I know this might not have to deal with depression/ anxiety etc but it's improved my depression and anxiety and difficultes. it's helped me move forward. it's given me a reason to keep going.
this is one of the pictures I took at the vegan festival. one of the belly dancers. their shirts were simply amazing. if you guys like this one, I have many more I'd love to share with you. including some vegan foods I ate that day. 💞🌻
I love it...and I too was a vegetarian for 13 years,... but my body missed BBQ, ....dancing is such a great way to express yourself...I had so much joy when I used to go dancing...
There is a song by Sting called...'they dance alone'....it's a sad but virtuous and inspiring song of silent protest by mothers, and sisters, who lost their loved ones during Pinochet's reign of Chile. It always brings tears to my eyes....'dancing was the only form of protest they were allowed'....
reminds me of animals also. cows lose their loved ones every single day. their baby are snatched from them from birth for a humans consumption of the mother's milk.... they wouldn't want their dear baby calf to be feeding on her would they? oh no... remember? they're for humans. wow... more people to demand it , the more they supply it. I don't understand when people say they went vegan but stopped because they had missed something or just wasn't them. you made a cautious effort to stop eating the deceased corpse of another being that got it's neck sliced open, it's head ripped off, it's body put through a machine and gutted up and splattered on disease fested tables and put through more machines just for it to land on your pit and eaten. a being that had number one, a HEART, feelings, a brain that worked very well, something that felt pain, hurt, love, compassion, something that I know for a fact was scared out of it's mind while it was beaten because it probably didn't move fast enough... (how could she with her hugly enlarged infected nipples and sore body) a being that lived it's life in misery for someone else's taste buds. I don't get it.
but thank you for commenting and supporting my move. I will whole heartly keep advocating for them and loving this Earth and other beings with all the energy I put out.
thank you. love and ☮️!
I understand your feelings around not eating something that had a mother, even if she was a clam....but with all respect....it was not an easy decision....when I became menopausal...I developed cluster migraines...severe enough to keep me bed ridden for days. I tried every medication.....finally I told my doctor I was a vegetarian..no meat at all. He said that this was not something he hadn't heard of before from other women who didn't eat meat, but that there are two proteins in meat that cannot be substituted by soy etc. And that my symptoms would lesson if I changed my diet. Reluctantly I did, and yes my migraines are less severe and don't last as long, and unless you have lived through that pain..it's hard to know.
I live on a farm....and our animals are grass fed, free range, and are very humanely treated all their lives. I know that is no solace for vegans and vegetarians, but we sometimes have to live and let live when it comes to others opinions, which they are entitled to.
I don't drink.....and even though it is my personal choice not to for my own reasons, I don't tell others around me about it, unless asked or it's in a post here. I know of people in program though that preach the Big Book to anyone they see drinking in a social situation they may be in with a group of people, but to me that's no different than if they were preaching their religion, or politics....some things are better left for the right place and right time. We may not agree with what others do, but we have no control over people places or things, only our own choices.
I agree with the way faux approached this subject that is quite obviously a very delicate one for you amcclantoc12. Your views are every bit as relevant and important to me as anyone else's, and I don't mind you letting me know how important they are to you. Part of my ancestry stretches back to the people that lived here on the north American continent BEFORE 1492 when Europeans found their way here, and the way those people in my ancestry viewed the death of an animal as well as how a woman, children and elders should be treated were very different. Eurpoeans of that time considered them as savages, however.
It's too bad most of those people were slaughtered for sport, or "re-educated" and put into slavery, and then replaced by black people as slaves because most of the red ones had been completely exterminated.
If you want, I am willing to share some of the history of those, (at least in small part "my" people and their ways) with you in Pm's if you'd like, but not here.
I wanted to respond, not to really "harp" on the subject of animal, or for that matter, ANY form of cruelty except to say that, we likely agree very whole-heartedly on a LOT of things. Bear in mind, I live in a country where more tax dollars are spent training and outfitting people to kill professionally, the people our government don't like than is spent on non-coporate farms growing non-gmo foods. 
I think perhaps you may ne getting an idea of where I am coming from.
I want to applaud you for STANDING UP AND BEING COUNTED, and for doing something so positive! Actually TAKING ACTION! Dancing is FANTASTIC medicine. Aboriginal people all over the world danced, and many here, now that I think of it, were killed for doing so. It is fantastic exercize, and a really good thing to be able to do, especially as a social activity with a REAL purpose that is selfless and loving.
Also, I am convinced that the amazing vegan foods you were able to enjoy contained no, "poly hydrogenated nitro-plutonium" type chemicals. Eating really unsafe and unhealthy foods that look more like a cardboard box than an actual living, whole "God" or "Creator" given food can in many, perhaps even most cases, actually counteract any positive effects of positive self-care.
