Personally, I don't mind killing things. Killing is part of the process of life. So, the fact that somebody supplied the right conditions for our thanksgiving turkey to reach a body weight of 20-plus pounds and then killed it seems like I am part of the process used by wolves, cougars and other carnivores. I remember reading that Benjamin Franklin suggested that the turkey be used as the national symbol of the US, although people decided on the bald eagle instead.
Actually, whenever you kill anything, mosquito or python, seeing the life force stop is attention-getting. I have heard that primitive hunters (and maybe modern ones) paid homage to the creature they had killed, experiencing that awareness of what is beyond our understanding in the creature, all other living things, and the world we live in.
Our 20 lb. bird furnished a meal for 12 and still supplied ten meal-sized bags of meat. My job of stripping the meat off the bones gave me plenty of opportunity to see the intricate arrangements of muscles, bones and tendons that enabled the bird to walk, run and fly. The bird had been cooked inside a plastic cooking bag for three hours and yet the body still had plenty of strength in its connections. As I tear the muscles loose and squeeze them away from the ligaments and bones that enable the muscles to provide movement, I can imagine the same process being applied to my body. I realize that I am put together in much the same way. True, the bird had been gutted and much of the important part for maintenance of life had been removed. But the bulk of the weight was still there and that is enough to see that nature is indeed wondrous in its ability to produce such complexity in mobile, reproducing form.
Much of the business of earthly things can be seen to be processes: the conception and raising of baby turkeys, the slaughter and sale of the adult bodies, my body's use of energy in the parts of the carcass, the eventual return of my body's energy to the world where it may be recycled as part of some other being or project. Everything is fading into or out of something else, rings and dances inside dances and rings.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
