2013

Last year around this time I was living with Sarah, Hunter, and mr Steven Kent Davis

Then Case and I moved in together with a few other dinderbeckers

 

We had a good old fashioned BUTT JAm

 

We harvested tons and tons of mullberries with friends jumping up in trees and bouncing around like monkeys, i made jam and pie

 nancy got herself stuck in a tree on one of the hottest days summer

 i saved her, i think she made me a little late for work

 

Case and I had the awesome opportunity and experience of co-managing a small CSA

 

We had lots of friends who joined and came out to help

 Josie and I switched it up this year and decided to go to the Great Lakes Traditional Arts Gathering instead of hiking the smokies

 I made Case take me up to the UP

 He jumped off a cliff, I didn't

   

shy

A few years ago I hiked up to Andrew’s Glacier.  A quiet pool rests beneath it, I sat there for a while contemplating my existence while simultaneously wondering how long he would be here.  I wonder how long before it recedes from our view, before it vanishes and dissipates into the air.  Maybe someday I will look to the clouds and say “there goes Andrew” and “wonder if he’s watching over us.”  Or will he become a part of a storm that produces a tornado that drills through Tennessee.  Or will he be rushing like a waterfall, stammering in a rage, protesting like a newborn.  Now he just trickles and drips little by little, disappearing in such small integers’ that it’s barely noticed.  Some scientist predicts that Andrew could be gone in as little as 20 years. 

repost; Tasmania

Courage reveals itself in times of need, walks in front as the last streaks of sunset dissolve into the night sky. I was at the end of my rope, money had dried up and I had nowhere to go when Peter kicked me off of his farm in Derby, Tasmania. I worked there in exchange for food and stay. I had spent the week leading up to it pick-axing potato trenches through clay and the roots of a large tree nearby. I didn’t mind the work; it was more the lack of appreciation that led to me scorning his name behind his back and polluting the energy of the crew. The bad energy got back to him and with one week left before my return home, I was kicked out. I remember that morning; I knew it was coming. I helped my friend Sara, a German girl with electric orange hair, hike her belongings up to the bus stop. It was a 4 kilometer walk along the Cascade River. There was an excitement in my stomach as I hugged her goodbye. Walking back along that gravel road I had a premonition, that things were about to change. “Take care of yourself,” she advised as we sent each other off with a hug. I knew he was going to kick me out. What was I going to do? Looking down I kicked up a stone, smooth and white yet powerful in its shape as if it were an arrowhead in one life, before the river softened is edges and spit it out just for me. It fit into my palm comfortably, as if it were a missing digit, a part of me. It warmed itself in my hand as if we were feeding each other life. I felt my pupils wide as I walked slowly back to the little log cabin. I could smell the fire of the woodstove and thought of the others gathering around for hot oatmeal with flax meal and a homemade quince syrup. Maybe Peter would be scratching at his white beard discussing the matter of banishing me from his magical forest. I clasped on to the stone as I drew nearer. My pupils grew wide, the trees and rays of sun that burst through them seemed vibrant and exaggerated. The moss of the trees starkly contrasting the deep brown bark as if I was on some sort of psychotropic mushroom. The sun infiltrating every misty drop in its path making them light up like fireflies. The stone, an umbilical cord, reconnecting me with the whimsical and omniscient spirit of the earth. I got back to the house steam rolling from the sink as Peter frantically finished some dishes. He turned to me, his head shaking and his face red and pupils narrow.
“You can’t stay here,” he sizzled off.
“I know.”
“You need to pack your things and… and… leave right away.”
“Okay.”
“Well… Okay then,” he finished seeming surprised of my complacency.
I was sent packing. It was so simple. I could tell that he prepared himself for a fight. I thought to beg for his mercy. Nearly recoiling in the fear of my uncertain future, my hand reached for the stone, it was hot, and pulsing in my pocket, like a fetus hoping its host will not abort, encouraging a more dignified leaving. His heart softened as I packed my things. I could hear him contemplatively cranking the flour mill, where eventually he came to asking me to stay for his famous pancake lunch.
With my pride still in tact and my belly full of pancakes I walked away with a new sense of freedom. As I walked the path, contemplating the adventure that has just unleashed itself, that natural instinct to seek comfort kicked in. I thought of the option of staying with an acquaintance in town. But clasping the stone I knew that would be a ‘cop out’ to a real adventure. Regardless I approached the door, making a deal with myself, rubbing the stone for support hoping for a genie to grant me a more certain future. I told myself that if these people were home when I went to the door I would stay with them, and if they weren't I would continue on. I knocked, and there wasn’t an answer. I took a deep breath and clenched to the stone harder than ever. So I started out of town with my thumb out, looking for a ride anywhere the wind would take me. As evening approached I started to lose hope, but I comforted myself with the thought of the wild blackberries and the fresh water streams. I picked up an old water bottle from the side of the road. I went to the river to fill it, considering retiring for the evening when I felt the stone almost burning a hole in my pocket, a tug on my heart to give the old Tasman Highway one more shot. A big white van pulled up. The kind one could imagine from a bad horror movie. A skinny scruffy middle aged man and a sweater wearing wishbone kind of pup rolled down his window and asked where I was going. I told him where ever he was going. I clasped onto my stone and jumped into his van.

