Anatomy of Pain….Food, Animals & Us

Anatomy of Pain….. You know, it’s all in the body

So yesterday I finally relented and listened to my body – I had a feeling I needed some of my Rebel Remedy for a couple of days to help me shift this whateveritwas that was coming up for me….so I took some and then went about my day….

Of course it worked, I felt better and life goes on. What came up was really interesting though, and gave me a few more insights into why I feel so strongly about the way we go about living our lives and growing our own food as much as possible.

I have been on about food, nutrition, eating, diet, cooking and all things to do with the stuff we put into our bodies for such a long time. I have spent years as a vegetarian, a vegan (healing from cancer) and now – well I don’t have an exact name for the way we eat, except we….

Eat Like Pagans! LOL

So what came up for me from my body was ‘pain’, hurt and discomfort. Yet somehow I knew it wasn’t all mine, it was something that was rising up from my bones….for days (weeks?) I hurt physically, not a huge amount, just enough to be uncomfortable.

But I had been putting it down to the workouts I have been doing. You know the kind of aches that come along with moving muscles, joints and bones and pushing yourself a little harder then usual? It sort of feels good for awhile, but it also should settle down as your body adjusts to the new movements.

Well, by Sunday morning I was just aching. My ankles, knees, shoulders, and back all sort of hurt and I had to get to the bottom of it once and for all. So I poured up some of my Rebel Remedy tincture (I make this for trauma, inner pain, shock and acute stress) and sipped this in water…

Of course then I went on with my day and kind of forgot about things because I was feeling more like myself! But this morning once I got up and went to start my workout I remembered what I was feeling yesterday, because I was feeling so much better.

I realized some of this ‘pain’ I had taken on was from meat…animal flesh I had eaten over a lifetime until a few years ago when I decided to do something quite different. At the time my only option was to stop eating meat altogether in order to clean out my body and to detox.

To be honest I never fully realized until this past week that some of the stuff I have been releasing and detoxing are emotional trauma suffered by the animals (food, meat, milk, cheese) during their lives and certainly on their way to their deaths. 

I just assumed it was more of my own stuff from when I was bullied….it was so familiar to me. Which then led me to wonder if the animals themselves perceive being pushed, poked, dragged and proded to their deaths as being bullied? Or maybe it’s also how they might ‘feel’ being kept in an enclosed confined space with hundreds (thousands?) of other animals in a battery farm operation…..

How can I be so very certain about some of these facts on how food animals are raised and treated? I worked for many years as a Food Hygiene Inspector – I was the one who carried out ante and post mortem inspection of food animals. In cold barns, abattoirs, meat lockers and kill floors – I saw it all.

I was also the one who threatened to pull licenses and shut down the plant for any notion of cruelty or bullying. And I was the one who could calmly walk an injured, old or frightened animal down the chute to the kill floor without the need for an electric prod or any harm done. 

After all these animals were giving up their lives to be our food….Just from an understanding of what was to come, a little gentleness - this animal was not going to be ill handled on my watch.

Needless to say over the years I have spent quite a large portion of my life meat free. But, once I was in a position to raise, grow and manage my own food animals, this is what we do for our own needs.

And our own consciousness.  

The only meat I eat now is what I can raise myself, it’s only a limited amount, so when the meat runs out we are vegetarians for the rest of the year! However, I know each animal is treated (loved!) well, fed organically, interacted with, has space to roam and enjoy their time with us just being animals.

All animals which are destined for food on our tables, should be treated with respect through every stage of their existence and not bullied or mishandled in any way. This improves the quality of the meat and the quality of our lives equally. 

Do unto others…..

So….all of this has been coming up for me because I took my remedy for trauma and shock. Perhaps now I will expand its’ uses and benefits to cover bullying as well. 

April

Guinea Fowl - Crock Pot Recipe

Today I have been cooking a guinea fowl in the crock pot - mainly to see how it turns out but also in the hope of creating a new dish for us to all try. Although it is years since I have cooked one - it all comes back fairly quickly!

A guinea fowl is not like a chicken in that it is closer to it's wild cousins, has a completely different attitude and outlook on life and it's actually a useful animal. I remember them on the farm years ago, where they would behave like watch dogs alerting us to any foxes or strange goings-on.

Because they are very lean they also make a great addition to your Pagan Diet as well as give some other flavours and tastes in meals where you might have used chicken. Although the meat is mostly darker than domestic birds, it is far tastier.

I decided to cook this guinea fowl in the slow cooker in order to get the best flavour but also to ensure it wasn't tough in any way. I started out my adventure with 1 tablespoon of butter melting on the wood stove, then stirred in 1 tablespoon of spelt flour.

Next I added 1/4 cup of water to the butter mixture and kept stirring until it was all uniform looking. I placed this aside and prepared the bird for the crock pot. To do this I just washed and salted it inside and out and placed it on the bottom of the pot in 1 cup of boiling water.

Then I added the butter mixture and 1/4 cup of olive oil over top of the bird. Next I sprinkled 1 teaspoon each of dried sage and thyme and a few grains of ground black pepper. The slow cooker was on a high heat setting - this was left for the next 2 hours or so and then turned down to low.

Every hour I carefully basted the entire bird inside and out with the liquid in the bottom of the cooker and left it to simmer for another 3 hours. Once the meat was falling off the bones (each bird might be different depending on age and size) I turned it off to let it cool.

