Eclipses, Awareness, Relating, and Other Ideas

Yesterday in WNC it cleared up nicely, so I was able to see the part of the solar eclipse that was visible here. (Fortunately, I’d saved the viewing glasses from the last solar eclipse). I watched it for almost two hours, and once again this amazing universe did not disappoint. What a fascinating event to see!

Astrologer Jamie Partridge from the UK says that: “The New Moon in Libra on October 14, 2023, is an annular solar eclipse. It makes a quincunx aspect to Uranus. So, the meaning of the New Moon October 2023 astrology is to solve problems by using imagination and open-mindedness to overcome polarized thinking.” He says that this solar eclipse “aligns with stars that support the quest for solutions through leadership, diplomacy and the ability to see things from both sides.”

Sounds like things that are badly needed everywhere in this world right now.

But whether or not the symbolism of astrology has any meaning or relevance to you, in my humble opinion there is never a bad time for expanded views, and seeing more clearly into "my blind spots, the places where I thoroughly believe the stuff that goes through my head, the unexamined nonsense that runs great portions of my life.”  (Quote is from Cheri Huber, Zen teacher and guide).

Cheri is talking about the practice of passive awareness, or awareness without a goal, which means simply getting present, "being aware without judgement, without recrimination or rationalization, of the world we’ve created in our minds. Without making yourself wrong or bad, and without trying to change.”

She writes that “with this system (the conditioning we all have), I am operating in a world of delusion…. That orientation will be altered only by an internal process. We call that process awareness practice or self-discovery.”

“I begin to drop habitual patterns of suffering and delusion, and I spend more time here in the present, in a place of clarity, seeing how I maintain suffering, and letting it go. From that place I am different.”

She adds that struggling to change strengthens what you are trying to change.

In terms of relationships, she says “In intimate relationship, at the beginning we can usually see our partner’s purity and innocence because we are open and undefended with each other. (Projection again. Those qualities in ourselves are being reflected in the partner). Then, just as in childhood when we start receiving the blows, the disappointments, the hurts, we start to close off…"

"But as adults, if we can go beyond our conditioning, stay open-hearted, and not put up defenses, if we can continue to see the other person from that original, innocent, pure place, we have the opportunity to heal much injury and suffering.”

Yes, love involves the task of opening our heart, and keeping it open, which often feels challenging to the ego and makes us feel too vulnerable, especially when discord arises. That’s when it’s helpful to remember that we all come with conditioning, baggage, trauma, insecurities, and that none of us are at our best all the time, with loved ones or anyone else. No matter how much we may want to be.

It's taken me a long time to really get that when you can learn to have compassion for yourself, your mistakes, your wounds, your messed up thinking, and the pain you’ve endured and caused, then it’s much easier to find compassion and understanding for those things in others.

Marianne Williamson, in “Every Day Grace” says that “The key to right relationship…is to allow each one, in every moment, to be lifted from the past. A relationship is reborn whenever we see someone as they are right now and don’t hold them to what they were. Focus on the present, not the past, is essential to the experience of grace.”

Williamson believes relationships have a spiritual purpose, and “bring together those who represent the greatest opportunities for learning from each other. In every relationship there’s an endless stream of potential healing.” Of course, whether that potential happens, or the relationship is undermined by grievance and ego, is up to us.  “The light in our own mind will help dissolve the darkness in someone else’s, but only if we refuse to judge or blame them for what we view as their errors.”

She goes on to write that “the walls (that divide us) primarily live in our own minds.” And our higher selves have the power to dissolve them. “Everyone makes mistakes; we all have bad days, get in rotten moods, and say or do things we wish we hadn’t. We would be much better off – and certainly our relationships would improve – were we to take every moment’s word and deed less seriously and to trust in the deeper intentions of the heart.”

David Richo, who wrote “The Five Things We Cannot Change”, notes in the section “People Are Not Loving and Loyal All the Time”, that “The purpose of relationships is the same as the purpose of our work and life: To become fully evolved adults who give and receive the 5 A’s abundantly: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. Anything less leads to a stunting of ourselves.”

Later in the section he talks about being aware of our partner’s negative traits with compassion, and suggests asking ourselves, “Am I willing to play on relationship’s full checkerboard of light and dark?”

 An article in The Marginalian about Thicht Nat Hahn’s book “How to Love” summarizes his urging for us to really listen to each other, because that’s the prerequisite for true understanding in a love or any other relationship:

”Echoing legendary Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki’s memorable aphorism that “the ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow,” Nhat Hanh considers how the notion of the separate, egoic “I” interrupts the dialogic flow of understanding — the “interbeing,” to use his wonderfully poetic and wonderfully precise term, that is love:

“Often, when we say, “I love you” we focus mostly on the idea of the “I” who is doing the loving and less on the quality of the love that’s being offered. This is because we are caught by the idea of self. We think we have a self. But there is no such thing as an individual separate self. A flower is made only of non-flower elements, such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If we were to remove all the non-flower elements from the flower, there would be no flower left. A flower cannot be by herself alone. A flower can only inter-be with all of us… Humans are like this too. We can’t exist by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be. I am made only of non-me elements, such as the Earth, the sun, parents, and ancestors. In a relationship, if you can see the nature of interbeing between you and the other person, you can see that his suffering is your own suffering, and your happiness is his own happiness. With this way of seeing, you speak and act differently. This in itself can relieve so much suffering.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

More thoughts on relating from Thich Nhat Hanh:

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.”

