I couldn't think of a better title, eep!

My spirit guide is a Buck and I've been thinking of ways to represent him on my altar. My father is a hunter so I could ask him for some antlers, if I ever worked up the courage. Then it dawned on me, I've eaten venison before and since my dad is a hunter so the opportunity will come up again.

This made me a little uncomfortable and I wasn't sure if it would be seen as disrespectful or as a gift from the spirit guide.

Then I remembered how the Native Americans thanked the spirit of the animal for it's life and being able to use it's hide for clothing and meat for food. So I suppose of I were to thank the animals spirit it wouldn't be that bad.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I dont see a problem. Your spirit guide represents the characteristics of an animal. Ingesting the corporeal animal should not interfere and actually may strengthen the bond. On the other side you can declare that animal sacred to you and no longer eat it. Both sides seem logical and it is up to you which way you lean.

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Yup, since you don't follow a specific system that taboos the practice this one is up to you to figure out. I've heard of people that believe eating the hunt is sacred and people abstaining from sacred animals/all animals out of the sacredness of life. It can strengthen the bond like ISO2 mentioned or you could end up with nightmares about bucks in mutiny. Okay, maybe not the nightmares. Thought and practice will help sort it all out. You can always ask your spirit guide what he thinks, too. That might be a good idea.

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None of my totem animals are eatable ~ Thank the Goddess, because I couldn't do that, not much on meat anyways. ~ Elia

Oh yea, very good topic.

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I've been thinking about it and this is the first year where there hasn't been venison available. My dad has been working with training his dog to sniff out birds this year. So I may have to take that as a no. I won't be missing much because I rarely eat it as it is.

I couldn't, but then he's a wolf.

Briganta

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I don't know why this is so hard to phrase, but darn it I'm going to try anyways. Why would you ever want to eat your animal helper? I know, I know some of them are pretty delicious. However, speaking as a former carnivore turned herbavore it's amazing what a change in diet can do for your spirituality. I would never have guessed but my magic, my attitude, and my spirit are more joyous than ever. I see and experience things that were once hidden from my view. It blows my mind. If you don't need meat to survive I'd suggest giving it a trial run. And before you roll your eyes I'm not a hippy (though I do respect my hippy friends) and if you choose to eat meat I can respect that too. Plus, your animal guide just might be pleased you spared its family member.

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I agree. I must admit that it was only a few years ago that I realised my own hypocrisy when I was debating becoming a vegetarian. I couldn't justify my consumption of one lifeform, without guilt, whilst condemning the consumption of others. As an animist, I believe that all physical things (including rocks, etc.) have Spirit. I also was never fully aware of the extent to which animal by-products saturate the consumer market. Everything from makeup to tennis rackets contain animal by-products. If I'm going to use products that contain part of the being of an animal, why is the muscle tissue the sacred cow? It's muscle tissue. Is it any more sacred than say the fat or the intestines? Just my thoughts.

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Ohh buddy! What a can of worms.

I can see where you're coming from on the whole hypocrisy of vegan or vegetarian diet. However, just to explain a different viewpoint, I decided to abstain from animal products because I fail to see any spiritual or health benefits from eating mass produced meat products. There's no kindness, no happy life, or peaceful death in most of the products our many societies produce. I protest the process.

Eating a Big Mac doesn't bring you closer to the spirit of a cow. It's so very easy to ignore what really goes into our food, but if somebody really wanted to celebrate and honor the animal they'd get their meat a different way. They could raise or hunt them themselves or buy their meat from someone they know who does.

As for plants. I think Rae'ya might be surprised by just how many people work with plant guides. I don't know anybody, witch or not, who doesn't work with them regularly. Their spirits are strong and definitely noticed.

Now for eating them, many fruits and plants travel by means of a critter's stomach. They're eaten, they move, they grow, and reproduce. Others, like the lettuce I grow, flower and die. They're seasonal and taking a few leaves won't disrupt their reproductive cycle. Plus, unlike chickens and veal many plants get the benefit of fresh air and sunlight.

I apologize if this sounded like a rant.

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It's only a can of worms if we can't debate nicely I have absolutely no problem with vegetarianism or veganism, and I hope you can afford those of us who don't share your opinions the same respect that we afford you.



And I fail to see any spiritual or health benefits from eating mass produced and highly processed plant products *shrugs*



This I agree with, and I think that far too many people have fallen into modern society's denial trend. Not only do they not know what really goes into our food, but they don't really want to know.

In an ideal world, I would be living off the land, raising and slaughtering my own meat, growing my own vegetables, spinning my own yarn from my own animals and existing in a state of as close to self-sustainability as I could get. Nothing would go to waste. The ideals of homesteading appeal to me greatly. Unfortunately, until my husband and I own our own property we can only do so much. As it is, my parents have extensive veggie gardens and aquaponics systems. My mum makes her own soap, detergent and washing liquid. She makes her own ginger beer and rice wine. She knits and sews clothing. Makes her own preserves and sausages from excess harvest. All skills that I've learned and apply where I can.

I'm not removed from the reality of where the products I eat and use come from. I'm immersed in it. And to me, that's a very spiritual place to be as a consumer.

Luckily here in Australia, the standards that our meat and crops are grown in is much better regulated than in America and Europe. We still have battery hens, but it's easy to ensure that you buy free range eggs rather than cage eggs - all our packaging has to clearly state these things. Animals are still shipped and slaughtered at an abattoir, but there are laws that make it as humane as possible. I grew up on a farm. We slaughtered our own meat. My family is full of truckers who transported livestock for decades. I understand the processes and the necessity. Without the animal industries, modern society would not have half the products that we currently enjoy. And I'm not just talking edibles here... but everything. There are very few commonly used products out there that are completely vegan.

