VEGAN SANCTUARY: December 2009

LITE A FLAME-for the animals

It doesn't interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the center of the fire

with me

and not shrink back

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

When we become vegan we evolve.

When we live vegan because we're against violence and oppression it is nearly impossible to turn back to being complicit once again in the exploitation and killing of non humans.

When we become vegan for ethical reasons there is a flame lit.

When our veganism becomes a communication to others about animal rights

the radiance from this flame burns even brighter.

When we humans notice that this flame is also our light to glimpse more clearly the connection we have to each other...........

maybe then do we realize that the only goal that's important in our lives is to see....

Each other.

Although she died in 1997 Laura Nyro was a fire of creativity, compassion and genius.

It's sad that such a beautiful spirit of a person would be taken so early.

Laura lit a flame for animals with her insightful words and music.

LITE A FLAME (the animal rights song)

Vegan Sanctuary shares with you this beautiful anthem to be inspiration for you to live vegan and to stand up for all the animals and to never "shrink" back.

We humans often forget that we are animals. And we are animals from Africa.

We share an incredible past and link to that place in the world.

We are not only all distant cousins but we are all brothers and sisters.

We are all from the same mother.

We divide ourselves into different races and species yet our intermediates (the animals who connect us) are merely extinct. They once lived as we do now.

The way our minds divide us all is not only horribly deceptive but brings about prejudice and suffering.

We humans are only a tiny part of a great chain and we are all linked to one another.

We could stand hand in hand in unbroken unity with every other animal who has ever lived before.

Why is this beautiful truth not our spirituality or our earthly or even "heavenly" religion?

Go vegan and let that transformation be the flame that sweeps through your life and lights the fire for others.

This post is dedicated to all the animals in cages everywhere and eversince.

This post is dedicated to Animal Rights Africa for being in the center of the fire.

This post is dedicated to everyone who fights prejudice, discrimination and oppression.

This post is also dedicated to the new blog ChallengeOppression.com.

Be a sanctuary and a flame for others,

Be vegan

Laura Nyro (1970)

click on the link below and then click play on the music player. It will pop up and you can return back to this page while the Laura Nyro song plays.

click here Lite A Flame (the animal rights song)

In the zoo

They gave him a cage

Circus put a sparkle

On his face

Away from life

The elephant walks

Shadow across a dream

Lost for ivory

Oh freedom

Lite a flame

It's like prejudice

For the color of your skin

Prejudice for a woman

Prejudice for an animal

Like the elephant of the plain

Masai moon

In the morningrise

Africa -

The world comes alive

A matriarch

Leads the tribe

To the sweet water

The cool feelin'

And the way to survive

Oh freedom

Lite a flame

It's like prejudice

For the color of your skin

Prejudice for a woman

Prejudice for an animal

Like the elephant of the plain

Of the plain

For greed not need

Societies sleep

Lead the killing hand on

Young ones full of spark

A wave of birds across the park

Kids climbing

Sliding, riding free

Elephant child hiding

Behind a tree

Prejudice

For an animal

Like the elephant of the plain

In the early part of the 20th century nearly 50 million elephants lived freely.

Today there are less than 600,000 of our vegan brothers and sisters and they are still being killed by the thousands every year.

Vegan evolution by "NATURAL" selection

Those of us who choose to live vegan are often confronted with supposed crushing and devastating responses from people who consume animal products.
These arguments or questions are meant to prove without a doubt how misguided we ethical vegans are in living our lives with concern for non human animals.
One of the most frequent responses we ethical vegans receive comes at us in the form of a comment that is presumed to be a slam dunk in the face of our animal rights philosophy.
And here it is.....

Yeah but........eating animals is totally natural.

The above phrase by the way is delivered with a taken for granted confidence that this is the actual hypothetical nail in the coffin for us vegans.
Even if we vegans are feeling charitable especially during this season of giving... we can't give this one to the animal eaters anymore.

From this guy

To this guy

In seconds.

The moment when many humans who consume animals come into contact with an ethical vegan they immediately turn into hardened evolutionary biologists with years of field training and best selling non fiction books which claim.....
we are nothing more than what our genes command of us.

Now, assuming that these people are not the nearly 60% of US citizens who believe the earth is only 10,000 years old they will also assert.....
we are only creatures like other animals and we are what nature has adapted us to be.

Pure reductionism here seems to offer no answers for us vegans as these instantly endowed professors of genetics and science also claim that humans are superior to all the other animals because we can make moral decisions regarding right and wrong and the other animals cannot.

Yet when this exact supposed moral superiority interferes with the ethical or moral aspects of eating animals they immediately switch back to their original thesis......
that it's natural for us to eat animals because we are just like the other animals who eat animals and we do so because it was part of our evolutionary adaptation....
and.... our genes make us do it.