Bamboo is grass

'There are two kinds of men, that seems quite clear. One sees bamboo as grass and one a spear.

Bamboo is grass. How is bamboo a knife? The grasses give us seed, and seed is life.

One thinks of ownership and one of earth. One shapes the forms of death, and one, rebirth.

And what is fear?

It is the eye that sees bamboo as spear.

And one makes war with wheat and one makes bread. One signs of hope, the other arms in dread.

Let others labor, we shall own the land. They'll work for bread, and place it in my hand.'

-from 'three voices' by bill mollison

Greatness

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its people are treated.” 

 

 

 

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Gandhi 

-

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go.

Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.”

―wendell berry

Paradise Lost

One day a few years back I was hanging out in Berlin, Germany.  Muck'n it up with
the squatter kids and searching for Paradise.  Living the romantic life of filth, and slums,
eating trash and stolen food, trading in cans for beer and giving the rest of the world and other life styles the big middle finger.  What the hell.. it was all fun for a little bit.
Anyways... I was really broke.  I had a few dollars left to my name which I needed for a ferry and a bus ticket to catch my flight back.  I didn't feel very welcomed with the squatter kids even though
they were nice enough to give me a space to sleep.  I didn't look or talk like them so I felt excluded.
I don't blame them you have all of these free-loading kids and hippies that have some dreamy ideals
of squats floating in and out of their home as the pleased.  Thus my naive search for utopia was coming to and end.
Anyways, so I played the part for a little bit.  Collecting beer cans where ever I could find them
and returning them for a little cash, watching people eat their food and licking their plate after they
left.  I was  garbage picking, beer steeling, can collecting scum.  I was proud of it for a while until
I realized how desperate I really was and how my life was becoming fixated on money because my
lack of it.  I hated this.  So I decided Fuck it with the cans.  Fuck it with money and a whole
new world opened up to me.  I made a friend and she invited me to go down to France and partake
in this anti-nuclear walk, where we would get fed if we marched with them.  So we hitch hiked down with some fast driving Germans in a sports car.  When we met them it was in this little french town and a local anti-nuclear supporter bought everyone pizza and let us sleep in her house.  The hospitality of the French was unbelievable fresh fruit Breads and cheeses at every town from supporters. 
I've taken 2 trips of this kind.  Both times I went with very little money, running out towards the end.  Going through of period of suffering from lack of money fallowed by me saying "fuck it" fallowed
by having some magical experience that I wouldn't have otherwise had if I did have money. 