As a matter of interest, in protesting the process, do you also abstain from all animal products? And not just the obvious ones like leather, but the unobtrusive ones like lipstick, moisturizer, paintbrushes and shampoo? It's not enough to just buy brands that aren't tested on animals. Most of them contain animal products of one sort or the other. And in some cases, the industries that harvest animal parts are much less humane than the meat industry.



This isn't so easy for a lot of people. Here in Australia, we have almost no hunting culture, and most of what we can hunt here is rabbit, kangaroo or wild boar. There are places where there's also feral goat or deer to hunt, but in Adelaide, rabbit is about your only choice. IF you can get a gun license, which is not easy here. And don't get me started on trapping... it would be more ethical to buy it from the store than to trap it. So how is the average Australian supposed to get their meat in a different way?

If someone REALLY wanted to celebrate and honor the animal then they'd make the best of a bad situation and do what they could. They would make an effort to understand exactly where their meat comes from and the processes involved. They would immerse themselves in the knowledge and the sacredness of the cycle of life and honor the animal's spirit whether it came to them via a freshly killed cow or a McDonald's hamburger.

Turning this back to plants again, by your logic, if someone wanted to honor and celebrate Wheat totem then they couldn't do it by buying a loaf of bread from the bakery. You couldn't even do it by making your own bread from a bag of flour you bought. Bought flour is bleached and processed almost beyond recognition, and I'd argue that it's easily as far away from the original product as a hamburger is.



Perhaps I would be, but it's not something that many ever speak about. When was the last time someone posted a thread asking if you would eat your plant totem? Would you yourself eat your plant totem? If one of your primary totems was Wheat, then where would you stand? I know exactly how strong and noticeable plant totems are, hence the reason I bought it up.

What I'm saying is that I don't differentiate between plant matter and animal matter. All life is sacred to me, regardless of what physical matter it inhabits. It seems to me that even if more people than I realise DO work with plant totems, there's an obvious inequality in people's minds about their importance in the grand scheme of things. We always talk about animal totems and animal lives in regards to vegetarianism, but no one every brings up plant totems and plant lives. Why not, if it's such an important part of so many's spirituality?



This actually isn't true. The practices used to cultivate vast quantities of plant matter for human consumption are often not particularly humane. We don't consider 'humane' when we talk about raising crops, and not only are many plants raised in cramped indoor green houses but they're forced to grow out of season, are genetically modified, and never see soil or sunlight or fresh air. Those that do grow outside are often not crop rotated and so the soil is filled with artificial nutrients in order to make it usable, the crops are genetically modified to be resistant to pests or alternatively are sprayed with chemicals. And then they're picked before they're ripened fully, the entire plant is torn from the ground because it's more economical to just replant rather than let the plants go to seed and reproduce naturally, the produce is packed into trucks, sprayed with chemicals to make it ripen artificially, trucked around the country and by the time it hits the grocery store its already been off the plant for two weeks. It may just be me, but I fail to see how that is any more ethical than the meat industry.

The lettuce you grow is much the same as the sheep I raised as a child. They are NOT comparable to the lettuces or the lamb that you get at the grocery store. Home grown or raised produce is worlds away from what we buy in the stores. And the plants we buy in the stores have not lived a life any better then that of the meat we buy. The best we can do when we buy from the stores is locally grown or raised. The second best is organic free range. But organic doesn't always mean free range nor does in mean humane. It just means no chemicals.

When it comes to your comment about plants needing to be eaten in order to grow and reproduce, I understand what you're trying to say, but I feel it's a moot point. Carnivores also have their place in the natural order of things. Herd animals grow, reproduce, eat plants and cause a lot of damage to the environment if their numbers aren't checked. Creatures who eat meat are a natural part of that population control. If nothing eats the herbivores, the herbivores destroy the soil, the substrate, and the ability for plants to grow again in the next cycle. I don't see plants nor predators to be more or less important or natural than each other.

Oh silly bobble headed me! White sugar, flour, oh my. I see we both misunderstand each other greatly, Rae'ya. If you felt offended by my post that was not my intention.



I hadn't realized I was being disrespectful. I was simply stating a view point. Eating more fruits and veggies has helped me grow spiritually. I've had the pleasure of both lifestyles and I saw one being endorsed but not the other. As devil's advocate I like to see both (or even more) topics being said.



As for my lifestyle I do indeed buy vegan products. Vegan vitamins, shampoo, soap, cosmetics, candles, clothes (though I did keep the shoes and clothes I had before I became a vegan. No sense throwing out leather boots I got as a gift). I also buy brown rice, flour, organics etc. I do try to live by my own ethical code though sometimes I slip. I use honey (purchased from a local bee lover) and after years of being a vegetarian had given it up for a couple of weeks just to see the other side again.

I appreciate you trying to educate me on the horrors of the cosmetic industry. It's definitely something to be aware about (and I have been for quite a while).

But again, I disagree with you on the "obvious inequality" in peoples minds. It's something I have to remind myself often, but I don't know what goes through other people's minds. All I do know is what I see, and from the people I've communicated with plants are as close to their hearts as animals are.

One last thing, because these post are too easy to go on and on with. I have to say I'm quite envious of your family and you. To be able to make your own goods in such a fashion is a great thing. It's something I aspire to do more of.

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