National Vodou Day

Today is National Vodou Day. A holiday which takes place each year since 1996. Every year, thousands of adepts "vodounsi" gather in several locations. In Comè, a small town about a hundred kilometers west of Cotonou, hundreds of vodou adepts gathered to sing, dance and offer prayers and sacrifices to gods and ancestors. In the country of Benin, His Excellency Houngué Towakon Guédéhoungué II, president of the vodou in Benin, leads the ceremonies. Of Benin's seven million citizens, 65% believe in Vodou.

Followers acknowledge the existence of both a supreme being and many smaller gods which can intercede with the supreme being on behalf of humans. Vodou followers believe that all life is driven by spiritual forces of natural phenomena such as water, fire, earth and air and that these should be honoured through rituals like animal sacrifices.

But fortunately not all vodou practitioners believe in using animals in sacrifices.

In her book, Vodou Visions, Vodou mambo, Sallie Ann Glassman, discusses a cruelty-free alternative way of practicing this religion. Glassman, who is a vegan, does not believe in animal sacrifices. She explains in wonderful detail of how one is able to be a genuine practitioner of Vodou but still practice a cruelty-free life.

The Tourist Trail

John Yunker’s novel, The Tourist Trail, is an epic thriller about the often unnoticed heroes who devote their lives to protecting animals. It chronicles the lives of various characters from extremely different walks of life whose worlds intertwine to reveal their shared destiny: To protect animals. Some of these characters live and breathe their passion for animals, allowing it to drive their every decision and relationship. They’d give their lives for their cause without asking for anything in return. Other characters find themselves drawn into this world unexpectedly as the situations they’re faced with cause them to question their own sense of morality. The novel has vibrant multidimensional characters and is full of plot twists, romance and non-stop danger. As the book progresses, the lives of the characters begin to intertwine and the emotional twists and turns become just as enveloping for the reader as the dangerous battles at sea.

 

The Tourist Trail was inspired by the author, John Yunker’s, trip to the Patagonia region of Argentina, where he volunteered with The Penguin Project. The book is based on the award winning short-story he wrote after his volunteer work.

Historical Spiritual Beliefs in Relation to Animals

 

Today's animal rights movements are often political, meant to affect change in legislature. But the roots of the belief in animal welfare and opposition to animal cruelty has more spiritual contexts, affiliated with cultural groups having a loving affinity for the earth and its beings.

Native American religion is closely linked to the land. There is a common thread of connection with the earth and the supernatural. A strong emphasis is placed on developing a personal spirituality, as well as the intertwining of the natural and spiritual worlds. Land and its creatures blend well with Native Americans’ spiritual awakening and daily ritual, though typically this belief is not considered a religion; it’s a lifestyle and the basis of an entire culture. Spirituality is a mindset and a relationship with natural beings, not a doctrine.

Native American religion is also accompanied by sacred mythological narrative, relying a lot on animals to tell the story. These stories are deeply based in nature and symbolism using the seasons and weather, plants, animals, earth, and the elements, culminating in the embrace of a great Spirit, a connection to the Earth. These stories were handed down verbally and used in traditional tribal gatherings where the peoples worshipped using song and dance.

Vegetarianism, the earth and religion are also interconnected in the ancient practices of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Vegetarianism is mandatory if you are a strict follower of Jainism, based on the principle of nonviolence, ahimsa. Formed from Hinduism because of distaste for animal sacrifice, Jains are either lacto-vegetarians or vegans. They believe it's important to contribute the least amount of violence as possible--to all of nature--thus influencing positive karma and necessitating liberation during reincarnation. Some followers of Hinduism also practice ahimsa and non-violence to animals, holding vegetarianism as an ideal. Linked to this is offering only vegetarian food to a god in order to receive it back as prasad, a mental condition for generosity. The belief is that non-vegetarian food is harmful in developing the mind and spirituality. Hindus have a scriptural basis for these practices, the Mahabharata states: “Nonviolence is the highest duty and the highest teaching.” Exists the more practical belief that meat consumption is not beneficial to physical health. There's also Hindu dietary law, linking the basis of man’s good and evil to food, which provides some context for why some Hindus prefer not to eat meat; treatment of food is directly tied to karma and blessings in this life and the next, and this includes forming a relationship with the earth and what it produces.

In Buddhism, animals are understood to be sentient beings and they are highly regarded, as is man’s relationship with the natural world and humanitarianism. Buddha theorized that sentient beings have been our mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, children, and friends in past lives. This is similar to some Native American ideology. This notion makes clear the difficulty of distinguishing between moral rules for animals and humans as we are all interconnected. Animals are believed to be separated from humans by state of mind, or a different realm of existence (Tiryagyoni). All the earth’s creatures must work together to protect one another, and individuals who harm others will in their turn experience the same thing. The first of the five Buddhist precepts bans the taking of life, sometimes applied to all sentient beings, including not just mammals, but insects and invertebrates as well. Early Buddhism contains regulations to prevent the harming of sentient beings in the animals realm, because it directly impacts all other realms.

