Controversial Essays
1. LEARNING TO LOVE OUR ANIMALS
Addressing the need to educate our society at a young age, how to properly interact and deal with animals in general and dogs specifically has to become a must in our education system.There is an obvious problem in the way we as a society treat animals, fear them, abuse them and put them through harmful upbringing which causes very difficult behaviors to solve. I strongly believe that all the abuses, dog fights, dog fearing, dog bites resulting in dogs having to be killed and the controversy of whether dogs should be on a lead or not while living in society, have to be dealt with properly.
The only way to deal properly with all these problems is by tackling the situation from its roots and not just dealing with the consequences. Most of these problems have very little to do with the dogs per se and a lot to do with "us", humans and the way we bring up, raise, treat and approach our dogs.
The only way to be able to share a safe living environment with our pets in everyday life is through proper early education. Just like from experience we've learned to deal with the roots of crime, drugs and recycling by tackling these topics through early education at home and in the schools, we now need to address this animal issue in the same way. Through proper education and an effort to teach kids what is the role of animals in society and in our lives, they can be taught how to address animals and be socialized to them at an early age. They can be taught how to respect and love and cherish the friendship of our pets. They can be taught the responsibilities involved in owning a pet or wanting one. They can be taught how to respect other people in the streets that might not want their dogs stealing their Lunch in the park or jumping on their laps without being invited. They can be taught that pets have feelings and they should never be teased on purpose or abused. The kids of today are our only future. Let's teach them that animals are not to be commodities to use at random. Let's teach them that they are not a means to probe social status or become a fashion statement.At the moment adults owning pets and those not owing pets are definitely not getting along. Everyday I walk my dog I see fights between dog walkers, between pet owners and runners. It never ends. We have to learn to tackle this situation properly from early childhood so that tomorrow our pets and our fellow citizens will be able to co-live in a peaceful, safe, happy environment. Just like we've learned that throwing garbage on the streets is not right, or damping batteries onto the lakes is wrong, we should now train our kids, our young generation on how to include animals in our lives in a way which is loving, respectful and beneficial to pet owners, their dogs and everybody else who might not care to have a pet in this society.
There is an obvious problem. Killing dogs after their third bite is not the solution. We have to go deeper and deal with the very core of this problem. We human beings have to take responsibility. We cannot continue blaming it on the animals. They are innocent. If raised and bred properly they only want to love us and please us, they only act from their heart and what is taught to them. Aggressive dog behavior and pet abuse is only a sad reflection of poor education and other social problems existing in the very roots of our society. Let's deal with animal maltreatment and abuse! Now!Parents and teachers must teach young generations how to deal and live with pets peacefully in society to avoid such situations as the one I saw today.
I witnessed the terrible sight of this poor dog hanging from a choke chain from a railing of a house and holding himself tight against the wall, so that he would not touch ground and choke to death. He had been placed there for hours as a means of punishment. It belonged to a 28 year old. It took hours before a passer by decided to take action and release him from this life-threatening position. When released the animal peed and pood on himself, frightened and trembling.
Now I wonder... What is in this owner's mind? Was he ever taught anything about how to deal with pets?I want to believe that proper education, through teaching kids at a very young age how to deal properly with animals, can prevent future potential situations like the one just mentioned. Call me a dreamer, but I cannot take it any longer. I cannot keep quiet. Unfortunately animals cannot speak for themselves, they need compassionate hearts and souls to come forward and help them get some rights. There was a time when we needed to do it for women, let's now do it for them!
I am a vegan and I absolutely love animals. They deserve our best. If you work with me in helping me promote this, you will be also helping me to pass on this important message and one day we might not have to face all the sad endings we still see everyday.
Both mankind and the animal kingdom will benefit if we learn to address our needs and coexist peacefully. Let's for once act as if we truly were rational, intelligent and loving humans.
We think that we are in control;we play to be Gods,
we believe that we are to decide
the fateful destiny of our being,
the destiny of all the living.
We think that we are the ones
playing the cards of life.
Not having a clue of the rules,
we set ourselves in control
of a game devoid of any truth,
a game devoid of any love.
I owe my life to You,
I owe my sanity to You,
I owe all these months which You
faithful and loyally shared by my side.
