All Snakes Day (March 17)

I read an interesting tidbit somewhere (wish I remembered where) about "St. Patrick's Day" being reclaimed by some Pagans as "All Snakes Day." The idea is along the lines of celebrating snakes and pagans rather than carrying on the covert or overt themes that suggest St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland is a metaphor for Christianity driving the old faith out. I like the idea of celebrating it as "All snakes day." So enjoy, and hug a snake today. I'll include a picture of my coauthor, Gwen, doing just that at a Salem Witches' Ball.

Snakes are often associated with transition and sensuality, and connection to the earth. Snakes and other reptiles are also often associated with the element of fire. Many ancient traditions associate snakes with knowledge...especially spiritual or magical knowledge.



In celebration of All Snakes Day, I did a veganized version of a traditional St. Patrick's day type dinner (as I remember growing up). I made soda bread from Veganomicon (Isa Chandra) and boiled dinner from Betty Goes Vegan. Here are some photos to show that we can have yummy, traditional and cultural foods without any animal products!

raw vegan birthday

Hi, happy birthday to me! Here's to getting another year older, LOL. But at least I did it with style by making my own raw, vegan birthday cake. I used the recipe for "coconut snow cake" from Ani Phyo's book, "Ani's Raw Food Kitchen."

It was good but I think I put too much banana in the cake, making the texture a little too hard. I had pre-chipped bananas so I had trouble estimating what “five dehydrated bananas” was. But one of my mom’s coworkers asked so many questions about the cake that I sent her a piece and Mom said she liked it. She actually ate the whole piece right there, when she had said she would just try a bite.

And on my bday I went to lunch with Mom and her coworker at our fave Thai place, that makes me vegan food to order. They gave me a $20 gift certificate too!

Then it was a regular rest of the week until Saturday, when Mom, Gwen and I went out. We went to see “The Monuments Men” and then went to dinner at Miguel’s, a Mexican place in Bangor that we love. The movie was good, by the way. Just  a little sad, of course, but very educational too.

Miguel’s has a niche at serving as much local organic as possible and catering to people with dietary needs like gluten free or vegan. They have a regular looking menu for a Mexican place, except there is vegan meat, cheese, and sour cream available to use in virtually every entrée. Most of the vegans I know, including myself, love that we can go there with omnivores and everyone can order off the regular menu with no fuss. Plus it’s just really good food.

I got my usual of veggie fajitas with spiced tofu, vegan cheese (daiya) and sour cream (probably follow your heart). And as usual I had to take half of  it home. The next morning I fried up a little more seasoned tofu and then made a fajita scramble out of it. It was gooood.

  
So here's to another year of being even more healthy and happy than ever!

vegan pagan yahoo group

In an effort to grow my own community of vegans who are also pagans and pagans who are also vegans (and vegans or pagans who are curious about the other path), I created a bouncing baby yahoo group. I will try to remember to post the subscription info at the end of each post in an endeavor to grow this community. I sometimes feel isolated in both communities as the only vegan AND pagan, so I wonder if I am not alone.

The subscription info is:  veganpagan333-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

My Offensive T-Shirt

I had a great time with my dad's side of the family for New Year's in Boston this year. This was especially true since I was escaping the carnage of our recent ice storm and power outage for three days. But there are always some tensions being the vegan in the family at those extremely food-centric holiday events. Just one thing stuck out to me that I felt like sharing here. I wore my favorite long sleeve tee from http://www.herbivoreclothing.com/ one day and it got noticed immediately. Now I admit, this is why I wear the occasional vegan "message tee." I tend to wear humorous ones at my pagan temple and I like the conversation starter they usually turn out to be. But this time it just struck me that my family members, although being very gentle with me because of my recent storm hardships, seemed to take offense to the tee in question. I find this highly ironic because it is the mildest message tee that I know of on the planet and I would think its sentiment would be relatively unassailable. Apparently not. Here is the message. Brace yourselves:

 

 

Love Life, No Matter Whose. With bunnies.

