RAISING ANIMALS WITH EMPATHY

When I was a kid in 1969 the musical Hair hit the stage. The song "Age of Aquarius" became quite popular.

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

I have often thought since then, what happened to the love and peace?

Well it is happening,but maybe not fast enough. The world is changing. How can we help this process go in a good direction?

THE PROBLEM

Most people would prefer the humane treatment of animals. The problem is that we have found ourselves in a rut. Industrial agriculture and the economic structure behind it are built on energy intensive subsidized crop farming of grains and finishing livestock with these grains in confinement. The quantities processed give this current methodology a distinct cost savings. However this process of grain production creates excessive soil erosion, pollutes our environment with harmful chemicals, and consumes excessive energy. Feedlot animals are treated inhumanely, with high prophylactic antibiotic consumption producing a inferior product which is unhealthy to the consumer.

Carl Jung developed a typology based on the way we as individuals make our world by our focus and perception. The four basic types were Thinking, Sensate, Feeling, and Intuitive. Our western culture has been profoundly thinking driven. We have broken all the wholes into their parts and micro-analyzed them but in so doing have lost track of the big picture. Industrial agriculture is a testament to that. This thinking driven economy puts the opposite pole of feeling in the shadow. This means that Feeling is our way out of this mess. To feel we need to engage in a subsuming experience. Working with animals creates empathy for them. Before long you are psychically attuned. You can feel when they need to be moved and when they are out of water. Subtleties of behavior become recognizable and a new sense of belonging in the whole becomes real. I don't know how to get this without actually experiencing it so it is important to get ones body down to the farm and work with the animals!

The rest of 'Raising Animals with Empathy' can be found on my Blog.