I owe you a million apologies
for all the times I did not understand your natural instincts
and I pulled the leash as If I had any right.
I beg you to forgive me for the times I might not have treated Youas the Divine which You are.
I owe You my heart and my life for having taken You to a shelter and not doing something better to provide you with a better life.
On April the 22nd, on Earth day, two years ago I saved your life answering your call that came somehow begging to my open heart.That day I promised YOU that I would never, ever return you to that "Inhumane Society."
I gave you my word not to let You down.
I feel that in a certain way I have.I don't care what people have to say about it.
I don't want to hear one more time anybody say that you are "just an animal".
I only want to have a sacred conversation soul to soul with You my beloved Wallace:
I would like to tell you a story of why you had to end up where you are. I'd like to tell you a story of the times when You and all your other friends, so-wrongly called "animals" were in control of life. The times when you could follow your instincts and survive from the land and get your own food and drink from the natural ponds and live under your own sacred rules.I know that you know this, and that's why you've come to my life.
Well those times are gone, my friend...
And it hurts like hell to realize that all this vast land and world was a better place when you divine animals took your share from it and left the rest for the others to live from and enjoy.
But you see, Wallace... there is lots to be said about humankind... this was where humankind got involved thinking they had the right to claim any control.
We are all greedy, we take and we take and we take until there is nothing left. We take lives, we take joy, we take freedom, we want total power and full control.In an eager, endless desire to achieve this one goal, we have managed to spoil our sacred lands, we have managed to kill most of the Indians who were the only ones who could understand your Divine Nature and protect You and care for You. Throughout History our only sole purpose in life has been to conquer and control, losing everything else in the process. Missing the whole point of the real essence of life. We have made a total mess out of paradise, we have corrupted our purest dreams: we have contaminated all our waters, destroyed our forests and made all of You so precious species extinct. Therefore, we have killed all the real living in this massacre we so proudly dare call: "humanity."
Wallace, I speak to you with tears rolling down my eyes, I try to reach your soul with a broken heart bleeding from so much pain, sadness and anguish. I am trying to approach You, the Divine, and express to You my anger, my frustration, my desperation, my hopelessness and my unbending eager desire to get You: You the animals, You the "Divine" out of your cages and back into the wild.I know you can understand the pun. I need your wise help to get your message across to society, I want to become Your means of expression. If we work together we can trick them all. You see they are blind, they only talk to humans, if you talk TO ME, if you tell me what to do, I promise that I will act as a sane messenger and they will hear. They are too stupid, too ignorant, too blind to see You hiding behind my human face.
If you guide me, I promise I will not let you down. We are not being separated, we are just going to communicate at a level which is more secretive and safer, so that we can accomplish our plan.
I am all ears, I am here to serve You, you all the animals, you the ones who are pure and do not act out of hate. You the ones who know about loving unconditionally, let's give these humans a lesson to last them a lifetime.
So, Wallace, please let me remind you about that story, let me explain to you what a curse it is to be a "human" caged in this body, playing this stupid game which we dare call: "life"...
Wallace, there are so many things that are not the way they should be. Somehow throughout the years we have managed to alter all the values of society, the very essence of living has been turned into something based on money, greed and control. Every day I wake up and hear the same call. Is it from you? Is it from God? Is it from some crazy spirit trying to guide my heart and push my actions towards some challenging road? Sincerely, I still have not figured it out. Every day I wake up and wonder, I wonder why... Why so much poverty? Why so much struggle? Why so many inhuman actions? Why the war? Why don't we learn? What's the purpose of our lives?
I am not you, but so many times I would look at You as if You had more answers than I. Maybe this is just a stupid guess, but somehow it seems to me that You are so much wiser than any of us! All I remember since being a kid is questioning everything approaching the vicinity of my life. I never thought that the other kids had the same kind of questions I had. But perhaps we all do and this is what life is all about. Somehow it does not seem to satisfy my thirsty appetite. Maybe all these years that I thought to be fighting the endless conditioning and structures received from society to become whatever we were told to become, have not been polished down to nothing, quite yet. There might still be many layers of rules learned, which were imposed on our true identity and spiritual essence shaping, without us realizing it, what we were to do and who we were to become. Nothing of all this is really who we are. Who we really are is hidden somewhere so far down, that it takes many years of hard weeding to reach the edge of the core of our very essence. I personally do not want to give up. Call it perfectionism. Call it depression, or may be eternal frustration. No matter what you call it, there is something in me that pushes me to find out more about who we are and why we are here.