 

Controversial, huh? (WTF??!!)

 

 

I mean, it's really strange how people who are generally kind and open and support charities and are Christians (my father and step mother are both protestant clergy) get defensive about the message of "love" when it is attached to other species. I guess that's the bottom line here. If we can't get behind this basic message I think there is something wrong. And I will keep wearing my offensive tee shirt. Peace. Love. Bunnies. Deal with it.

In the New Year

Well, I have to admit the Yule season wasn't very festive for me. If you are local you know, and if not you probably saw on the national news the coverage of a ferocious ice storm that we got here, starting on actual Yule and going until about Christmas Eve. Then after the actual storm ended, we saw the havoc it had wrought all around us. The ice brought down trees and branches everywhere, damaging homes and cars, blocking roads, and especially downing power lines. My area of downeast Maine was hardest hit in our state. At my house we had no power for eight full days...almost ten days total with the two days on each end of the incident. For the first few days it was warm and rainy so the only inconveniences were the water and lights and other conveniences not working, but soon we got into record cold temps (the worst 30 below zero) that seriously threatened to freeze our pipes solid and make our home uninhabitable until spring. We spent hundreds of dollars on propane tanks and took shifts staying up all night every night keeping the wood stove and the propane heater going, but the house was still never above fifty degrees in the warmest areas. The dogs had to wear coats and I had to move our tortoise's habitat up into the vent above the chimney in an effort to keep everyone safe at home. We had emergency shelter lined up for all our animals but we fought hard not to have to traumatize them with a move. Fortunately it (just barely) did not come to that. We got our pipes fixed and our heat restored on the late afternoon of New Year's Eve. We got our lights back two days before our heat because we have water generated heating pipes and three of them had frozen and burst. So we didn't really do much celebration over the holiday period until New Year's day, when we truly and meaningfully celebrated "the rebirth of the light." The actual holidays were fairly cold and miserable but the meaning of Yule has never been clearer to me.

The storm and the long term interruption in people's' basic services had a large impact in our community. The trees were broken to bits and will take years to recover. People lost cars to falling ice. Their homes were damaged. They lost needed food supplies when freezers went dead for extended times. They burned through a month's worth of firewood. Animals suffered. Even in my household of coddled pets, one of our cats got out for half an hour during the deep freeze and got frostbite on three of her feet. She is recovering quickly but requires lots of expensive follow up care. And many people in my community are not able to afford that kind of care for their pets, if they are even inclined to give it. The different impacts have yet to all be fully understood.

The Maine Emergency Management Agency is interviewing locals now to try to measure these impacts. The whole thing makes me wonder how frequent these storms might realistically become as a result of climate change. And of course, climate change ties into veganism. For a fuller grasp of the issues, check out:

http://awellfedworld.org/climate

As for me, I am going to celebrate the ever growing length of daylight with as much gratitude as my ancestors must have done, when they were ever more connected to the realities of day to day survival and our relationship to nature. May you all be blessed, safe and warm for the rest of this winter.

Solstice approaches

Well, here we are in December. How did that happen? I admit I am feeling a little seasonal affect.

Here in Maine it gets pitch black dark out by 4PM, so I have to feel my way to my car when I leave

work at night. But I find hope in the cycle of the year. Solstice is coming, and even in the wintery

 darkness we can be assured that, after Yule, the days begin growing longer and longer again.

 

In the story of the Goddess and God, this is also the time of the “rebirth of the son/sun.” The Goddess gives birth to the Oak King, who slowly grows stronger and stronger in the coming months. This is mirrored by the length of daylight in the Western Hemisphere, and the slow march toward the coming of Spring.

So stay warm, be grateful for what you have, and have hope! The sun is coming.

Mind if I Order the Cheeseburger? Intro

I want to share some thoughts on each chapter of this book. It is a great book called, "Mind if I Order the Cheeseburger? And Other Questions People Ask Vegans" by Sherry Colb.

