I was helping a farmer friend today get ready for market. She mentioned that fox were eating the pears in her tree. She said she was going to trap the fox and shoot it. Ugh. I can't help that my body has a visceral reaction to stuff like that. As she talked a little bit more about it she said she wishes she could be a Buddhist but she has to kill things every day...she's a farmer...she grows food.
It's easy to create divisions in situations like these. Killing a fox is not something I could do. (the only exception I could think of is if it were harming my cat...but I would try everything else first and killing it as a last resort) Killing the fox because there is fruit available in its territory and it is eating it is not something I could do. I don't make my living growing food. Even though in my mind I make snails/slugs adversaries in the garden I still won't kill them. How do I live with the fact that this farmer is going to kill one of my neighbors? I dunno. Microcosm of the macrocosm. Something we all have to be with and figure out the best we can, I suppose.
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