Now, there is lovely cooked guinea fowl meat for sandwiches, casserole, soup or stew or for just picking! My taste testers loved it added in to their chilli....

April

Guinea Fowl roasting in the crock pot

Wild Venison Goulash

Yesterday was another cold clear day - the kind that winter should be made of...it was fresh and healthy  and we need far more of them. With the cold here, often comes some level of damp - which is in itself not a great way to be at any time of the year.

Thus our greater need for warm, nourishing foods such as soups and stews. I make no secret of the fact that I love to make them and equally enjoy eating them. Give me a good stew any day and I am quite satisfied I have eaten plenty and had all the goodness contained within.

Perhaps that is the main reason why I like making them so much - they are so versatile and you can get all your vegetables in one meal into a well organized pot of stew. With this in mind (and to have something different on our plates) I decided to make a Wild Venison Goulash.

For our purposes here, the main difference between goulash and stew (there aren't many!) is that a goulash would usually contain noodles of some kind and maybe less vegetables. To make a meal using venison, it also would have to be marinated and slow cooked.

Starting with 1 kg of diced venison, I simply added it (rolled in spelt flour) to the slow cooker with about 5 onions, lemon juice, crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and several bay leaves. This I left on high to begin cooking while I added 2 cups of boiling water.

The key here to a nice taste is probably the onion (mixture of shallots and onions) and garlic - there are lots added and the meat gets to cook all day in these juices. After a few hours I added in some, but not too much, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin and turnip. Just enough to notice there were vegetables in there.

Again I left the slow cooker on for a couple more hours, only this time I turned it down to a low heat setting. Once I was satisfied the goulash was cooked - I added 1 cup of noodles. I would have preferred to make them myself, however, next time I hope to be able to do that.

Within about 1/2 hour, the goulash was ready - at this point you can add some fresh goat's yogurt to the pot or even to individual bowls once it is served. But my children usually like this dish plain - and it was enjoyed all the same, very much so!

It's an easy meal to make and a nice change from an ordinary stew....

April

Wild Venison Goulash 

Food Memories and Associations...

Today and yesterday have been full of food memories for me - I ate some venison and really enjoyed it by the way - but that wasn't the entire story. I think the meat triggered some long buried food associations and tastes I never knew where there.

The venison was perfect, I was very careful with it - taking the time to marinade, turn and then roast it in one of my clay pots (soaked for a while in water) on a low temperature over most of a full day. Only in the last hour or so was the heat up a little.

The meal in general is what triggered some long forgotten feelings in me and I am still trying to sort through them. First of all, what we ate was wild game meat and lots of fresh veggies from our own garden. It was fresher then fresh, processed food free, entirely homemade and very tasty.

However, the only words that come to mind right now as I am struggling to describe what I feel is - alive. My meal was alive. The game meat also had substance to it - as if the animal itself had a very different vibration from something like a lamb....

Is it because the deer was free to roam and live as he pleased? Where as a lamb is not. Might there also be some other factors involved here? Do animals have a spiritual dimension and perhaps a spiritual function within their bodies and then ours when we eat them?

At this point I would venture to say yes - because that is exactly what I am sensing has changed inside of me. Some earth energy has arrived together with the meal - perhaps from the combination of everything. And it feels good - like a positive charge.

When I mention the food memories - I actually grew up in a house where we all hunted, fished and lived off of the land. I never ate a beef steak until I was nearly 20 years old. We ate what we could catch and there was plenty to be had (rabbit, moose, sea ducks, partridge, all kinds of fish). 

I took it all for granted and of course I didn't remember fully the differences between this type of eating and the food you can get at the supermarket. Until now.

April 

Roasted venison out of the oven

Raw Pumpkin and A Scary Night

One more day until Samhain - this is such a big time of year for us here - things really get down to the crunch of detoxing after this last Feast of the season. What we try to do then is really enjoy this week and this season to the fullest.

When we strip away the commercial aspects of Halloween, the sugar, candy, and the near Christmas like atmosphere it has started to resemble - what are we left with? Perhaps a raw pumpkin and a scary night.

Of course being an Intuitive I am always trying to figure things out, I need to know why we think a certain way, why we eat the food we do and then how to make it better. There is no doubt the veil between worlds is thinner at this time of year.

What that means is that beings from other worlds can move more easily back and forth. But it also tells us they are supposed to - otherwise this time would not have been possible and built into the nature of the earth herself.

Why might this be important for those of us living here on this planet? And what does this all have to do with the food we are eating, detox and cleansing....well. Perhaps there are both living and dead parts of ourselves - in the same manner we would eat some of our foods dead.

In times past animal meats from game such as deer, rabbits, ducks and fish would have been consumed fairly regularly. To use such meat meant giving thanks for the souls of each animal as well as providing them with a place (and a space) to leave the earth on their own journey.

This is the time of year when these animals would have traditionally been hunted and killed for our food. It would have been important to the ancient Pagans that the spiritual aspects of these animals would be able to move on after death.

When we eat animal meats from animals who have been ill treated or are unhappy about being part of the food chain, we do end up taking on that energy. Perhaps that's why many people have trouble digesting meat in any quantity. 

Of course we only need a little meat (and many would argue none at all) - I have personally spent more than a few years as a vegan and would now only eat meat selectively. I would also prefer game meat and home raised food animals over commercial types of meats.

Maybe during this Halloween season you can give thanks in some small way for the animals who gave their lives for your dinner - mindfulness.

April 

Goose in the grass