What is my particular purpose in this game of life? Am I really doing anything? Who am I fooling? Where am I heading? Does it matter what we do? Does it really matter how we behave towards others? Is it worth anything to smile? I have to believe that it is, otherwise: What else is there more than just breathing until we die?
I think that we are all focusing on the wrong game. We think that success is what we achieve in terms of our work, our professional accomplishments, our achievements, our possessions, our investments. All these things which take priority and get to totally rule our lives, mean nothing. These things do not contribute to our happiness but to our emptiness, to our desperate addictions to escape who we've become, to further and further disconnect us from Earth, from Love and finally from Life in its purest form.
What dictates the concept of what is right or wrong? Is it you God on the other side? I feel that the real game is love, it is how much we can open ourselves to the needs of the rest. How much we can forget about who we are and concentrate on giving and offering our essence to those who need it. Maybe the trick is to step out of this material life. To completely let go and surrender everything we've got.
In my days of traveling it was when I had the least that I felt I possessed it all. Somehow when one has nothing to lose, everything else becomes an asset and can enrich our lives. How stupid we are to constantly and willingly buy our own slavery day in day out, participating in our jobs and daily chores without questioning what kind of footprints we are leaving behind.
Personally, I do not quite know what everybody's purpose is. But I am sure. that it is a spiritual one. I know that I am supposed to be doing something for the whole. Now, the thing is that maybe there is not just one job, but a million daily ones. Probably we are all connected by these invisible threads, which pull us towards one direction or another, towards those people who we are supposed to touch and be touched by. We are all messengers of this huge puzzle we call life. But we are so out of tune from our spiritual tasks, that we keep ignoring the call and hiding our pieces of truth, and our own essential messages to the rest. In this way, we are not contributing to figuring out this puzzle, we make it harder and harder on ourselves; and in the end, we sabotage our own destiny, in an attempt to fit in a game which nobody has a clue why we are playing to begin with.
I am determined to be true to myself, to my intuition, to that little, big, wise voice that whispers at my ear and which I manage to ignore more than 99% of the time. This inner voice is the truth within each of us which nobody can steal from us. It is a treasure which most of the time we have placed so deep inside we've forgot that it is there. Letting it shine and giving it out for others to see is our gift to others, our contribution to this life, our life purpose... We are responsible to bring this jewel inside out to shine and spread its light to others. Each of us must embrace our uniqueness, for this is the gift which we are here to share.
So open up, give, love unconditionally. Living loyally to this true essence is the only way to achieve peace of mind and get rid of internal conflict.
Wallace, I promise you that I shall help you and your fellow animals and all the living. I shall speak on your behalf and help you recover your deserved rights.
Some people communicate, others listen and others talk. Some people paint, others compose and many others sing or carve. I generally write. I pour my soul into paper every time that I cannot smile, every time that I need to celebrate, every time that I am exhilarated. Every time that I am sad or happy, nostalgic or excited, I write.
It comes like an uncontrollable compulsive force, which takes me over and makes me grab the pen, as if in its ink, I was going to find the answers to the never ending mysteries of the centuries. It's some powerful force, it's a propulsive energy which generates from somewhere deep within and exercises tremendous pressure, trying to free itself from the trap of the walls of my selfish cage, until from so much pushing it breaks like a powerful explosion and finally lets itself free.
Somehow this energy needs to get out, it needs to pour itself onto the world, it needs to spread hundreds of confusing letters which become the most incoherent and incomprehensible combination of words, all of them interrelated yet at the same time totally isolated. All these words that gush out from my heart and are arbitrarily dictated by the commanding voice of my soul show two different opposing poles, representing the map of our inner self, the map of our darkest and most incomprehensible self which so vainly we attempt to comprehend. This is why I try to express it playing with an endless combination of words, a net of mere frustrating vocables which are of no good but to release some of the frustration and discharge some of the confusion from my fully cluttered mind.
