A Centaurs Journey Blog

This trip has been an excellent opportunity for all of us to spend time think about what it means to live intentionally. Part of this is thinking about how to be intentional about what we eat, as it is such a vital part of our daily lives. I have become vegan, connotations and all. Having adopted such a label, I feel a need to reclaim my identity as an individual and clarify. Labels help with function, they do not help with meaning.

Being Vegan for me is not about the death or suffering of animals. I do not need to see animals sent to rescues to live with a/c, three meals a day, and a temper-pedic bed to sleep in. I do not need to see animal suffering end.  I too am alive and will suffer and I will die; do what you will with my body. Let me contribute where I can. I am not obsessed with extending the life of animals; I don’t want to subject them to the weird customs of the human world; they do not need to be like us who extend our lives as long as possible, avoiding the reality of death and facing it only when it finally knocks (or slams the door in) and, being so filled with drugs at that point, that we can even camouflage the reality of pain and, as if a final protest were needed, locking our bodies away in a box to preserve (what I’m not sure) just so as, even in the end, we contribute as little as possible back to the earth, once more saying, this is mine, I consume, I do not contribute.(deep breath).

No, I am not concerned with pain or with death. I am concerned with life. Did the animal, domesticated or not, get a chance to be fully-whatever it is? In elitist circles we sit and debate the idea of being fully human. Food, shelter, water…are we Happy? What do we enjoy? How can we contribute in meaningful ways that align with our souls? What is the meaning of life (our lives of course)? What would it mean to be fully-alive, in whatever creature body you are given…coyote, rose, aspen, goat, horse? What is their “fully”? Did it get to pursue its purpose and did it get the chance to be something other than an offering to the already illustrious human god with its gifts spilling out of junk-yard craters? Did it get to see, smell, touch, and roll around in the dirt of the world?

Of course, the next question for me will be: how do I define whether or not this animal has had that fully-alive chance? And also, how is me defining a creature’s purpose any different from the large scale meat-producing plants defining their purpose as pure and simple food. Why is my definition any better than theirs? Maybe it’s not. Perhaps it’s just another way for me to define my personal way of becoming fully human. Without seeing, recognizing and being aware of where my food comes from—what has been sacrificed for me to live—I will not understand what it is to be fully human. It is a sacrifice to be alive and it can be hard to realize that amid the neon colors of the grocery store.  In my advanced frontal lobe world, I’d like to believe my new diet somehow serves the animals being exploited by human extreme consumerism in some powerful and meaningful way—that maybe I am supporting the well-being of the animal soul—but ultimately, I am just being another conscience consumer looking for meaning amongst the chaos. Vegan. Bowhunter. Searcher. Human. Animal.