One can only observe in these situations how easy people can run together two irreconcilable philosophies when something morally inconvenient gets in the way. And we must admit here, even if it's painful to do so, that at least the other 60% of the human population that just blurts out "God did it" only have one reason going on in their heads for everything. Even though it might be ludicrous.

First off to suggest that something humans may do is natural says nothing about the morality or ethical aspects of this practice or activity.
History informs us again and again that nature has no doubt selected many traits and practices that we now view as unethical.
In fact to make the claim in this fashion that because some activity humans have done and might still do is natural and therefore completely acceptable will only lead them directly into an archaeological dig they will not be able to climb out of again.

With this line of reasoning male sexual violence which probably was an adaptive advantage for our species throughout our evolutionary history can be claimed as natural too. Yet today rape and any other violent sexual coercion is so morally unacceptable we've created laws to protect others from this "natural" behavior.
Diseases such as cancer, tuberculosis and malaria could be claimed as natural too but humans will do whatever it takes to defeat and overcome these deadly afflictions.

Are shooting wolves with high powered rifles from helicopters natural?
Are harpooning whales with ship deck mounted cannon artillery natural?
We would imagine it all depends on our definition of what natural means.

Domesticating animals and turning them into food using modern scientific procedures such as cloning and genetic engineering would seem to fall into the unnatural category by most and send our instant expert biologist back to the jungles looking for new clues.

However, all of this becomes irrelevant when we notice that anything humans do can be claimed as natural and therefore the justification for using this argument is completely short sighted.

To say that something is natural or that it has helped humans get to where we are today, as many will immediately insist while having this conversation, is still not relevant to whether this practice is ethical or even good.

Admittedly, the United States would not be the country it is today without centuries of African human slavery. This of course does not justify the practice of human slavery in any sense, even if some scientist were to claim it as natural.

Because humans have done or can do something does not mean that we should.

We must appreciate that what might be considered natural and inherent in human nature may at the same time also be in direct conflict of what is moral and ethical.

The fact that we do not need to eat animal products at all combined with the understanding that it's quite "unnatural" for humans to eat other animals in the massive quantities which we do eat them combined yet again with how much horrible suffering and death takes place with this protein source only underscores the moral principle of becoming vegan.

We need only admit that our concern for ourselves and others, (including non human beings) and the entire sphere of such concerns is what is most important in the world.

When someone states that something might be natural that claim may become important and relevant only as it reveals that nature was itself not the invention and design of a super-natural being or sky God but rather of the natural process of its cosmic, evolutionary and biological roots.

The indisputable fact that we actually did evolve from other animals and we are ourselves animals simply hands us a beautiful opportunity for understanding our moral responsibilities to each other and all of the other animals as well.

There is a real circle that links us all to one another from the beginning of time.

Discovered in 2009 Ardi is now the oldest human ancestor ever found.

We are a species who can and must restrain from doing whatever it is we want for whatever reasons we claim and especially for whatever reasons we invent.

If there are right and wrong reasons for instance to behave in certain ways then we must acknowledge as a species that we also have moral and ethical responsibilities to these behaviors.

The problem of excusing so much death and cruelty inflicted on non human animals with the mere assertion that something might be natural, is it maintains our ignorance and keeps us from seeing the truth about our own evolution and who we are.

The obvious truth most humans fail to see about ourselves and our species is that it's much more "natural" for us over time to evolve away from practices which are unethical, unjust and heartless than it is to maintain those traditions.
The historical evidence and the modern history of our species shows this to be the case.

In the same way our species has evolved away from cannibalism and human slavery over centuries, we will eventually do the same in regard to eating and using the other animals on this planet.

Our human species will evolve overtime to become vegan and it will be "natural" and it will be much sooner than later.

Do it now...evolve.

Go Vegan.

Listen here....NATURAL high

SANCTUARY...for you.

We humans are not alone in the world. The other animals of this world share the experience of happiness and suffering as we humans do.

For the world to actually matter to us the happiness and suffering of others must matter to us as well.

The fact that many of us must rely on our intuitions to find this landscape of concern does not always make for a more compassionate world.

The compass that most humans use to navigate the world...fails to detect the non human animals in it's scope.

We live in a world where the small minded quest for material possessions and a desperate search for pleasure out of self interest... inevitably leads to an incredible amount of suffering and death.

The farmed animals of the world are (and will be) the most forgotten and the least cared about creatures on the planet.
These animals will die in the billions upon billions and not one of their stories will ever be seen on... Animal Planet.

When we can locate the landscape of kindness in ourselves and in the world.....

both become limitless.

When we can recognize this place as who we are.....
happiness and freedom are directly at our finger tips.

We all belong to the ideas we love.

When our ideas are responsible for bringing more love to the world......
our intuitions about living vegan become truth.