Store Room Leondard Cohen
It’s not the wind that keeps you up, It’s not the snow It’s not the moon coming like a headlight through your window It’s not the thumbnail of a screen That scrapes away your dream
It's just this man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
It’s not the news of burning towns That ruins your mind like a spoon you turn and you turn But it won’t unwind Though these wars you did not start They don’t tear your sleep apart
It's just a man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
And now this woman by your side Well she’s is asleep And there's nothing you can give her, and there's nothing you want to keep You don't even try to prove that the noise is neighbours making love.
It's just a man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
Well go to sleep and change the locks When you wake up Share your toast maybe spill some coffee from your cup Oh there’s nothing left to choose And there is so much more to loose.
There’s this man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
It’s not the wind that keeps you up, It’s not the snow It’s not the moon coming like a headlight through your window It’s not the thumbnail of a screen That scrapes away your dream
It's just a man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
It’s not the news of burning towns That ruins your mind like a spoon you turn and you turn But won’t unwind No these wars you did not start They don’t tear your sleep apart
It's just a man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
And now the woman by your side Well she’s awake But there's nothing you can give her, and there's nothing you want to take You don't even try to prove that the noise is neighbours making love.
It's just a man, Taking what he needs, From the store room,
Oh go to sleep and change the locks When you wake up Share your toast maybe spill a little coffee from your cup He’s got nothing left to choose And you’ve got so much more to loose.
It's just a man, Taking what he needs, From the store room

the cost of convenience

Dear god,

please save us form ourselves....

Exhibit A:






Exhibit B:



Exhibit C:



Exhibit D:






Exhibit E:


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

some thoughts

On Panhandling/Begging

Panhandling is an expression of the reality of our society.

It makes people uncomfortable who experience it who are not in that situation.

Often times these people are pushed to outskirts, it is made illegal, called soliciting. 

It tends to bother non-beggars, people who have money, so in an effort
to give non-beggars a more comfortable shopping experience beggars are
often banned from an area or a storefront for this reason. 

Money is influence.

People with money have the option to give the beggar money.

People who are willing may have some qualifications for such a person
or maybe will opt to buy them food instead of giving them money.

some beggars have elaborate stories.  They could be true or made up.
But whether or not the story is factual or not there is a true expression
of need.

There is a double standard applied to beggars.  A lot of people will say that
they only want to give a person money if they know that they are going to
spend it on a necessity such as food, or paying rent.
The contradiction is that a person with money has the privilege of spending money
on whatever they want.

A common defense for a person not to give a beggar money is that they
may be feeding their drug habit. 

This line of thinking may be detrimental to the "legitimate" story of a person
who is actually distressed and stranded and really needs money to catch a
bus.  

Human services and non-profits replace the kindness of individuals.

When one donates money to a non-profit there are many hidden costs associated
with that organization for example the Executive director of the Sierra club makes
upwards of 200,000.  Non-profits become competitive job markets. 
And when something becomes your job naturally there is a desire to
increase pay.  

not quite twins

I asked a guy if I could plug my computer in under his table at the coffee shop. 
He got up and said that since he has no "technology" and he is at the "technology table"
that he would relinquish the table.  I assured him that wasn't necessary, but he didn't
hear me with his head still half wrapped in his book.  He proceeded to reach in his
pocket and pull out his cell phone and say "well I actually do have this for technology"
he proceeded to show me a photo of two young boys with matching green coats.
"twins?" I asked.  "Not quite," he replied, "they are cousins and they are two days
apart."....  "The one on the left gets into all the trouble and the one on the right is tags
along for the adventure but keeps the other one out of real trouble"... "they are going to live together
in college"  .... he told me a few other plans he had for these little kids.  I told him to
write them down for them so they knew what to do with their lives.  And he said that
they won't be needing anything like that... it's just going to happen.

And now I sit in the seat at the "technology table" warmed by a pleasant
 and unusual interaction with a stranger.

Such a simple thing to make my day.  

Blah blah blah

Each year I think I am more and more surprised by the speed of time.
is the world spinning faster?  is that how it works?  it seems like it.

Each winter I am also surprised by how short the days get.  I

swear that each year they are shorter than the year before and for longer.

My love/hate relationship with winter is a struggle.  

A time to recoil and reflect, I say in the dead of summer
romanticizing the season of BLAH's which is the way I 

feel now that I am in the thick of it.  

"You just need to take a vitamin D supplement or

go tanning or something like that"

I keep saying to myself that I am waiting for something
What am I waiting for?

whatever. blah blah blah blah.

Sometimes the world feels so small.  Other times it seems infinite.

