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Post by spookymuffin on Nov 18, 2013 15:21:49 GMT -8
Hello everyone,
This was a subject that came up elsewhere and I'd be interested in hearing opinions from the voices here. Do you have ethical guidelines that inform what materials you acquire and use in your personal spiritual practice? Are these guidelines ones you have developed on your own and/or with guidance from the Powers you work with? Does your tradition have any guidelines regarding this? For instance, some Heathen and Northern Tradition pagans choose to use animals raised on nearby farms when preparing a feast as part of a ritual observance because they feel this is a more ethical choice. As a personal example, I am returning to a japa practice (mantra meditation using a string of beads) after many years but don't feel that sandalwood is appropriate because sandalwood tree species are threatened. Though sandalwood is a favorite of the Lady whose name I'll be using in meditation and I personally love it I feel conflicted because I care deeply about plant and tree spirits.
My personal ethical guidelines are somewhat influenced by my particular paths. I feel strongly that I shouldn't take more than is my portion - what I need to ensure my personal comfort and success and to provide for those who depend on me. Past that I strive to make do with what I have or to acquire items low on the food chain (secondhand goods, etc.) that require fewer resources to come to me. I try to be mindful of the sacrifices made to move things into my sphere and try to choose things that come from the least amount of suffering. Though these guidelines are important to me and fundamental to the way I live they aren't a very explicit part of either of my primary traditions; they came more out of personal introspection and interactions with individuals spirits and Powers.
How 'bout you?
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Post by fearlesslyonwards on Nov 18, 2013 19:32:08 GMT -8
Yes. I use dead animals in my work. Road kill, not hunted/farmed. If the animal was (potentially) a pet, I will look for the collar and call the owners and let them know where the animal is, and offer to bring it to them if they're semi-local. If the animal could have been a pet, but there is no collar, I will wait several days before collecting it, to give the owners a chance to find said animal - not knowing what happened when a pet goes missing is awful. I will also ask the dead animal what it wants done with its remains. My crow was super SUPER excited to stay with me, the magpies were keen as well, and two cats have requested to be let go. I have foxes, possums, a kitten... a whole menagerie of animals, partly processed and waiting in the outdoor freezer for the day I have the space to finish work on them. Oh, also, I had 4 corellas find me in the space of a week and a half, and they were all very, very angry with humanity. They died hard deaths, one bleeding out in the 40C sun after being hit by a car, and they were all absolutely furious. They were a little intimidating to deal with at first, and I still don't know WHY they turned up in such a large number. I don't have a tradition exactly, but I do try and respect the animals I work with, and listen to what they want, rather than what I want. Sure, I could make a lot of money hacking up the crow I found, tying its wings to a forked stick, hot gluing on some shiny crystals and ribbons and selling it to some gullible new-ager, but that isn't the point of what I do. Yes, the several hundred bucks I'd get for it would be great, but I can't guarantee that the recipient would respect the spirit of the crow, or that the crow would agree, and that just doesn't sit well with me. To me, it's like having an intact female cat - I am responsible for both the cat, and her potential kittens, and I would need to find decent homes for the kittens, not stick a 'free kittens' sign up and hand them over to the first person who asked. (Spay and neuter your pets, people!) I also feed the animals that find me (incense and alcohol/water/milk for the dead ones, cat food and scraps for the live ones) and attempt to find homes for the (live) ones who need homes. Well, that got long quickly! Might leave it at that for now  |
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Post by spookymuffin on Nov 19, 2013 13:38:19 GMT -8
That's really fascinating. I use very few animal items in my practice partly because I have almost no way of knowing the circumstances that brought them to me unless I find the materials myself. I have a small fan of found magpie feathers (I think that's legal? Magpies aren't migratory so far as I know) and I think that's it. I really admire people who know how to collect and prepare animal items.
