Drop the sense of entitlement towards life by Oxana Poberejnaia

oxanaAt the time of climate change and crises of capitalism we need to drop our sense of entitlement to comfortable life or even to life at all. Nature will not spare us just because we are humans. When the meltdown of economic and environmental systems occurs, we are all going down: humans and non-humans, women and men, spiritual or not. We have almost run out of time.

Victor Pelevin, my favourite contemporary Russian author, has a novel called “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf“. I love it in part because, like Kill Bill, it is a rare creation by a male author, which manages to capture the female warrior spirit.

surprise___you__re_a_werewolf_by_mightywarlordIt starts with the main character, a Chinese Buddhist Were Fox who lives in present-day Moscow, consoling herself: “What else (or What the fuck) did you expect from life, A Huli?” A Huli is her name, supposedly meaning Fox A in Chinese. It is also a swear phrase in Russian, meaning “What the fuck?”

Continue reading “Drop the sense of entitlement towards life by Oxana Poberejnaia”

But…They’re Just Animals by Esther Nelson

esther-nelsonWhen I teach my Human Spirituality course to college students, I include a section on factory farming.  Merriam-Webster defines factory farming as “a large industrialized farm; especially: a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost.”

This sterile definition does not reflect the barbaric conditions in which chickens, pigs, cows, and sheep are raised in order to “maximize production at minimal cost.”  For example, chickens are kept in cages with slanted floors, their beaks removed without anesthesia, and artificial lights kept on most of the day in order to increase egg production.  Sows are kept immobile in metal cages, unable to nurse their young except through the slats of those metal cages.  Male calves are taken away from their mothers at birth and placed in small cages to become veal after a few months.  Male chicks, having no “value” in a factory farm setting, are placed on a conveyor belt that leads to being “ground up” alive.  I’ve only scratched the surface of the horrors. Continue reading “But…They’re Just Animals by Esther Nelson”

Relaxing Into an All-Encompassing World by Oxana Poberejnaia

oxanaI believe that as feminists what we are striving towards is not just equality between women and men, although this aspect is crucial. Feminism has contributed to developing of such disciplines and practices as deconstruction, environmentalism, LGBT rights, and animal rights.

Feminism walks in step with all the movements for more justice and freedom in the same way as patriarchy goes along with capitalism, exploitation and environmental degradation. Continue reading “Relaxing Into an All-Encompassing World by Oxana Poberejnaia”

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