The Bunny Story

     As a seven year old girl, I was playing outside with my dog; and while crawling around I saw a little bunny poke its nose out of the base of a tree. I reached in and pulled out five velvet soft bunnies. Their eyes had barely opened. I cooed internally and had the strange urge to feed them. I ordered my dog to watch them and ran inside, but they wouldn't take any of the milk from our fridge. The bunnies hopped nervously around me as I corralled them towards the tree. Finally, I put them back in their hole and went inside for dinner.

     The next morning, I rushed through breakfast and quickly went outside to check under the tree for the bunnies. I pulled them out one by one, and realized there were only four bunnies in my lap. Horror struck, I began searching all over the immediate area. When I couldn't find a trace of a fifth bunny, I began to question myself and if there ever was another missing bunny. I went inside for part of the day and decided to check on the bunnies one more time before bed.

     As I approached my dog's house in the dimming light I heard a gentle rustle in the fallen, brown leaves. I glanced over and saw the tiniest movement and slowly walked closer. I brushed the leaves aside and saw, shivering in the shade, a tiny bunny. I returned it to the den, making sure to feel all five bunnies before I went inside. Laying in bed that night, I had a feeling it was my fault the bunny was outside the den.  I was sure it had bounced away from the group when I went inside and I had just failed to notice. Knowing the bunny was back home though, made me proud of myself for fixing the problem and I fell asleep excited to see the bunnies again.

     At daybreak I was already making my way to the tree. I reached in to pull out each little bunny, more energetic and stronger now. When the last bunny came out it was flat and limp in my hand, obviously dead. I panicked with a squeal and tossed the bunny away in front of me. Once I regained my composure, the morbid inner human needed to examine the body. I determined it was probably the one I missed and didn't put back in the den and I was sad. The other bunnies looked healthy, however, and that made me happy.

     A couple days passed and I thought I had better not meddle with the bunnies anymore, but my curiosity over their well-being won. As I approached the tree, one of the bunnies came out and began to hop away. I grabbed it and put it back under the tree to keep the same mistake from happening, but then another tried, and soon all four bunnies were hopping in four different directions away from me and I realized they were leaving and they wouldn't be back. I just stood there and watched as they hopped between the trees and out of sight.  All was quiet.  Lingering there a moment before I went back to the house; the morning sun streamed through the leaves. 

Doc Com

I didn't start writing this until after I had already watched the first documentary. It was great.

Catch the trailer here: Freakonomics

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Now I am starting the documentary Cowspiracy (comments to follow). Following the environmental catastrophe that is our modern food system.

There is a part of me that wants to be vegetarian. I should just do it. At least because of the state of the planet, and because I call myself an animal lover and advocate yet I still eat meat. Jesus 2,500 lbs of water are used to produce 1 lb of beef. Even cutting your meat intake in half would be a huge impact on the global environment.

Honestly, I have less to say than I thought. The documentary was great and brought up some really interesting points. I'm going to try and eat far less meat and dairy. Looking to cut my boyfriend to half his consumption and I think I can pretty much just give up milk and lets be honest, that would be better for me anyway. I don't need milk. I can get better calcium from spinach or kale. The hardest part will be not giving into temptation and still doing what I want to do for me regardless of if my boyfriend is personally resistant to giving up meat and especially dairy (he loves milk).

It just comes down to numbers for me. I care a lot for animals and the environment and I want children of the future to have a world to enjoy like I have had so far in my life, but if it's all destroyed by the time I'm 60, then what have I left the future? If I became vegan right now then I have the ability to decrease my carbon footprint by:

1100 gallons of water
45 pounds of grain
30 square feet of forest
10 pounds of CO2
1 animals life

EVERY SINGLE DAY. that's 365 animals a year and probably more in reality because we waste so much, especially here in America. How can I ignore that? It wont be a cold turkey process but starting this moment, I am going to try and consume less meat and dairy as a whole. Definitely at work this is doable because I eat a lot of cheese and eggs, but we have lots of veggies on hand, even avocado so I don't have to go far for options. If most people kept an open eye and mind they might find they don't have to make too big of changes to eat less meat either.


Things to think about.