Reflections from The Cabin in the Woods

Six months in the woods.  But not without internet and left-overs and square dancing and cats.  A lot has happened in my time at Circle Pines but I've barely had the time to think much on this.  The leaves are falling.  Some trees already completely bare.  Bright yellows, oranges, and reds littering the paths.  Bare crooked limbs still reaching for the sky. 
When I moved here in the spring with Case the wild flowers were just getting their start.  We met Jonathan who taught us the sounds of the birds in the spring.  We were fortunate to have him show us around the property and the area.  He told us of the different birds that migrated through and ones that stayed.  This was the first year that I realized that different seasons have different sounds.  That different birds have different seasons.  

In the spring we observed the woodcock mating display complete with climatic whorling sounds finished with the whoosh of their dash back to the grass.  There was also the deep, baritone sounds of the bull frogs from Stewart Lake.  Some nights we could hear them from the cabin.  When I first heard them I thought that their low drone croak was either someone driving a speedboat (when there was a bunch of them at it) or a kid playing the trombone.  There was also the high chirps of the spring peepers back in frog pond.  Not to mention the countless birds singing including a Scarlet Tanninger that we caught sing its song to a red electrical box.  

Throughout the summer there was the hammerings and the cries of the Pileated woodpecker.  One rainy day in the garden a Pileated landed not too far from me digging around for grub, I was amazed by its size and brightness of its red head.  The sandhill cranes often trumpeted in the morning near the cabin, I think they may have slept in the field near us.  Kevin saved a Flicker from the roof his beak was crooked and eye swollen shut.  We don't know what happened to him.  We took care of him until we could take him to a wildlife rehab place.  His name was Jeffry.  We also found a box turtle that we thought was injured.  The front part of the bottom of its shell was all folded up.  We thought we were going to have to do surgery but it turned out that box turtles are supposed to have a hinges so they can fully close the front part of their shell.  When Case and I were cleaning out Juniors cabins we saw a cicada killer wasp attack a pair of mating cicada's and inject them with something paralyzing.  We thought that she maybe was laying her eggs in their bodies so Case wanted to keep them to watch them hatch.  But after research we found that they actually only paralyze them then drag them back to their nest.  Regardless the cicada's never woke up.  The firefly display was spectacular this year, among several other glowy crawly insects and funji that helped light the path back to the cabin.  In the night there was also the whinnying and the whining of the coyotes and the who whos' and the screeches of the owls.  The screech of the screech owl I think may be one of the eeriest sounds I've encountered in the woods.

A new wave of sounds has come with Fall as the birds migrate back south.  The birds seem to come almost with the wind in chattery flocks.  sometimes I swear there are as many birds in a tree as there are leaves. I wish the trees had as many apples as leaves as well, but the frost got them in blossom in the spring.  The Sandhill cranes are migrating, I haven't heard them by the cabin for weeks.     Fall has been a sad time for the deer around here.  Several hundred deer (maybe in the thousands by now) have been contracting a virus through midge flies that cause them to bleed internally.  This makes them feel hot so they seek water, so there are several that made it to the lake.  I've been watching one decompose at the intersection of pudding stone and the bunny trail.  When I found here she had just died, I was really sad because she appeared to have been a nursing mother.  But it is what it is.

The People:
This is what initially drew me to Circle Pines.  Two very influential women on my life had suggested this place to me.  Joy Pryor would talk about it to me when we were organizing Really Really Free Markets together.  Then later in my life I worked for Creston Community Gardens through Creston Neighborhood Association.  My boss there was Deb Eid, her and I got along real well.  She would talk about how she could speak more "radically" in the office and openly.  So me and her got along very well.  One weekend last year she set me up to come out to CPC for a work bee weekend.  I was hesitant as I had school and no ride.  But she emailed Tom and he came up to Grand Rapids to pick me up.   I was really glad. I had a great weekend.  Tom and I talked about renewable energy and sustainability on the way down, then he took me for a walk through the woods to show me around.  We had a lot of fun talking about stuff and by the end of the weekend he asked if I might be interested in a gardening position in the spring.
I also remember my first weekend here, having a sense of comfort and feeling at home.  I remember talking to Kat for hours about people and the world and going out to milk goats with Ron.  I don't really remember who else was at cpc that weekend.  But through out time I kept seeing Derick and Isabella, Gary and Mara, Johnathan, Bob and Anna, Crystal Micheal and Jonah,  and tons of other people whom I've enjoyed spending some time with. 
More recently I've been getting to know the other people that live in the area.   This is largely because MiLAWD held meetings at circle pines until recently. They all have their strange and radical quirks which I find enjoyable.  They are organizing to take legal action against the state of Michigan for allowing Fracking on Public lands. 