I do not understand why I should keep feeding this impulsive, arbitrary habit. I do not comprehend why I should keep writing words to a void. I just cannot overcome this compulsive moment of creation when it all flows right from my very center, from the deepest end of some unknown place, from one of those many places hidden, and firmly rooted, in the different areas secretly located in the universe of my inner self.
Yet I do not ever oppose it anymore. I do not attempt to repress it any longer, because when I do, I feel as if I was going to die from asphyxiation. When I do not allow it to flow, my soul eventually runs out of air and, sooner or later, I resort again to this overwhelming vice, that controls the movement of my submissive left hand. So, I do not try to cage it anymore. Now I embrace it and let it be free, hoping that by doing this, I shall someday achieve an integrating picture of this complex and intangible reality of ours.
From this wide range of feelings and interlaced ideas, I can see how different planes of reality overlap one over the other, just as a labyrinth of mirrors, which located at random, make us dizzy and confused. So we go mental, trying to find the unavailable way out, in order to escape this land of images and masks. It is in an attempt to find the secret code, to free us from this tormentingstate, that I surrender to the pen and write... In this way, I write, as I open the doors of the many mirrors. I write, as I continue traveling and uncovering this veil of illusion, entering each layer while trying to outsmart all the shadows and reflections. I write, with the conviction that if I keep searching, I might find an end, to this mass of confusion and delusion.
I can now see that this is a never ending path. It leads to an infinite land. That's all there is to it. One has to accept it, and keep living, with the peaceful knowledge of being an inhabitant in this house with a million doors and mirrors, devoid of any material form. A house full of masks, devoid of any identity or soul. All these are just the faces, the masks we see and label, in an attempt to figure out who we are.
We find it hard just to accept that which we cannot see. What we cannot really accept with our minds, is the very impalpable essence of simply: 'being'. It's the very content of our one soul which occupies the space, which exists in between all those doors, mirrors and walls. That pure void, referred to as 'soul'. It's only a deep inner feeling which does not just stay inside us, like a prisoner, but that expands and transcends all the boundaries of our being and pours itself into everything else. It reunites everything to the all encompassing energy which coexists with it all.
It's a veil, an invisible coating, of an invisible and infinite expansion which connects absolutely all of humankind, all the universes, all the worlds, all the realities and all the centuries, into one same soul. A force that does not know the concept of either distance or time. It magically interlaces our hearts tight together, spirit to spirit, in the most sublime communion, which is simple and essential: 'love'.
Why do I still need to write about it? Why not just hold it there, just feel it and watch it? I just do not know. My guess is that this eager calling for writing is also part of this great source. It originates for some reason, and it is my task to put it all on paper and share it with those who might believe that their reality is just the concrete walls and the actual mirrors, and who might never wonder if there is anything beyond the veil of illusion.
Maybe I just write to bring out the questions that many would rather ignore... It really does not matter because many times I tried to kill this invading call and it only resurrects with a much greater force. So, here I am a spokes woman, trying to express in words that which can only be felt.No wonder, I feel frustrated. This is not an easy task. But, as I said, I shall now embrace it and let the wisdom from this void command the path of my words and the messages to be expressed through my lines.
Due to an urgent call from deep inside I need to get more involved in defending our planet and the right of each and every living part of it to be here. It is not enough for me any longer to write my books and poems and many times I only end up isolating myself in my own world. It is not enough for me to carry on with my own businesses, although I have always done great at branching out from main stream society and come up with a way of making a living which is creative, environmentally friendly and makes me happy and in turn contributes to the happiness of others. I am aware that my lifestyle has helped many others question theirs and make some great changes. But at this point, new conflicts keep rising from deep inside, and what I am doing is not enough. As I told you I do not just want my diet to be vegan, I want all my life: professional, health, clothing, environmental, social choices to become totally vegan too. Considering that our lifestyle is also a diet in itself by necessity it has to become vegan.
I feel the voices inside telling me that I've gone as far as I could within this direction and line of work and that now I need to place all my energy and efforts towards that which my soul and heart are pulling me to do. I want to share who I've become and how I feel we need to evolve. And in so doing learn more from others to continue this ascending journey and hopefully inspire others in getting involved in the process of taking baby steps towards living a lifestyle that agrees with the beat of our mother earth and all that is in it, in terms of embracing, protecting and respecting the life of our planet and of all living life on earth. Connecting back to what is hidden deep within is the only way we are going to carry out our individual transformation and exercise local and consequently global changes.
