Veganism, Plant Sentience and the Sacredness of Life

I read somewhere recently about reasons to become a vegan.  The reason that stood out for me, “Plants are not sentient.”  This brought all kinds of emotion for me, and started me thinking and thinking about the debate about eating animals. 

I started to investigate and research the meaning of sentience and found out all kinds of interesting things. 

First, I offer a bit of background on my perspective on plants and what I am teaching in my shamanic herbalism programs. I have been practicing and teaching shamanic herbalism for almost twenty years.   I am connected with a spirit teacher who shares an ancient shamanic herbal perspective from the British Isles.  Very very old teaching.  In this perspective, the plants are the wisdom teachers.  They are in our ordinary reality and in a reality of expanded consciousness as well.

Before I began my apprenticeship with this teacher, I had some intense experiences with the plants where they spoke to me and gave me songs.  The first experience was while I was still a school teacher and the second was just after I had completed an apprenticeship with Susun Weed.  These experiences were life changing for me and   because it was early on in my path as a shamanic herbalist, I was a little discombobulated by what I was experiencing. 

When I met my teacher and she began to teach me about this ancient healing tradition of the plants, I started to see more fully what I had experienced back then.  With her guidance, trees spoke wisdom, small blades of grass offered reverence, roses taught everything.  The earth became a place of magic and wonder for me and I was nourished completely by it.

One of the definitions of sentience is that it is a being possessing consciousness. Another definition is that it is a living being subject to illusion, suffering and rebirth. (A buddhist definition) My experience with plants is that they possess expanded consciousness and that they have the ability to transcend illusion and suffering. So perhaps they are not sentient but enlightened beings.

This is all in relationship to an Eastern perspective in which I am not strongly versed.  What I do know is that plant consciousness is unique and vast.  What I have experienced is that plants are teachers.  They can see what is within us and mirror that.  They can offer wisdom for us through a variety of channels.

So then back to this idea of veganism.  That we should not eat meat, kill animals for food because it is cruel.  And that it is okay to eat plants, kill plants for food and one might extrapolate, be cruel to plants because they don’t feel anything or know what is happening to them.
Here is my experience with food related to all of this. 

Animals are protectors and companions,  they are beautiful creatures and deserve to be treated with utmost respect.  The food industry’s treatment of animals has been horrible at times.  And then there are the people that care for and love their animals and give death to them and eat them.  All done compassionately. 

Plants are wisdom teachers.  They nourish and they heal.  Plants are compassionate beyond what I have ever experienced with any other beings.  Plants have been treated horribly by the food industry.  They are grown in large monocrops, they are ripped from the earth, they are sprayed and killed with poisons.  And there are those that grow and care for plants with love and blessing. 

I know it is so much more complex than I describe.  But I feel a simple look at food and what we are eating from a consciousness perspective doesn’t require a great deal of intellectual and political rhetoric. 

When we eat animals, we give death.  When we dig a plant up by the roots, we give death.  The more connected we are with the life of our food, the more life force and energy it will provide.  When you have given death to an animal that you love and eat it, it is an intimacy that allows the animal to become a part of you.  It is the same with plants.  When you cut a few kale leaves off the plant and cook them and eat them,  the ones you grew and tended from seeds, when you have communicated with this kale and you know what it has for you, well, all I can say is that you become one with these beings and there is no longer a separation of harm. 

I have some beautiful dandelions in my garden and I will harvest the roots this fall for vinegar and tincture. I will talk to them and receive wisdom from them and I will ask their permission to gather so I know which ones are for me.  And I will offer gratitude for their nourishment.  We have done the same with our goats. 

There is beauty in eating food from the land.  There is no separation between the animals and plants and us. 

When we eat like this we begin to see the sacredness of all of life.  And the food of which we partake completely nourishes us.

May it be in Beauty. 

Monsanto Now Creeping the Philippine Soil

It was a sad news that Monsanto is here, I just saw their latest event poster at Sofitel Luxury Hotels in Manila, banned in Europe and some American states due to toxic crops,  but here we welcome it with open arms  and grand launch. 

What a bitter news for organic consumers and farmers who fought and work so hard to preserved our indigenous crops, and heirloom seeds for contamination. It crosses a question in my mind, are we a dumping site for all these garbage and GMO crap? 

Last time I heard about Monsanto is when a friend saw a big poster of GK (Gawad Kalinga) partnership with Monsanto. As part of Monsanto's corporate social responsibility they donated money for the housing project of GK in Iloilo and Tacloban and they will donate seeds to local farmers, oh no! They exploit our weaknesses, needs and vulnerability. I don't agree accepting dirty money for a good cause, definitely it has vested interest and self-serving.  

I don't want GMO crops in our soil, the government must do something about this, It will be NOT beneficial at all to Filipinos.  If government is serious and thinking about this, they should take a look at the dangers of GMO crops. Infertility, autoimmune diseases, allergies, deformities, even cancer and many other side effects are associated with consuming GMO produce due to added component in the crops such as built-in pesticides.