Mav

Free Form

So when i say birthdays are made up and you scoff and roll your eyes, think about this: we as a species, a humanity, choose to view our years cyclically with numbers and dates, calculated. We repeat the same months and days and hours. What if we just counted up? What if we didn't keep track at all? Then there would be no "birthdays" and there would be no celebration of that birth accept when you were actually born. All the world is a perception. We get confused with history and technology. We forget that history is written by the victorious, so large swaths of information go undocumented. We feel like what is has always been. Things like electricity and the telephone. We cant see the forest for the trees and forget how much these things and things like it have dramatically shaped our mindset. The call this the "Information Age" and we thrive off these statistics. We use them to compare ourselves most of all in attempts to push "ahead" but to what I'm not sure. We just race like we know the goal. Why not take it slow? There is nothing technically saying that we can't but most people would not believe we could and that is exactly what keeps us from it. There are no rules that say it must be survival of the fittest where if suddenly all became benevolent that another authority would swoop down and punish us. This is just what the vast majority of the populatiom believes. We create our reality though, and i dont mean in the "positivity brings happiness" type of bullshit but literally if no one went to work tomorrow and just for no reason decided, "Nah, ill just stay home..." The buildings arent going to come looking for us to keep running them. The toys and cars wont come begging to be produced. We create all that need for those things by believing them to be important.  So just keep your mind open. Look for new points of view. Because they are usually pretty interesting.

Mav

Untitled

Things all come and go
Friends say goodbye and hello
Moments bond
Memories create
My cup spills over into my plate
All these lessons slowly sink in
Hardly a chance to say thanks again
Or sorry for how I treated you then
Oh how it haunts the halls of my head
Quietly whispering while in bed
A million revisions on what was said
Forgotten in dreams until morning

Mary Go Round

Mary go, round and round
Dance your dance, beneath your frown
Slit your wrists, spill your pain
Sob loud sobs, out in the rain
Make an effort, dig in deep
Don't be afraid to go without sleep
Find your peace, stamp your path
Lay proud and pretty below the grass.

Letter To Nobody

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have changed. I'm not saying that you have made a mistake. I'm not saying you're wrong or your right or they are wrong or right. What I'm saying is, you're different now. I don't know what I expected. Maybe I just don't have a full grasp on cultures and oppression like I thought I did. I don't think you should have to alter the way you look to be happy with yourself or to feel accepted. (I accepted you already.) That to me is fitting into society's stereotype of certain feelings matching certain bodies. Why should we put ourselves in that box? (You are not defective!) I think we get swept up in the idea and truth of transgender identity because it makes sense that gender, a completely subjective thing, would be a sliding scale and not finite categories.[{(warning long tangent:  which I don't even really think it's that. I don't think it really exists. It's just a concept created to more easily categorize people scientifically based on anatomy and systematic response to certain stimuli. I think sex is a very real thing. It determines physically your capability for birthing and whatnot and also might influence hormone levels. But I don't think that's foolproof. I think it's a system that's been in place for so long that we have trouble looking outside of it. It's something we have so closely linked with sex and emotion that we have trouble even fully distinguishing it, and in turn we totally misconstrue a large part of 'what is Humanity' by trying to make it fit specific guidelines. Anyway...)}] Then we forget that we can learn from ideas and knowledge without having to act it out. It is possible for everyone to change from one gender to the other but to me changing your body physically, permanently to match how you feel emotionally is frivolous.  If we had no ideas of gender and masculinity and femininity, would you still want to change your body? You are who you are. If everyone else thinks something different without trying to get to know you then that's on them. It doesn't need to be your life goal to make sure your body tells everyone who you are. Be confident knowing you are awesome on the inside. I'm sure I sound like a self righteous ass, but I'm seriously just so tired of all the labeling. Try removing labels from your life actually. Start with your gender. We are all just people. We can't just wait for the world to change, John Mayer. If everyone is waiting then nothing happens. You can start the change inside of you with the way you view and treat and react to the world.


Mav

Traveler

I feel myself ghosting in
Move tree to tree inside the wind
Playful smile across my lips
Ginger dew covered naked steps
Air of mystery kisses my skin
Swells of passion lift pointed chin
Misted eyes on windswept Echo
Gazing listless over the meadow