I feel that our society needs more people out there willing to point to others the way to their hearts and help them reconnect to our roots in order to make these necessary changes happen. Every day life in our present society draws people constantly further and further away from their souls. People blindly participate in the annihilation of their own souls, as they buy their daily prepackaged hamburgers and drive their expensive automobiles. They get so involved in the game of achieving what to them is "success" that they think that all these things are their identity. They forget who they are and that their real home is not their expensive houses but mother earth itself. You cannot desire to protect that which you are disconnected from and therefore you cannot attempt to love or feel love for it.I realize that one of the urgent steps I need to take is being more strict in being loyal to that call from within. I have been perfecting the act of listening to this voice since I was 4 years old. However, there is always more social and cultural luggage to get rid of and to unlearn and more of the real truth within to let flow freely and let it creatively evolve. From the peace and quite of who I am at the moment, I receive a strong message that I need to put my skills into a somewhat more integrating use for the well-being of our fellow animals, of all people and of all the earth. I have been writing in my book: "Tales from a Dream before it Happened" and poems about the inner soul journey of a vegan and of those trying to carry a more compassionate lifestyle. And the result of all that writing tells me that the only light I see at the end of this tunnel is active involvement and participation. The only solution is to engage ourselves in the magical tool of education. In order to get rid of the problems we are facing and to set values in tune with mother earth, we need to remove all the messages imposed by corporations and other companies of the sort; we need to tackle the problem at its very roots.
When children and young adults are forming their ideas, and at all times later on in life as one is constantly redefining oneself, it is important to have access to some form of education that teaches us the most important subject of life which is to set our priorities right in terms of respect for all forms of life, people, animals, plants, waters, etc. We need people that help us to always keep a mind that questions the status quo and can whenever necessary make sensible, compassionate choices at all levels of one's life. Even when these choices shall mean that we'll be different and step away from the mass. We need to tell people that it is OK to feel and act upon that direction. Education is one of the most powerful tools to use and win this battle.I studied 3 years of Social Psychology along with my Translating Career in Argentina. In those years spent on Social Psychology we had to first work on ourselves to be able to first see and then help to find solutions to the underlying problems and threats affecting society. We worked hard on ourselves trying to peel off the layers of brain washing, learning in this way to develop a critical mind. Nobody ever told me about how to feel about the animals or my diet. The call came from deep within, through deep listening and allowing the free flowing of my inner guidance. This deep listening which happened mainly in close proximity to Nature, drove me to make all the necessary choices to become who I am now. I was able to make this move because I allowed myself to question the status quo and a Latin American society where the consumption of meat is still disgusting and there was no support whatsoever. It was very hard to stand out as a young woman to try to become out of such oppressive, chauvinistic and patriarchal society, who I was being told inside to be. Finally, by escaping my own culture and traveling very far I was able to remove myself enough to make this move. After years of having accomplished what seemed just like a dream in my homeland, I now wish to furnish myself with all the knowledge necessary to one day go back and also offer opportunities to educate people towards a more compassionate way of living. I want to start where I am now. Becoming some kind of Human Educator seems to fit what I have been looking for. Any changes have to start right at the very root of each individual's heart and spring from there into our community and from there into the rest of the world.
I know at heart that I am a great communicator. I have been teaching Spanish for 10 years and I have done incredible things with my Method "The Creative Natural Approach". I wrote seven books on this method. However, as I 've mentioned, I have reached as far as I could go with that. Very often I feel that people get so carried away by my energy and they want some understanding as to who I am. I guess my way of life acts as a mirror that reflects back onto them things within themselves that they have not dealt with and are eager to come out. They want to know more about my choices and I end up opening up all these other issues about animals, diet, nature, love and compassion to account for my ongoing smile.
I believe once we allow ourselves to live this way, we get rid of our inner conflicts, and we can finally offer our smile to the world and pour into it our unconditional love to all beings and things. I want to embrace and target this issue directly!
Veronica Munoz
Dedicated to my dog Wallace whose life I am supporting while he continues his life peacefully living in a Farm Sanctuary.