Monsanto works for food security and sustainability but is it worth it? mass producing GMO crops to sustain the needs of consumer but poses threat in the health of the community in general. Government agencies behind it should realized it will be a threat rather than a solution. In the long run our government will spend billions for health care for the sicknesses brought about by this evil crops.

Event screen from Sofitel shows Monsanto's  two events, who allowed this company here ?

What can I say, what can I do? money talks in this issue and there's no other reason, other countries are banning Monsanto into their soil and yet they are here now without prior consultation to stakeholders. Our DAR is really great in doing its job, allowing this evil crop to destroy our civilization. 

This the reason why I am anti-GMO, read more:
My thoughts on GMO (Genetically Modified Organism)

WOFEX 2014 : The Slow Food Movement

Slow Food Philippines booth at the WOFEX 2014 (World Food Expo)

Many Filipino nowadays are clamoring for a safe and honest food, due to widespread unhealthy choices, and I am one of them. Vegetables and fruits are good for us and we needed that in our diet BUT we have know and make sure it is safe and not toxic. What are the agricultural conditions of the source, farming practices, etc. those are some many issues we have to look at today, being healthy is not just about eating fruits and vegetables but we have to make sure that they are safe, non-GMO (genetically modified) and organically grown to ensure safety standards.

Ms. Pacita "Chit" Juan, founder of ECHOSTORE and Slow Food Movement

I am just glad to know about the slow food movement in the Philippines, I advocate Organic farming and Locavore movement in the past. This Slow Food Movement is the best general healthy options, since we cannot encourage everyone to be a vegan or vegetarian or follow a macrobiotic diet, this one is quite sustainable and works for many in general. 

Being healthy is not all about vegetarianism, it is based on the principle of  making natural food, eat as natural as possible, back to nature. If you are into meat, choose a grass-fed beef, a native, organic pig, or farm raised free-range chicken with lots of sunshine. Grow your own food, make your own herbal garden, if you can not buy from your local farmers within your area and encourage them to go organic farming, that way you establish a bond with your local farmers and support them economically and at the same time lessen the carbon impact that contributes to climate change. I usually go to my local market, food fair to buy vegetables and fruits than go to  big producers. The shipment of this food will cause the food rot easily due to "lamog" (spoilage), and the increase carbon footprints in the air because of the vehicles used to transport them.

Sample of heirloom and indigenous crops in the exhibit:

Kamatis Ligaw ( Indigenous Tomatoes)

Native Cherry Tomatoes

Native cacao

Highland Coffee

Who said you can't grow food if you are living in a condo or without a land? there many ways and possibilities like this one,  heirlomm seeds and herbs  grown in a crates.

Let's preserve our heirloom and indigenous seeds, let's go organic, buy and go local, use locally available materials, plant and grow your own food if you can, support the local farmers in your area and encourage potluck, that way we do our little way of saving the environment. 

To know more about Slow Food visit or contact:

ECHOSTORE
116 Tordesillas St., Salcedo Village, Makati City
+632 519.1216
E-mail: puj@echostore.ph
Website: www.echostore.ph

A Destiny We Cannot Understand

I have been reading about depression since Robin Williams died.  The best article I read so far describes it as an energy, a tension that is stuck and appears to be immovable.  The Buddhist teacher speaking about it says to merge with the depression, to become it, because it is so full of energy. 

This seems like a big risk, doesn’t it?  Instead of thinking of depression as something outside of us and afflicting us, we see it as an energy within us that has a lot of energy for us.  When I think of this for myself, because I have dealt with depression on and off in the last six months, I feel a tremendous surge of energy that feels like anger well up     inside me.  Perhaps though it is not just anger, perhaps it is my power to heal, my power to create.  Perhaps it is the divinity within me that has been bottled up and requires an outlet.  A full expression of who I am. 

I have been working with teachers and friends who are holding me accountable for being my most powerful self right now.  In order to fulfill this destiny, I have to change, to be bigger and more fully realized.  It feels so hard sometimes because I am not being      supported to be my old small self anymore.  Sometimes I feel abandoned because I am so addicted to that self that is needy and likes to be taken care of.  That self is not really me.  It is just an illusion of a kind of thinking that I let my mind do to get a kind of attention that feels comfortable. 

The illusion of our thinking is so important in all this talk about Robin Williams.  We don’t really know what his “mind chatter” was telling him.  We don’t really know what his soul was calling for.  We only know what we are told. 

What if we accepted his death as what needed to happen for him?

When we can see through these eyes, we see that although sad, there is a kind of destiny here that we can not understand.  And this mystery is what can open us to more expansive thinking. 

To be supported to be bigger and to leave behind ways that no longer serve that goal, is the most powerful kind of support.  It calls us into the realm of the mystery.  This destiny for us into the unknown of so much beauty.