I thank you for sharing the picture with us, as well as the really positive effects you achieve every time you take positive ACTION by joining together with others to do GOOD THINGS!
It has been said, so simply, that if I want to have good self esteem, it is a good idea for me to do esteemable ACTS. I have found that to be entirely true. The things I have done to put the actual NEEDS of others, (not their selfish WANT WANT WANT WANTS, but very real basic human NEEDS), ahead of my own comfort when appropriate, that I feels best about, especially when no-one but me and God ever find out what I did. 
I hope my message brings your heart to a warm and peaceful place, and I pray you and all of those you care for and love are protected from harm both from others, and from within our own selves.
I believe it was a genesis of around 20 million people, slaughtered. Wasn't it oldsoul? I'm from UK but read a lot about it. Tragic waste! All those skills and ethics lost to time. On a smaller scale here and seldom written about in 11century. William the conqueror ( Bill the Bastard) as he was known. Ordered the :Harrowing if the North' to punish folk for supporting their own King in Battle. Had villages and Towns burned to the ground, few survived. Almost, 100,000 people, more than half the UK population at that time.slaugbtered. To an extent the North has never recovered. Few Wealthy people live here, the Tycoons live in the South. Cruelty again. In regard to the 1st post i eat and drink only organic. I wonder if someday we will view the Slaughter of animals on such a massive, commercial scale as similar Cruelty. 😊🌻✌️
probably Dubba61...they are growing synthetic meat in petri dishes now...and organs as well so hopefully no one has to wait for a transplant...so yeah....I see a future where the slaughter of animals is a disgusting and horrific act against nature to a race of people who hopefully have found equality, compassion, and kindness for each other and all living things....where missile size measuring contests are as childish and antiquated as a need to distinguish people by their social status, or the car they drive...cause there would be no cars as we know of today...wealth was no longer determined by monetary monopoly and accrued on the backs of the poor, as compared to a more Gene Roddenberry future of an equality leveled playing field. No need for war because greed and envy were considered gauche and trite when 'live and let live' was so much more prosperous to all health and wellbeing. Art and music were revered once again and encouraged as an equally valued endeavor to pursue other than a career to gain status in the fortune 400 of Forbes, and have photo shoots of your overly priced penthouse with golden gilded pillars and all that is gaudy and pretentious.
There are many dystopian future's possible...hopefully our grandchildren and the ones to come after them will have a world they can breath the air in, have trees, flowers, and animals not gone extinct still in the wild. What a wonderful world it would be.
Again you show you are a super intelligent, compassionate, woman, faux. Yes, let's hope your vision n the vision of all us old hippies, comes true. I would love to see it and i do think we are seeing the start of such changes. People care where their food comes from. My Children went to Uni the 1st of my family to do so. None of us drive, and seldom fly because we can't bare to be responsible for polluting the Planet. We all paint pictures n grow stuff. Many are like us. Recently, i had my DNA done. Finding that my family on all sides have lived in the same County for 700 years at least. And" YIPPEE!" As i thought we are working class country stock n so i need feel no responsibility for the detestable, Slave trade. I live in a tiny house my own, but tiny. Like you i have no time or interest in the gauche or the glitzy. I don't buy a Coffee unless it's a in a proper washable Cup. I love a good Charity Shop. N i cant abide"Celebrity" crazy culture. The rich 1% can stick it,! as far as I'm concerned. I have better values. A huge pat on the back to all us old hippies because i really do think we have made good, responsible, people for the Planet. Best of wishes Dee😊🌻✌️
I love this comment. you women are my aspires. one by one can we learn from you women. I'm so lucky to be different, so lucky to see things the way I do. I don't know what's gotten into this generation but I'm definitely stuck in the old times. i like to say I'm stuck in the wrong generation.
what a great person you are and how amazing you sound. 💞
Aww thankyou my darlin , it's lovely of you to say so. You seem like a really nice person too. 😊🌻you are a younger, old hippy. ✌️
Dubba61, my sista and fellow old hippie, you are an awesome woman yourself....my kinda person....I love your lifestyle...we are workin like mad on the garden this year...it is hopefully...if all goes well...it's going to be our Victory Garden....we got strawberries goin, 3 kinds of beans, multiple kinds of lettuce, cabbage, onions, golden zucchini, carrots, yellow and red raspberry's, red and black currents, tomatoes and cucumber...and what ever else come's along. Plus lots of different flowers....and my very favorite of all...my herb garden...I'll post a pic one day here.....
hello my friend old-soul....once again a very insightful comment...and yes...the atrocities to Native Americans is something that will never be put right. Killing almost to extinction one of the most sacred plains animals, the buffalo, for sport from the moving trains across the plains. The 'Trail of tears', and small pox infested blankets handed out by the soldiers to captives, and so many more atrocity's to be added to the annals of shame. I have had a few friends over the years from a couple of different tribes...some redbone...and all don't celebrate thanksgiving day. Some tribes on the Rez have managed to gain back some dignity and gotten out of the poverty and despair, casinos are all great for a few. But the highest rate of alcoholism and addiction are still on the Rez.....so even today...we should be ashamed at how all the poor and destitute are treated in all the cities and suburbs of a great country whose halo is a little more tainted by the current climate. No one who has any decency condones animal cruelty...but the cruelty shown to Americas native tribes is unspeakable.