This book is a really valuable guide for vegans seeking to give good, confident answers to common questions asked to us by nonvegans. It also gives tips for how to deal with these questions in a graceful manner when they may make us feel angry or defensive. I know that has happened to me and I wish I had read the book beforehand.

Colb is very gracious to nonvegans. She says again and again that nonvegans often don't mean to be offensive when they ask the questions, and we just feel that way. I can personally testify that many nonvegans DO mean to be offensive and are in full blown attack mode when they bring up some of these topics. But then again, most of the people I know are nonvegans and I really like most of them. I love some of them. I know they are generally good people. But even when vegans don't say anything specific about our beliefs, our mere presence in some people's lives seems to make them feel really defensive. But Colb's gracious, calm approach and good information make it a lot easier to deal with both kinds of nonvegans.

I do agree with her that we need to be calm, friendly, and nondefensive as much as possible when dealing with nonvegans. I know some days I can do that and some days a nonvegan rubs me the wrong way. It usually has more to do with how I'm feeling than the person talking to me. Not always. As I've said, some people just attack and it's impossible not to take it that way.

When an interaction is unwanted or aggressive I often avoid their questions or feel really angry. I've never been overtly rude to anyone in that situation but I have felt bad about some interactions. And I've always wished afterwards that I had said or done something better. That is why I grabbed this book immediately after hearing it reviewed on the Our Henhouse podcast.

Every time we have a good interaction with a nonvegan, it helps to break down stereotypes that help nonvegans dismiss us and the facts under veganism as "fringe" or "crazy" or "not realistic." And that has wide spread repercussions for us, for the environment, and for animals. And even for the nonvegan him or herself, if our information goes on to make their lives healthier and better. Win-Win for everybody! Well, except big ag and big pharma.

It helps to have good answers to these questions. I will therefore do a brief summary of Colb's chapters in this blog, along with my own thoughts. I don't mean to imply that you get the full value of the book by reading my posts, of course. I highly, highly recommend buying it, and/or gifting it.

In the introduction, Colb defines "vegan." She explains how some nonvegans like to think of veganism as a phase or as unrealistic extremeism. She basically suggests that we 1) know our reasons for being vegan and 2) calmly, simply express them. This is the ongoing theme of the book.

She defines veganism in this way: "Vegans avoid participating in violence toward animals. This means they refuse to purchase and consume animal flesh, dairy, eggs, and other products of animal slaughter and exploitation, such as wool, leather, and fur. In her daily choices, the vegan thereby freely chooses not to contribute to the carnage and suffering associated with the breeding and slaughter of animals. Her daily life expresses her commitment to compassion and non-violence, and her interaction with her world as one of caring."

This is a lot more detail than I have ever gone into when telling people what vegan means. If they ask, I usually say "I don't use any animal products." If they look puzzled, I list some, usually starting with dietary and if they seem friendly, add the other stuff (clothing, shoes, products). Usually if people ask me, it is in a food related context so the most important thing I convey is the dietary aspect. Like someone at a potluck at work might ask me why I'm trying to figure out what's in their salad, for example.

Then Colb gives a quick summary of what she thinks the most important talking points are for explaining veganism to people. These talking points include, as "the simple case for veganism":

Health.
Environment.
Animals.

I agree with her talking points and was gratified to see them since I took a similar approach in my article, "An it Harm None: Vegans in the Pagan Community" which was run in the last issue of Circle Sanctuary Magazine (Issue 114). In my article I included all three of these points as reasons people are vegan, and I also included weight loss and fitness as seperate categories. My article is in the back issues at Circle's website, by the way: http://www.circlesanctuary.org/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=42&product_id=607

Health: she discusses how animal based foods increase risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other health conditions. She puts forth some of the info from researchers like Colin Campbell. I would suggest that the whole argument can be easily and enjoyably learned by watching and rewatching "Forks over Knives" a few times.

