meat section of any outlet doesn’t give reason for the consumer to think of it as anything other than edible protein, appearing in perfect geometrical shapes colored in blush and marked by tags that bear little implication of it having once been a vital part of a living animal.

In all aspects of our consumer lifestyle we lack the thoughtful ability to read past the labels and analyze for ourselves the value of suffering of any particular product. Fur is still a popular trim for coats and boots, leather for belts and jacket hooks, reptile skin for shoes, animal oils for beauty products; the list continues into and beyond infinity.

Whether bargain hunting for the winter ball or shopping for the backyard barbeque bash, we fail to relate our part in the process of purchase, we neglect the power of consumerism to survive these crimes because we simply aren’t conditioned in shopping with an animal-friendly aura. We don’t see a whimpering Husky when we see a fur-trimmed coat. We don’t see an image of a cow when shopping for belts, and we certainly don’t understand the process of turning Emu into Emu oil.  Though the origin of most of our modern commodities is animal-derived, that link that would afford us knowledge of this fact is compromised during the complicated process of mass production. Business is so big it is difficult to trace the birthplace of, say, ground beef; a single burger patty may in fact contain the meat from one hundred different cows along with trace elements of contaminants and rodent feces, all which form the final product on behalf of the sloppy yet profitable large-scale operations of modern corporate industry.

Of course a slaughterhouse image may surface in the mind of a wary consumer when shopping for animal-wares; but how does one make the link between an animal suffering and a cheeseburger? What does the cow on the hill have anything to do with my super value meal, and why should I ditch my winter wardrobe because my hoodie has hair?

Most of us are aware of the current condition of animal suffering; thanks to PETA and Certified Humane and other organizations with similar goals the media conscious does receive fair contribution from Team ‘Animal Welfare’. But it still remains a predominant disposition in the greater social conscious that we tend to not sympathize with the moral of these organizations because we demand the respect of the innocent; we refuse to accept that we may be the cause of the problem; we thus classify the solutions they offer as ‘unreasonable’ and ‘impossible’. Go vegan? “I would sooner die”, says you, “than live vegan”.

There couldn’t be a bigger lie than the one coming from the uneducated consumer when his motives are questioned; he has a thousand reasons to justify his actions, a thousand excuses in answer to the question “why not live animal-friendly”?

We undermine the power of ourselves as members of this ‘merican life, indeed we are the problem from which is fortunately derived the antidote. They give us what we want; this is the structure of our consumerist society. If we demand cheap labor and cheap meat, then this is what will continue to plague our societies and fatten our children. If, however, we demand animal rights and better options, they will have no choice but to re-define the laws and re-establish the practices which currently serve as foot rests for the counsel of  federal/state departments. How do we demand this? How does the average Joe wield his wand of wonderful capacities?

The answer to these questions can be found in the most fascinating, most beautiful and universally recognizable force of nature; love.

Its simple; the mission is to remind people that we too are animals, that we live and breath and are born and die the same as our earthbound companions.

Love is in a simple gesture of compassion from one human being to another living being, to see an animal and to see some life form worthy of the same care and compassion we would provide our children, our pets, our lovers and our friends.

See the Animal, Not the Aftermath

I wish that we could see an animal and see that it is indeed an animal! I wish that we could see a steak and see that it is indeed an animal! I wish that we could see a fuzzy boot and see that it is indeed an animal! When we trace the lineage of our things, I wish that we could trace them to an image of an animal, calm and watchful while in the embrace of a human willing to sacrifice all notions of  superiority for the sake of promoting awareness and instigating change.

All I really want to do is hug a cow. All I really ever wanted to be was love.