Feeding the animal dead sounds like an amazing practice. Though past pets have had a place on my altars I never knew quite where to put them since they're not ancestors according to my tradition. Then I came across a fantastic reference in Vedic teaching that essentially stated that animals that depended on you in life should continue to receive support even after they die; it was a wonderful way to look at this situation and since a big part of my practice is founded in Vedic thought it really helped shape my current thinking on the subject . I feel like we as a species owe domestic animals in particular and so I've included a portion for them in my Dia de los Muertos observances (I'm Mexican by heritage). I also came across an article regarding a Buddhist ceremony held by a pharmaceutical company to honor and thank the spirits of the animals used in testing. I found the article very inspiring and I'd someday like to shape an observance around that theme.
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Post by fearlesslyonwards on Nov 20, 2013 18:48:25 GMT -8
That's really fascinating. I use very few animal items in my practice partly because I have almost no way of knowing the circumstances that brought them to me unless I find the materials myself. I have a small fan of found magpie feathers (I think that's legal? Magpies aren't migratory so far as I know) and I think that's it. I really admire people who know how to collect and prepare animal items. Feeding the animal dead sounds like an amazing practice. Though past pets have had a place on my altars I never knew quite where to put them since they're not ancestors according to my tradition. Then I came across a fantastic reference in Vedic teaching that essentially stated that animals that depended on you in life should continue to receive support even after they die; it was a wonderful way to look at this situation and since a big part of my practice is founded in Vedic thought it really helped shape my current thinking on the subject . I feel like we as a species owe domestic animals in particular and so I've included a portion for them in my Dia de los Muertos observances (I'm Mexican by heritage). I also came across an article regarding a Buddhist ceremony held by a pharmaceutical company to honor and thank the spirits of the animals used in testing. I found the article very inspiring and I'd someday like to shape an observance around that theme. It's weird, but when I started collecting dead animals, they were suddenly everywhere I looked. Then, I decided to have a crack at making wing fans to sell. And until I got the point through my thick skull that I wasn't meant to do that, no dead animals anywhere, even though I deliberately went looking. Eventually, light bulb went DING and I put aside ideas of profit and then like turning on a tap, dead critters everywhere again. Re: magpie feathers - are you Aussie? Assuming so, don't quote me, but found feathers should be fine. In other parts of the world, I don't know the legalities. It isn't hard to process dead things, so long as you have a basic understanding of anatomy, and a strong stomach. (Perhaps don't read this next bit just before a meal...) You need gloves (a disposable apron if you're fussy) and a sharp knife. I use throw away scalpels, since you're more likely to cut yourself changing a blade. Oh, and a squirty-bottle of water helps. The first cut is the hardest, the rest of skinning is kind of like preparing a chicken to roast. If you're after the bones, maceration is great for larger animals (cat-sized and up) - my set up is a plastic bucket with a LOOSE-FITTING lid, plus a length of plumbers heat tape that I wind around the outside of the bucket, keeps it at body temperature. Skin and deflesh as much of the carcass as you can, pop the head in an old stocking in case the teeth come loose, everything goes into the bucket of water and leave somewhere not close to your or (your neighbours') house for two weeks. I am warning you it will stink. The smell is quite bad, it is sickly sweet, in an awful way. Rotten eggs have nothing on a macerating animal. Tip out 3/4s of the water and then fill up the bucket with fresh water. In another two weeks, you should be good to go. If not, just repeat the process. Then you'll have clean bones. I don't like them peroxided, I prefer my bones bone coloured, not white. I wash them in warm water and detergent, then dry them off and replace any teeth that have come out. Wood glue (aka PVA/white glue) is my preferred glue because you can dissolve it in water if you make a mistake. Like I said, strong stomach needed I kind of consider my animal dead as not-quite-pets, as something I have a responsibility to. I think the important bit of what I do is to respect and acknowledge them, and to help them have some measure of dignity in death. Some of them want specific offerings, some don't care. The white cat I found, she wanted alcohol that had a cat on the label. So I collected her (in the POURING rain, I got soaked) and popped her into a bin liner