Summer Camp:
Summer camp is some strange whirlwind that seemed like forever while it was here and now I feel like it blew by very fast.   So much happened in each day.  It's hard to capture. 
I learned a lot from the kids.

The Conflicted soul of Circle Pines:
CPC's current functioning is largely unsustainable which seems to be the history of this place.
Though it desires and teaches sustainable ideas it seems that itself is incapable of making itself
sustainable.  This is because of its financial requirements to stay afloat.  The financial stress, shifts the vision of some (actually most) of its functions.

There is more to be said in reflecting on my summer, but I shall add more another day. 

Operation Infinite Justice

This is my friend Zach.
 *****
Through the phone I found you in fragments,
Like the IED that exploded and forced a piece in your head.
Holding on to the fragments of youth you kept in between the jumbled
stories of Afghanistan, murder and guns, in the name of our wonderful country,
 came flickers of unicycling, dancing, and singing,
and running around in your man thong or cooking dinner,
You introduced me to Olive oil. 

I'm angry.  I'm sad
War is Fucked up.
I miss you.

The Wisdom of a Dandelion

My cousin was swinging from the old maple in his backyard.  I joined by giving him occasional boosts into the air.  Being the concerned seventeen year old female cousin that I was, I inquired about his love life.  He told me of this girl in his class with blue eyes and swoopy blond bangs.  I looked to a dandelion that grew besides the maple and suggested he bring it to her.  But he told me that he didn’t want to pick it that “we should leave it there for everyone to enjoy.”  Such a thoughtful answer really caught me off guard.  Here I was supposed to be teaching him how to go about life when he incited such a virtuous piece of wisdom upon me.  I thought about this for a while and realized the whole idea of thinking that we can own anything we see is really detrimental to society as a whole.  That if everyone was to pick every flower that they saw for themselves or someone special, that it would be the end of all wild flower and in a chain reaction the end of life.

In Ishmael, a book by Daniel Quinn, a man responds to an advertisement created by a Guerilla seeking a pupil, they speak telepathically, learning lessons of the world.  Ishmael describes there to be two kinds of people in the world, takers and leavers.  Quinn wrote, “The premise of the Taker story is the world belongs to man...The premise of the Leaver story is man belongs to the world" (Quinn 239).  Takers exemplified by modern society and leavers were the people of ancient cultures and tribes such as the Native Americans who believe in living in harmony with nature.  The takers seem to think that everything is of service to the human race.  The book goes on to suggest that the moment humans thought that they could act as ‘God’ that this marked the beginning of the demise of the human race.  My wise little cousin, by leaving that single dandelion allowed for it to propagate in the form of several more dandelions.

            The current collective mindset, the takers mindset of, “take what you can get” is not a sustainable mentality.  The world has limited resources and the human race is very inconsiderate to this reality.  But even in knowing this I feel a need to have ‘this and those’ things to survive in this world.  As if the world has created all of these false needs for people to fulfill, to keep people busy until someone figures out what’s really going on.  Mircea Eliade suggests that the human condition is that of struggle that “the modern world is in the situation of a man swallowed by a monster, struggling in the darkness of his belly.”  The modern world, the monster describes the current state of society and the act of being swallowed representing materialism, the need for work and the need for things.  He goes on to saying, “so he in anguish thinks he is already dead or on the point of dying, and can see no way out except into the darkness, Death or Nothingness.”   This second part, says that society often feels hopeless or destined to live a life of suffering, of service to the great machine.

            The most well-know literary example of a society swallowed up by its fear is George Orwell’s 1984.  The book fallows a guy named Winston, living in a radically oppressive collective society.  He locks eyes with a girl at work and falls in love with her.  He tries everything to avoid being swallowed up all the way by the thought police, but in the end it is a lost cause.   Some people believe we are heading towards the same sort of oppressive society as 1984 but others such as Karl Marx suggests we are practically living it.  Karl Marx said that “the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”  Basically that when electing someone to run the show that we only hope that we can choose the lesser of the two evils.  But the fact that society accepts the voting process we accept this illusion of freedom.

