Meditative Thoughts for a BeefAnimal Before SlaughterMeat and Biodynamic Preparation.. At the Corral

Here we meet, bovine creature, I, human and you animal. Some years past, I made a decision to bring a bull and cow together and by the higher creative power of the universe, you came into being. You have been nourished by your mother’s pure milk for a long and natural cycle. You’ve gamboled, run, butted, bawled, ruminated, defecated, hungered and rested. You have experienced it all; rain, cold, summer’s heat and flies, spring’s sweet dew covered clover. You stand at the apex of your development. Only ageing and death lie ahead. For you pain can only be endured for you can only rise as far as the wondrous and intricate instincts that govern your responses to life.

On the other hand, I as a human am given the possibility, and responsibility, of transforming pain and suffering to knowledge, to capacities for soul growth, to choose joy and love, to reach for the spirit and a higher consciousness of this life and beyond.

By my decision you will die. Your life will be sacrificed. My part in this is serious. Your body will become blood, marrow and sinew in my body. As you return to the great sheltering bovine soul of the cosmos, your substance will be scattered, given to many human beings to support their continuing existence.

You came from God. You give yourself to me. If I would stand honorably in the great scheme of things then I must give myself to God. It’s the only bargain that makes sense. It’s a hard one for a human, self-willed and ego centric as we are, but if we don’t strive for this we become disruptive impeding snags in the deep flowing river of Life. With your long lashed bovine eyes you challenge me to this bargain. Challenge me to use your gift to reach for full humanity as you are fully animal, challenge me to become a conscious, caring, transforming power, a center of light in the circle of life.

We will make bio dynamic preparations with your body, placing oak bark into your head, into the triune cavity that held your small instinctive brain, liquid oak bark rich in calcium to work in union with the calcium in your thick bony skull. Into your tough and flexible intestine we will pack sun-filled fragrant chamomile flowers. We will wrap sun yellow dandelions into your fluted, transparent mesentery. Placing light into the dark primal organs of life, above-below, macrocosm-microcosm, heaven- earth. With your substance and our consciousness we create the sacred alchemy, an alchemy which cannot be done by nature or us alone. Together we create something new and thus exciting. Together human, animal, plant, soil and universe combine in substances for the healing of the desecration of our earthly home, We can know that where this enlivened compost goes the Mother Earth is again made sacred.

Dear animal, wily, stubborn, yet honest and holy, you do your part in dying. We are partners in this. I owe you and God. I stand before you with reverence and deepest thanks.

Nancy Jewel Poer, Michaelmas, 2006

White Feather Ranch, Placerville, California