They Saved the Dogs!!!

On a highway in Beijing, a truck is stopped in a line of vehicles waiting to go through a toll booth.  It carries a load of hundreds of dogs, crammed into little steel cages.  Shivering, panting, fighting, biting, they bark and cry out in pain and terror.  A bystander who spotted the animals put out a call on a microblogging site and begged fellow animal lovers to come and help.  His pleas were quickly answered and approximately 200 people showed up and blockaded the truck for the next 15 hours imploring and cajoling the driver to release the dogs to the crowd.  Finally he agreed to sell them to the people who were gathered there, $17,000.00 exchanged hands, much of it provided by an animal welfare association.  and now instead of being brutally slaughtered, these helpless animals are residing in several rescue shelters and veterinarian hospitals where many were taken for treatment of the various wounds and illnesses that they were found to be suffering from.

And this year, Prime Minister Putin moved to ban the hunting of any polar bears in Russia despite an agreement with the US that would have allowed the killing of 29 bears in each of the two countries.  This in addition to Russia's ban on hunting seal pups under a year old, which was described by Yury Trutnyev, the Russian Minister of Natural Resources as  "a bloody hunt, from now on banned in our country, as in most developed countries".

The significance of these stories is that for decades, the Chinese government has discouraged any pet ownership and the result is that the people have for the most part never learned to appreciate the relationship that we take for granted with our pets.  Instead they have and still do subject them to the most hideous abuses as they were and are 'prepared' for eating.  But the past few years has seen changes there and with that change has come a softening of the peoples hearts and this event demonstrates the new attitude towards animals.  As for the head of the former Soviet Union,  the 'Russian bear', banning the killing of that beautiful white symbol of a shared Arctic North, again a decision that seems out of keeping with historic behavior and a presupposed image.


I was thinking about things like that the other day, and other 'improvements' came to mind.  Things that we did to one another and our planet home.....children sent up chimneys with a rope tied around their waste and a broom in one hand, sewage dumped out into the streets or the river, mass extermination of a species was given little or no thought, open dumping of pollutants.  But look around at the changes, the little signs that are beginning to appear that seem to be saying something's coming, adjustments have begun.  We have laws that are intended to protect kids from (ab)use, and we've finally begun to talk about the environment and how we must have a care.  And people who dump toxic garbage now act in violation of laws and do so in the dark of night, and we at least have a list of animals whose very existence is threatened and there are even changes in the attitudes of people, as to how much abuse is acceptable for animals.  To that end there are scientists who are working on producing 'meat' in test tubes according to the following:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-11/test-tube-meat-no-longer-science-fiction-dutch-researchers-say.html  And this to protect the planet and also because of growing animal welfare concerns.  And the number of vegetarians and vegans coninue to grow and products geared to that group are appearing on retailers shelves.  Hmm, is that a sign that this little group has arrived?

From another perspective, the political one, you only have to look to Egypt for an example of massive change.  That those people, using largely peaceful protest, brought down a 30 year dictator and using social media to spread the call!  My gosh, that's gotta mean something!  And Wikileaks and
Openleaks becoming watchdogs for honesty at all levels of our 'official society' gives me hope that enough light will over time be shed on secrets and dark goings-on,  that people may be redirected towards a more respectful way of dealing with all the things that make up this reality and all it's aspects and us and our lives.....  "Can't we all just get along?"

Sure there is tons of bad too and sometimes it's overwhelming and the wave of misery that tosses and churns around the world seems about to wash us all off the edge of the earth into the abyss, but there is good too, and changes and light is beginning to peak in here and there and its only by focusing on those pin pricks of light that I can see where my next step should be.  When I turn my gaze on those dark images and issues, I find myself drawn into that suffering and my grief adds to that sorrow and it becomes bigger.....so I don't look at it, not directly.  I know that it's there, and when an opportunity to offer aid presents itself, I do, but then I turn away.  That's not to say that it hasn't been hard.  By nature I'm a 'wallower in grief',

Change Is Coming!

I read an anecdote, written by a vet who was performing the sad duty of putting to sleep a much beloved family pet.  He was speaking of the reaction by the child who had said goodbye to the little dog that had been there from the moment he was born and was now only a memory.  The little boy said, in response to the musings of the adults about why dogs have to live such short lives compared to us," 'People are born so that they can learn how to live a good Life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?' The Six-year-old continued, 'Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.'"  I saved it because it is one of those 'from the mouths of babes' sort of statements, and also points to the dilemma of the nature of man, in the current context of course.