            Charles Bukowski in his famous poem The laughing Heart, encourages people to take hold of their lives saying that “your life is your life/don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission./be on the watch. /there are ways out./ there is a light somewhere./ it may not be much light but/it beats the darkness…”  Bukowski suggests that though society may have a large impact on human life, that there are still things that one can do that can give us light in dark.  He encourages people to seek those things and hold them close, that these things are the things that really keep us alive. Eckhart Tolle in, “The Power of now,” says that these things are “all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, [and] inner peace” (17).

            Philosopher Carl Jung advises that knowledge and self-awareness is key in not being ‘clubbed into submission.’  He says that “it is, unfortunately, only too clear that if the individual is not truly regenerated in spirit, society cannot be either, for society is the sum total of individuals in need of redemption... the salvation of the world consists in the salvation of the individual soul.”  That by quieting the mind and looking inward one can find something like salvation.

     Though the wold may seemingly be working against the human race, or rather the human race is working against itself; I still believe there is a glimmer of hope for us so long as we do not give up.  Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is destined to fight evil for the rest of her life and finds it discouraging that she can never make it go away completely, but finds worthy purpose in fighting to maintain the balance of good and evil.  This should be a good example for any person.  Keep fighting for ourselves and for the good of all people because it may always be a battle to maintain the good in the world.  If we stick together in self realization there may always be dandelions to admire in the spring.

           

Bukowski, Charles. "The Laughing Heart." The Best American Poetry. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. 

Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. New York: Bantam/Turner Book, 1995. Print.

Jung, C. G. The Undiscovered Self. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958. Print.

Marx, Karl. "Famous Marx Quotes - Philosophy Paradise." Philosophy Paradise. 2006.

Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

Orwell, George. 1984. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984. Print.

Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of NOW: a Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Vancouver, B.C., Canada: Namaste Pub., 2004. Print.

"You cannot separate the issue of sustainability from the issue of justice from the issue of access to resources and from the issues of peace." -Vandana Shiva

Being vegan-
When I started eating vegan I hadn't fully thought through all of the reasons
I just thought it felt right.

My cousin is vegan.  My boyfriend is vegan.
I suddenly developed a guilt complex that made dairy and eggs less enjoyable.

Now its been  about 8 months and the reasons keep piling up.

How can you tell if a cow is happy anyways?  Is that something that you can taste or smell?
Do they whisper to you "thank you for killing me, I grew up on a happy farm and I was looking

forward to the day I died" or "thank you for killing me, I grew up on a factory farm sleeping
in my own shit just waiting for my day to die"

People may argue that its unhealthy.
I used to think about this a lot and think about a scenario where I find that it turns out that may actually be an "unhealthy" diet.  Would I grow old and regret not drinking my milk if my bones started turning to dust?
But now I think that this question is irrelevant.  This isn't about me.  This is about a system of injustice towards animals, people, and the environment.  It's all connected.

I think the way we enslave and abuse animals is also reflected in the way people and the environment are used and treated. Like slaves or commodities.  I think there is a correlation between feminists criticisms on women as being used as sexual objects to sell products and the use and exploitation of animals for human and monetary benefit.  I think this also plays into how we use our land, for fast and cheap things that are mostly irrelevant to the existence and survival of humans.  

We are BLOWING UP MOUNTAIN TOPS FOR MONEY and Energy.

I mean its nearly impossible to completely rid oneself to contributing to some amount of exploitative activity to animals, the environment, or people.  I mean I'm using a computer that is made of of parts from very countries that I don't know what the conditions were for the people who made this computer.  I know it probably took a lot of energy and resources to make contributing to strip mining somewhere and lots of waste.  Not to mention that I routinely plug this thing into a wall which takes energy from who knows where and what mode of extraction.  But veganism is one way a person can actively resist a culture of exploitation and abuse.

"Be the change you want to see in the world"  

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.” Aldo Leopold