Environment: She references the 2006 UN report, "Livestock's Long Shadow" (and other studies) and briefly introduces people to the impact animal agriculture has on the environment. Basically she is touching on the connections between animal consumption and global climate change, species extinction, and world hunger. I like the website www.awellfedworld.org for gleaning more info on this topic. The movie "Vegucated" also gives brief and very understandable summaries of this (and all the other) talking point.

Animals: Colb believes that the general public basically knows factory farming is cruel. She talks as if many people have already seen something like "meet your meat" or at least some news footage about the innumerable animal agriculture cruelty investigations. The media piece may be true but I tend to think people are in much more denial about the animal cruelty of their food choices than Colb seems to. Especially in my area, which is rural and filled with small farming operations, people like to believe that small farms are not cruel and that killing animals who "were happy" is somehow ethical and nature's law. For instance, I photographed a sign on a booth at our state's huge organic farming fair last summer that read, "Happy Pigs Taste Better." Anyhow, Meet Your Meat online is a bracing but informative piece about the animal issues. I have found that Farm Sanctuary has very informative brochures about factory farming, and they do not have slaughter footage so they are less traumatic for nonvegans to read. Brochures like this can often be purchased or downloaded from places like www.farmsanctuary.org or Compassion Over Killing: www.cok.net. But I have to give it to Colb, people do seem to know more than they admit they know if you can catch them not feeling defensive. Just yesterday someone at work asked me about my smoothies and asked if I was "one of those granolas," to which I explained I was a vegan, and what it meant (the no animal products answer). She thought about it a second and then started talking about all the stuff she knew about animal agriculture. She has been to a big hen operation when she was in grade school and seen them burning the tips off hens beaks, and been horrified. And she had heard where veal came from and she no longer ate veal. She went on about a few more things. And she asked me, "but if you know where the stuff comes from it's okay, right? Like I have a friend who makes goat cheese." And in that moment I made a snap decision and just shrugged and said, "sure, if you absolutely know where it's coming from and how the animals are treated. It's just that out in restaraunts and stores and everywhere else I have no way of knowing, so I just avoid animal products." And she accepted that and stayed friendly. So I felt comfortable with that way of talking about it with her because we did discuss a lot of animal cruelty without her shutting down.

In the rest of the intro, Colb does discuss how veganism makes nonvegans feel defensive and uncomfortable, so she underscores again the purpose of her book: that giving thoughtful, well educated replies to them makes your life easier and forwards the spread of veganism. Even if the person talking to you doesn't become vegan, they have just gotten more info and who knows how that may spread. And they have also had a vegan talk with them in a calm, informative manner so they hopefully will be less defensive around other vegans. And who knows where that will lead. As activists everything we do matters.

Recently someone at my pagan temple was working in the kitchen with gwen and I when we were serving at a buffet. She asked several questions about "is this vegan?" or "is that vegan?" and "can you eat (fill in the blank)?" and after a while of this she said to us, "it's just so nice that you two are just open about what you believe without being preachy."

I know she meant that as a compliment but it was still frustrating to me. Where are all the preachy vegans I keep hearing about? As a board member on our statewide vegan organization and a coordinator of local vegan meetups, I think I know at least half the vegans in the area. When we go out together we are always amongst nonvegans, since we are an extreme minority here. Yet I have never heard or seen a vegan verbally assaulting or guilting a nonvegan. I know it happens somewhere and sometimes, but it can't be the epidemic nonvegans imply it is. On the other hand I have seen at least half a dozen verbal assaults on vegans by nonvegans, and directly experienced several. So I personally think it's a lot of projection on the part of nonvegans. But I still know that those moments when a nonvegan concedes that we're "all" not preachy and confrontational is a victory for veganism, so I sigh internally and press on.

I think the film Vegucated is a good summary of all these three basic arguments, actually. So I recommend a film fest of Vegucated and Forks over Knives to get comfortable with the arguments. Some vegan potlucks including a screening of one of these films wouldn't hurt either. Maybe with a plug for this book in the process.

Next time I post on this book I will do chapter one: What About Plants?