It would not have been a surprise if the little boy had had a meltdown, tears, heartbroken sobbing accompanied by a refusal to be comforted.  Instead, he had such a moment of wisdom, that I'm sure not only amazed his mother and father, but gave comfort to them instead of them having to comfort him.  Maybe it's just me, but I'm drawn in by what he said.  Possibly because I have two little dogs that we treat like they're our kids, or maybe because I once was a mom with little ones to watch over at those sadly momentous events of life, so perhaps that is why that utterance brings a small lump to my throat.  But the clincher, as I paused to savor his words, was the part about people being born so that they can learn how to live a good life. 

The last couple of years has been an awakening on several levels for me.  Our renovations have been done on this house for few years now and we live in the countryside of Nova Scotia, Canada, in a teeny town whose population is 1000.  In winter, there is not much to do and so I've spent an inordinate amount of time on the internet.  Between my husband and I, the interests run the gamut of the stock market, news events around the world, the environment, financial news, physics, UFO's and spiritual evolution of the human soul.  And the most pre-eminent change as a result of this inundation of information, is that I am both inspired and totally horrified at this humanity that is us.  Probably not the right way to phrase that part, at least not in the grammatical sense, but I do it to highlight that maybe what we see is not the inner man, but has more to do with the cultural myths that we live by.
The little boys remarks also have more to do with the humanity that lives in accordance with these numerous and burdensome habits and traditions, as well the six billion different perspectives on every subject under the sun. The result is that I feel like the world is unravelling, and yet it's not, and I feel off balance all the time.  And I can't help but wonder, 'are we learning to be good?'.

In spending far too much time on several 'Cause' sites as well as news blogs, I've learned things about intentionally caused suffering that defies description.  There is such an ocean of torment out there that it makes drive-by shootings look at least understandable on some weird level.  People are doing things to one another, to children and to animals, and to our planet that fly in the face of protestations about the compassion of man, love of the planet, and so on and what amazes me, is that we continue down the road 'well travelled', also known as 'status quo', rather than waking up from this trance and doing a complete 180.  You would think that the benefit of 'known history' would also influence us to change course.

In the book 'Conversations With God' by Neale Donald Walsch, there is a comparison between humanity's development and a football game, and the statement was made that we are essentially speaking, at the 12 yard line.   Not being a sports enthusiast, I am going to have to assume that means that we are a very long way from scoring a touchdown.  Our obvious pride in human accomplishments, doesn't seem to have made much impact on our willingness to use and abuse and mistreat one another, indeed often serving only to make it easier to accomplish those 'bad' acts.

But even as I consider all this, I can't help but make several other observations which all lead me to wonder if we are not arriving at a cross roads which could just possibly take us in that new direction that we so desperately need if this planet and its various inhabitants are to survive.  Once upon a time, it was acceptable to own slaves, beat women and use children to perform dangerous tasks, mistreat animals, wipe out whole species, empty a cities raw waste into the ocean or a lake or the river, and we had no recourse but to accept the mistreatment and deception heaped upon us by those who ruled over us.  Tell me, are times changing?  We now have laws against those things; no more beatings, children aren't sent up chimneys with a broom and a rope tied around their waists, and we have more laws controlling what we can do on the edge of a stream, than we can keep track of.  We monitor the numbers of any given species and at the very least are willing to add them to a list of endangered animals, in the faint hope of preventing one more from disappearing forever.

Regarding the environment, there is a push to cutting back on meat consumption as a result of findings by the WHO concerning the carbon footprint caused by production. I've even seen discussion on scientists attempting to 'make' meat in labs.  As well, last night I happened to stumble across an article about 200 Chinese people who were 'gathered' together by one man using something like Twitter and with the sole purpose of stopping a truck from continuing down the road with its load of dogs, destined for slaughter in a local meat market.  Despite having a long history of eating cats and dogs and treating them in the most abominable way, those people are changing that country!  And for anyone who is curious as to how the standoff between driver and crowd ended, those dogs are now in a shelter and receiving treatment for the various injuries and illnesses that they were found to have.

As to the ruling classes and their deceptions,  is it possible that groups like Wikileaks, Anonymous and Openleaks may be the tool that breaks down that wall that has kept the common man a virtual prisoner.  Further, we need only look to that incredible event that occurred in Egypt a few weeks ago which saw them drive out a thirty year dictator using mostly peaceful mobilization of the people.  Absolutely awesome and maybe not soon repeated but a step towards a change and we are all blessed for having been witness to it.

So I flop back and forth, from despair to hopefulness and often right back to despair, but of this one thing I am convinced and it is this; that the 'knowledge' that has brought us, in a mere hundred years (give or take a few)to the brink, might just morph into a new appreciation and respect for one another and the entire natural world and ultimately our place in the cosmos.  We live in momentous times and my focus will be on remembering that despite everything else that is going on.  So with that, you are released with love into this world to do your part in bringing about the change.