Um, by the way, the only "redbone," I am aware of is a slang term for, ummm . . .
Some of the tribal and confederacy names are:
Massisoit, Creek, Miami, Chipawah, Kickapoo, Cheyenne, Souix, Blood, Blackfoot/Blackest, Arapaho, Cherokee, Seneca, Onandaga, Huron, Seneca, Mohawk, Nez Pierce, Oglala, Inuit, Cree, Ojibwa, Crow, Chicasaw, Caddo, Osage, Pawnee, Wenebego, Kootany, Coeur D'alane, Dakota, Chumash, Yuma, Navajo, Pueblo, the list goes on and on. Over 500 nations were here before 1492.
The warriors were fierce to the point of being considered savage through the mid 1800's because every treaty that was signed was broken, and villages that refused to move off of the small tracts of land they were left with were slaughtered, man, woman, child and elderly, so guys like Little Crow, Crazy Horse, and others that were well known as loving and very gentle people became known to US Calveries in a very different way.
The saddest part of all is that, the Missionaries that were so sure the aboriginal people were such savages essentially held the same religious ideals, when all is said and told. The Spanish Inquisitions was another awful crusade, "for the victim's own good." That's simply a fact, not a judgement. It was a mistake on a huge scale, just as any war is, plain and simple. Has any other of God's creatures waged global wars against one another? The great African versus Indian Elephant war? lol Nope.
The real point, however, is that it is human beings that are destroying the natural balance of things on this planet, nothing else. There is no easier, softer truth for our future. We have one planet, plain and simple, and human beings are only one of the living organisms on it. We either stop overpopulating it, or keep screwing it up. We can't have it both ways, no matter how great the science.
Science has made HUGE advances in the last 500 years. Do any of us believe the planet is in better condition now than it was 500 years ago? We are all being sold ideas like, "In order for our children to be safe, they should have a cell phone so they can call for help." Call who? There are lots of people wherever they go, and more children are abused by their own parents or other family members than anyone else. It also used to be common for a man to put a little tune-up on another man who was abusive to his family. Now, a man goes to jail for that, but a woman is told, "you go girl!"
I mentioned that to a friend who I know to be a feminist, and she said, "Yeah, I'm a feminist, but in the natural order of things, I WANT men to be chivalrous protectors. How am I supposed to fight off an attacker if I'm 8 moths pregnant, or nursing my new-born baby?" I have had women actually get mad at me for being willing to offer them some level of protection. I can't help being the sort of man that feels a responsibility to protect women, children and elderly people. It's just how, and who I am. I offer no apology for that.
I enjoy celebrating Thanksgiving with friends of mine who are Tuskarora, displaced from the south several generations ago and forced north. Seneca gave them 1 square mile of their land, and then, not to be outdone, a white land-holding company gave them 2 square miles of land. A few years later, a logging company in the south clear cut a huge stand of original old growth forest, and the tribes still there gave the Tuskarora people their share of the money, and they were able to purchase 7 more square miles at the tip of an adjacent ridge-line, but there are still no wells that provide potable water, so they have to buy water at very high prices, because their sovereign nation, hosted on their "reservation" (a nice term for numbered prisoner of war camps), is not allowed water from American municiple water supplies. They have to buy it and haul it up the mountain. That's more expensive than you may know.
When Thanksgiving celebrations always focus a great deal of gratitude for the amazing corn that is almost always very abundant. The heirloom corn seed is being tainted by that garbage gmo corn pollen more and more though, and this causes me a great deal of concern. What happens when the genetically modified seed stocks collapse? They have already lost just about all of the drought resistance, and it is obvious, even to the scientists themselves that it WILL collapse, because all genetic diversity is being destroyed in favor of a single genetic line.
All points very worthy of conversation, WITHOUT screwing it up with the placing of blame. Knowing who to blame fixes absolutely nothing.
great info old-soul....I'll tell you a bit more of what I know about the term: Redbone. Back in the day....there was a band called Redbone....they were acquaintances of some musician friends of mine who had a band in the 60's, my best friends brother was in it . My friend asked one of the guys ; Pat 'Redbone' Vegas, what Redbone meant...and he told her it meant half Native American...&.half other.....so, it's not a negative, but it has been miss-interpreted often in definition, it depends on the region and context...Redbone can mean half Black American and half Native American in Louisiana...etc.