and went straight to the bottle shop. Then I asked for alcohol that had a cat on the label. The staff were incredibly (confused but) helpful and we eventually found some red wine with a picture of a cat on it. After I was done paying, the woman who helped me hesitantly said "I don't really want to know why you need that specific alcohol, do I?" - I was doing my 'thing' when I search for something a spirit wants, I kind of swing my head side to side as I walk and I seemingly talk to myself under my breath and listen to something only I can hear. I look very odd. I thanked the lovely woman, and told her she'd probably rather not know, and assured her I wasn't doing anything illegal  I would love to hear more, if that is ok, about your tradition and the Dia de los Muertos (sp?) observances for animals. I'm trying to build a practice of honouring the dead I eat, as well as the dead I collect. Sorry for rambling at you for so long, and apologies if the second paragraph grossed you out at all! |
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Post by Wynn Dark on Nov 21, 2013 6:16:29 GMT -8
That sounds like a wonderfully simple way to handle the bones, I wish I had known about it before when my better half found most of a possum's bones that she wanted to use in a jewelry piece (she is very respectful of the bones whenever using them in such a way). Most of the flesh was already gone so I put them in a plastic container with a weight on top of them, right into a big pile of fire ants. Usually the ants would clean those bones in a short period of time...but alas, our landlord ran the pile over with a golf cart one night and the bones were lost.
At least a bucket would be easier to spot, and we could put it well away from anywhere he would likely run it over. I will have to keep that method of bone cleaning in mind for when I start hunting, as I intend to keep the bones in honor of the animals that will be feeding me and mine.
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Post by spookymuffin on Nov 21, 2013 9:29:41 GMT -8
Heh, a little bit of squick but that's probably because I honestly can't remember the last time I prepared any meat-based foods. As a current city dweller I probably can't set up my own maceration lab but it certainly sounds less complex than I imagined. Rather like just allowing nature to take its course only in a location where you can keep an eye on it. No, not Aussie. I'm in the United States; I understand that feathers and parts of migratory birds and raptors are restricted in most cases throughout the country but I'm not positive about all of the rules (guess I should find out...). The student housing where I went to college was in an area filled with magpies and I got quite close to them while I lived there. It was a real honor to be given so many feathers. My tradition....hmm. I'm a hard polytheist with theological grounding in the mystical side of Northern Tradition paganism; I don't identify as a recon but I spent a number of years pretending to be one for the sake of fitting in. I've been very close to Loki for around 10 years and have close ties with a couple other Norse deities and Powers. Kinda by accident I ended up studying bhakti yoga as a teenager and the shallow end of tantra in my early 20's. Though I've received no particular guidance or initiation in either tradition bhakti in particular has been the foundation of my spiritual experience (Gaudiya Vaishnava and Bengali Shakta schools of bhakti if that means anything). I returned to these studies with more seriousness last year and while I certainly can't claim to be any kind of authority on the subject, almost 20 years of bhakti practice has certainly been worthwhile. So I don't really have a tradition that I belong to but I do have some specific traditions that I use to guide my practice and help me make sense of the world; I use them as theological roadmaps kinda. My practice has always been highly devotionally oriented regardless of what circles I was moving in. I have also done a lot of work with plant and their spirits, especially poisons and sacred plants. My Day of the Dead observances for animals are still new; I tried it out for the first time last October. My observances themselves are pretty minimal; I bake pan de muerto and make some food and make the Dead Folk's altar a little fancier. Pan de muerto is a traditional Day of the Dead bread that is sometimes made into skull or bone shapes. I make a couple buns that have little pointy ears so they sorta look like a cat. Sorta. In traditional observances the bread, food, beverages, and other snacks are placed on ancestral altars or in cemeteries to please and nourish the spirits. Like I said above I feel that human beings have a obligation to care for domestic animals since we (as a species) are responsible for making them the way they are now. A couple kittybuns aren't going to please or nourish all restless animal spirits but....well, perhaps you understand. (And also I just like cats.) |
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