This is not their war (day 139)

Bacterial update:  the batch of Kefir I was so giddy about yesterday was indeed the best so far but after 'ripening' the milk kefir at room temperature for another 24 hours, it turned sour.  I threw it out.  In hindsight, given the amount of separation of curd and whey after being strained, it had fermented slightly too long.  The batch I just strained this evening is again the best so far (better than yesterday's).  This time I'm ripening it in the refrigerator for a day.  So far the separation is minimal.  Ripening is said to increase Vitamins B (folic acid in particular).   It also changes the flavour.  We'll see.  The Kombucha scoby seems to be starting the creation of a daughter on its back.  For some reason I thought it would be on the belly.  When I get back from San Jose on Friday next week I'll have the pH testing strips to see how things are going.  By that time the brewing should be almost done.

Steve and I have been watching the Lord of the Ring trilogy.  We're almost done the third one now.  It's quite an epic.  Just like the first time, I can't help but feel sadness for the suffering of the animals in a battle that is not their own.  While I know that these particular animals were not harmed, it does remind me that animals were and are harmed in battles.  Horses seem to me such gentle animals.  To use them in battle must have been tremendously traumatic.   In the film they kill elephant-like animals as well as horses, dog-like creatures, and so on, merely for their supposed allegiance with evil.  Indeed the animals are depicted as having a will to kill beyond their human riders.

I recently had a conversation with someone about the next big injustice to be noticed and righted.  At the time we bandied lots of things about including, in partial jest, the injustice of a world made for early-risers.  Since that time, because of various sources and acquaintances, I've come to realize that it may be animal rights that become a focus.  Our inability to consider non-humans as having consciousness, worthy of freedom and respect no doubt stands in the way of us feeling compassion on much deeper level for the earth in general.  Julie Andreyev, Carol Gigliotti, and Karolle Wall are all faculty members at Emily Carr working with animals and ethics as subject matter.  Julie is currently building an interactive art piece (called *glisten) HIVE) for the Cultural Olympiad (Code Live exhibition) where text emphasizing evidence of animal consciousness will be rendered in real-time, responding to human actions in the space.  She is actively seeking textual input for the piece using Twitter (@glisten_HIVE).  You can tweet examples of how your animal companion shows their conscious relationship with the world.  Example questions she asks are: "how do you  know when your animal companion is sad/happy?", and "Is your animal companion ever conflicted?"

A song for this post.

The last breath (day 16)

There will be a last breath.  Just like there was a first.   Sometimes I visualize the last breath and what it might be like to not breathe in again.  Would it be better to know and be absolutely conscious of the last breath?  In that case, would the last breath be somewhat willed?  How is it that whatever it is that makes us breathe in again just doesn't activate after the last breath?  Is that when the fear sets in?  Is it like drowning or floating?   Or maybe the last few breaths are more and more willed until you realize that you are just delaying the inevitable.  The last breath is then the final renunciation.  In some ways I prefer that scenario because it allows for a certain control about when the last breath will be.  The first scenario is much more of an imposition.

I have a friend who was declared dead for a few moments before being revived.  She says that first breath back was violent and highly unwelcome.  She had been going somewhere better.  Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor also died for a moment when she had a stroke and she speaks of not knowing how she would ever get back into her body, her consciousness having become so spacious.   It's almost as if the breath is the thing that keeps us attached to our bodies.  Our consciousness passes through it like a funnel and becomes contained by it, by its rhythm and boundaries.

It's maddening that so many humans have had a last breath and yet each one of us has to wonder what it's like still.  And when I go through it, if I'm conscious, I wonder if I'll have the unsatisfiable urge to tell everyone.

A song for this post.