As an etymology buff, I am very thankful! I'm always learning. Stuff I need to learn in order to adapt, adjust and live well in spite of the difficulties of being among the financially challenged isn't always fun, but learning stuff that's just plain interesting is the Holy Grail for those that have the nerd gene.
Given the history of the term as you're familiar with it, I suspect it may also have had the same root I am familiar with, which does indeed refer to the pigment color of, well, "something that is not an actual bone," may be about the most tactful way of phrasing it in mixed company.
hi old-soul, my fellow nerd...as to how it was explained to me, It means your Native American to the bone, hence 'Redbone', even if your outward appearance may be less Native American in feature....yes...it can be miss construed as a racial thing...but it's not. Similar reference would be to a person who refers to themselves as Creole.
I don't think anyone that is not part and parcel to how people are treated right now, today, should feel any shame for what they were not a part of. The facts of history are just that - facts. Judging certain people or placing blame takes us further from the solutions, not closer to it.
I still celebrate Thanksgiving, much as the Massisoit people and countless other tribes did, because it is a celebration of the bountiful harvest the Great Spirit, God, Creator or any other name anybody chooses to call their Creator, affords us from our fields, woodlands and streams.
I don't believe learning to manufacture meat and organs for transplants is what will allow our children the break we all need from the troubles that descend on us from all sides, nor do I think killing the coyote that eat people's golden retrievers, the lions that attack cattle, or the eagles that swoop down and snatch up an occasional toy poodle or outdoor cat. God made these animals to be carnivorous hunters, and I don't think it's some horrible mistake. I believe the trouble is in the fact that there are 10 times the number of humans on this planet that there were 200 years ago.
I never fathered a child of my own, but I have raised one child who had no living father as my own for the first 9 yeats of her life, at least, until her mother decided group sex was more important that a stable home.
I don't subscribe to the idea that we can science our way out of the natural order of things. Too many people is just that, too many. The answer - stop making so many new people, and stop making sex such a sales gimik.
I love women, and really would like to have a spouse, but it seems that was not part of the plan. Of the 4 long term relationships I have had in my life, all but the first turned out to be with women who "choose the right to have sex with others" above the idea of being faithful to one. Maybe one day. In the interim, at least I can say I never compromised myself that way, even when denied and satisfaction by my mate for long periods as a thinly veiled tactic to control or punish.
So sad, but true. People just don't seem to know any better, but there are tons of studies that clearly illustrate that any mamlian creature (and human beings are mamals) that is grossly overpopulated displays increased homosexual activity, as well as starts abandoning their young. It seems to me that maybe that is by nature's design to keep one species from devouring all the resources driving all other species to extinction, and eventually to it's own collapse. Yet, many consider homosexuality a "sin." I consider putting too much emphasis on any one thing a terrible imbalance. The only real sin, in my opinion, is selfishness.
I have a very good friend who is a homosexual man. He also still has all of his own hair at nearly 65 yeats of age. I find both facts just about as important. lol He was horribly treated because he only finds other men sexually attractive, and suffered many, MANY acts of violance because of that, and that's by no means the worst part. Having hatred follow a person constantly in their own community and family is, in my opinion, far more damaging. The violent acts are really just icing on the cake. Yet, he also is also a devoutly monogamous man who has been alone for over 5 years, and is embarassed by the fact that so many gay men are also intensely promiscuous. I told him, "don't feel bad, bro, I'm not very fond of the way the breeders act either, and I'm one of them. Hopelessly heterosexual, and I can't help it because this is just how I was born."
Nothing changes if nothing changes. There are only so many resources on x number of square miles or kilometers of planet, and if we continue to overpopulated our Mother Earth, eventually there will be no room left to lay down. We will all have to sleep standing up, or develop a system whereby we start laying down and standing up in unison, like doing "the wave" at a football game as the sun travels from east to west. I have yet to work out what we will have to do with the pee and poop of 80 billion people in a couple hundred years, or how exactly we will be able to expel these wastes without soiling our feet and the feet of our, "closest friends." lol
Think of it. 200 years ago, wherever you live now, there was only one person for every ten that are there now, and the speed at which the human population is growing is increasing, so we could go from 8 billion to 80 billion in less than 100 years. Am I the only one that does not think this is such a good idea?
well old-soul my friend, you are surely out the gates and running....seems the brake on the site has been a great incentive for your sharing your vast knowledge again...I'm always glad to read your take on issues, all good....glad your back....
Ty for sharing. Positive things are always welcome. The shirts are wonderful.
you're welcome 💞 thanks
Lost no hope
No hope for the relationship. 
I feel like I'm the only one and no one understands...
Feeling like no one understands 
Am I the only one?