“The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.”

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”

“People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”

 The detritus of a deranged world,

errors from an ancient past

dripping off those wringing cold comfort from 

the separation,

the insane rules

the unrelenting abuse

the unworthiness

seared into brains from a lifetime

of corrupted culture,

toxic media

ghoulish religions

pathological agendas

This is what your life should look like! This is what relationships look like!

Not transcendence, expansion, reflection

but limits, confinement, entropy

Long-dead voices reverberating between the ears

creating distortion, confusion, pinhole vision

warped thoughts and acidic voices that 

will not rest

until you’ve given up any chance for authentic connection

With Self

With Another

With Earth

too frozen to risk finding it, instead

hiding in a fragile shell,

wrapped in filmy delusion

believing it’s your choice

believing it’s “working”

 yet in the silence, Listen!

A hum, a whisper,

that which animates all,

ever so softly suggesting you could

break free

but do you want to

do you want to?

It’s not hard

just scary and

there’s no net

and you have to step over the edge

The Franken-flesh Follies, aka Lab-created ("cultivated") Meat

After yet another email from a supposedly pro-veg group effusing about lab-created "meat", I really need to address this topic, as it's one I feel strongly about.

Let's acknowledge some realities: "Cultivated meat" a is lab-created, genetically modified product. It is grown with actual animal cells, so it is not vegan or even vegetarian, for that matter. The fans of this who say it will "save animals" act as if this were the only alternative to animal products - and that's not remotely the case.

 

 Plant-based protein, including plant-based analogs to people's favorite meat items, are available virtually everywhere. There are a ton of these products, and most of them are delicious. Many of these are non-GM products, and some are even organic -yay! They didn't originate in the lab.

Lab-created meats are hugely expensive products to develop, and many in this industry will never see a profit. According to a piece in Forbes, "To produce lab-grown meat, manufacturers use what’s called a bioreactor — the same machinery drug companies use to make vaccines. They’re expensive and have long waitlists. Also costly is construction of the factories in which to put the bioreactors. Good Meat CEO Josh Tetrick says a facility able to produce 30 million pounds of cultivated meat would cost as much as $650 million." 

 

As you might guess, all this is extremely energy intensive. Possibly on the scale of (or exceeding) the livestock industry, depending on whose figures you look at.

 

Who is profiting, or at least planning to profit, from this lab-created "meat"? Clearly it cost billions to develop. Why lab-created meat instead of plant protein? And who are the elites investing in this? Bill I-Promote-GMOs-Worldwide Gates, for one. Head honchos at multi-national conglomerates and celebrity chefs for another. Patents are being applied for, presumably being granted. One application is "to manufacture skeletal muscle for dietary consumption". 

And the implication of that is beyond the scope of this little post.

 

And perhaps WHY would be another pertinent question. Are we to believe that these billionaires and huge multinational corporations are driven by altruistic fervor? We already know they don't give a damn about animal suffering, and they certainly don't care about the unknown effects of genetically modified organisms on human health, the environment, and agriculture as we've known it. Do they believe this technology will be profitable at some point in the future? Why are they sinking billions into this, as opposed to converting livestock operations to the higher protein plant crops? Especially since some of these investors are already in the livestock business.

If you are vegan or vegetarian who is thinking the "saving animals" argument makes sense, please consider the following: The vast majority of people are very unlikely to be interested in buying or eating lab-created flesh products. That sounds about as appealing to most people as eating cricket protein (another food novelty, which is currently available in natural foods markets).

One of my concerns around this type of product is that it blurs the line between plant-based protein products and "fake meat", a term already widely used by meat eaters to describe protein products that aren't carcass-based. Some vegans and vegetarians have contributed to this misconception themselves by using terms like fake meat. This has not been helpful.  

To many consumers, it's ALL fake meat, so in that sense the addition of lab-created, genetically engineered flesh foods may actually harm the plant-based protein market.

Fortunately, millions of people do have an awareness that plant-based versions of popular meat products are available, and that their local grocery stores usually have them. When their veg relative stays over, they already know they can pick up some Gardein Breakfast patties, Morning star Farms patties, etc.  Or when they go out with veg friends, they already know that their friends can get a Beyond Burger, or maybe a Sweet Earth burger at Ruby Tuesdays, etc.

 

It's not like anyone has been sitting around waiting for lab-created meat: "Yay, finally we have an alternative to animal flesh!" Nope.

Plant-based proteins have a fraction of the energy footprint that genetically modified lab-meat does, and they are "no-kill" products. So I'm wondering why some in the veg  community are hailing lab-created "meat" as some sort of triumph.  And what's in it for the supposedly vegan-ish animal rights groups online which promote this stuff continually? Especially since really tasty plant-based "meat"/protein products already exist and are available pretty much everywhere. What is their agenda here? There is some reason they're promoting this, and whatever that reason is, it doesn't feel animal-centered to me.

 

My current sense of things is that lab-created flesh food is not helping veganism or animal rights at all, and may in fact be hurting the cause - many people are going to be associating these bizarre sounding lab-meat products with plant-based protein products, and possibly be more likely to reject all of it.