Mainstream modern religions like Christianity often disassociate, at least in majority doctrine, from obligations to the environment and animals, placing options on the individual, and playing down the need for interconnectedness and community. But if one chooses to look there is plenty of encouragement in ancient spiritual traditions for finding our roots and a deep spiritual balance between humans, other animals and our Mother Earth.

National Bird Day

Today is National Bird Day. It's a day for public awareness and education on birds.

Since the late 19th century, bird protection has become an especially increasingly important issue. Birds are among the most popular animals in the exotic pet trade, and most birds in captive breeding programs are kept there solely for commercial gain.

For more information on National Bird Day, including how you can get involved, check out:

How Do I Get Involved?

Happy Holidays!

JOY TO THE WORLD!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A Prayer for Chickens

"....a sense of interconnection between the beauty within and the beauty without, in chickens, and in all of life."

Animals and the End of the World

Many people believe the end of the world is tomorrow, December 21, 2012. This time based on the Mayan calendar. I say "this time" because as we all know, there have been many predictions made in the past about the end times, coming from a variety of places.

According to the Bible and other religious sources, like Allan Kardec's The Spirits' Book, no one can predict the end time, for only God knows the exact time and He's not telling us. In The Spirits' Book, it says if you think God or another spirit has told you an exact date of the end times (or even your or someone else's death), ignore it, as such information is coming from an evil spirit, and--at best--you possibly may get a vague sign but not a precise date of the end times (if indeed there is such a date, especially with the theory of reincarnation....)

I agree with the above statements. No one really knows the time of the end of the world if there will be such a thing (as I believe in reincarnation). No one will ever know until then. But I do strongly believe animals can give us a clue as to when the end of the world is truly near.

I believe animals have predicted earthquakes. For example, in 373 B.C., historians recorded that animals, including rats, snakes and weasels, deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before a quake devastated the area.

Accounts of similar animal anticipation of earthquakes have surfaced across the centuries since. Catfish moving violently, chickens that stop laying eggs and bees leaving their hive in a panic have been reported. Many people with companion animals have said they've witnessed their dogs and cats acting strangely before the ground shook—barking or whining for no apparent reason, or showing signs of nervousness and restlessness.

Wildlife experts believe animals' more acute hearing and other senses might enable them to hear or feel the Earth's vibration, tipping them off to approaching disaster long before humans realize what's going on. Other ideas suggest animals detect electrical changes in the air or gas released from the Earth. Earthquakes are a sudden phenomenon. Seismologists have no way of knowing exactly when or where the next one will hit, but animals seem to know. The belief that wild and domestic animals possess a sixth sense, and know in advance when the earth is going to shake, has been around for centuries. One of the world's most earthquake-prone countries is Japan, where devastation has taken countless lives and caused enormous damage to property. Researchers there have long studied animals in hopes of discovering what they hear or feel before the Earth shakes can be used as a prediction tool.  In September 2003, a medical doctor in Japan made headlines with a study that indicated erratic behavior in dogs, such as excessive barking or biting, could be used to forecast earthquakes. There have also been examples where authorities have forecast successfully major earthquakes, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975, Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude earthquake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed.
It was later discovered though, that a rare series of small tremors, called fore-shocks, occurred before the large earthquake hit the city. It was the fore-shock sequence that gave Chinese officials the solid prediction, but still, the Chinese have continued to look at animal behavior as an aid to earthquake prediction.

Another example is the giant waves that slammed into Sri Lanka and India coastlines. Wild and domestic animals seemed to have known what was about to happen and fled to safety. According to eyewitness accounts, the following events happened:

Elephants screamed and ran for higher ground. Dogs refused to go outdoors. Flamingos abandoned their low-lying breeding areas. Zoo animals rushed into their shelters and could not be enticed to come back out.

The massive tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 9 temblor off the coast of northern Sumatra island. The giant waves rolled through the Indian Ocean, killing more than 150,000 people in a dozen countries.  But relatively few animals were reported dead, however, as the animals somehow sensed impending disaster.

In my opinion, I believe if someone really wants to know--as much as they can--around the time the end of the world would occur, they should move to a rural area, and regularly observe the daily behavior of the wildlife animals around them. Having companion, domestic animals is good too, but having been domesticated, these animals could have loss some sharpness in their senses as they aren't as much in touch with nature as their fellow wild animals are. But observe both on a regular basis, learning how to tell normal behavior from abnormal, nervous behavior from both types.

Another great help will be subscribing to reputable wildlife newsletters and checking out their websites from time-to-time. Websites like those have access to researchers all over the world who go out and study/observe animals in their natural habitat; they could be very valuable in news reporting unusual behavior in wildlife.