Meat-free diet could help
Feb. 14 marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period before Easter, when Christians abstain from animal foods in remembrance of Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the wilderness.
The call to abstain from eating animals is as current as the teaching of evangelical leader Franklin Graham, yet as traditional as the Bible (Genesis 1:29). Methodist founder John Wesley, Salvation Army pioneers William and Catherine Booth, and Seventh-day Adventist Church founder Ellen G. White all followed this higher call.
A meat-free diet is not just about Christian devotion. Dozens of medical studies have linked consumption of animal products with elevated risk of heart failure, stroke, cancer and other killer diseases. A United Nations report named meat production as the largest source of greenhouse gases and water pollution. Undercover investigations have documented farm animals routinely caged, crowded, mutilated and beaten.
Today’s supermarkets are well in tune with the call to abstain from eating animals. They offer a rich array of plant-based meats, milks, cheeses and ice creams, as well as the more traditional vegetables, fruits and grains. Entering “vegetarian” or “vegan” in your favorite search engine provides lots of meat replacement products, recipes and transition tips.
Leo Gushiken, Kauai
Coco Palms opportunity
True ownership is not about money. It is about relationship. To own something is to have a heart/life relationship to it. The third dimensional mind is controlled by the ego which is subject to power and control. Money cannot own anything, especially now as the planet is in transition out of patriarchal domination (power and control) we have all been programmed with. Process is 4th dimensional and feminine or heart based. Michelle Edwards in her Other Voices article, “Let’s work together on Coco Palms,” spelled out the opportunity.
The two occupiers represent the Hawaiian spirits whose bodies lived and died there. Their spirits are very much a part of the land.
The developers whose money bought the land can never own the land unless they honor the Hawaiians’ love of the aina, and form a cooperative relationship with the Hawaiians who can let the heart lead.
A great master said, “Let the heart be the master; the mind, a useful servant.”
To work together as Michelle suggested can demonstrate a new way of being on the planet, which honors Mother Earth, instead of raping her to the point of destruction.
To trust the process, is to honor the love that we are as one self, and release our “belief in separation,” said to be the cause of all the misery on the planet. Listening to the voice for love in our hearts instead of the voice of fear can help us make new choices for being on Planet Earth.
Petra Sundheim, Lihue
Isaiah 51:6 the heavens will vanish like smoke and the earth will wear out like a garment and the inhabitants will die like flies!
Mother Earth?? Coco Palms,attempted racial Extortion!
Flowery lyrics do not a Nation make!
HAWAIIANKINGDOM.ORG
Wow, my 3rd dimensional patriarchal dominated mind really wants a medium rare rib eye steak now!
Great letter from Leo Gushiken! Although I am not a vegetarian, my wife is, and because of her I eat way less meat than I used to and way more vegies. Hopefully I will make the transition to a meatless diet in the near future (old habits are hard to break) for my own health, the health of the planet, and most importantly, the health of all the animals that are brutally yet unnecessarily slaughtered to feed the human race.
Petra Sundheim – Another person who likes to give other peoples’ land away. And into the “spirit world”! Who knew? lol
Sorry Petra Sundheim, but I should have informed you that the Hawaiians illegally occupying Coco Palms DO NOT represent the many great hardworking law bidding Hawaiians who are completely embarrassed by the occupiers wrongful claims and rewriting of Hawaii’s history.
In keeping with Polynesian Tradition, on islands big enough for society to allow and the size of the island to provide, an Alii or Matai could and would go out to an area of the island where there was sufficient clean water and land area to create a village and make sure there was also enough room for future generations to expand it.
While the Coco Palms land area has been clearly abandoned since Iniki, except for recent demolition work, the choice to settle a village in the back area of what amounts to high profile small acreage is not too far in concept from making an attempt at a new village at the Kapa’a Beach Park by the Kapa’a Library or other areas like the soccer fields by Lydgate Park.
Best prerequisites for a new expandable village were a year round continuous source of clean fresh water, as well as safe healthy sewage system(s), and enough land area and water source for traditional food crops.
The young chiefs at Coco Palms would be possibly forced to cut down precious life and culture serving coconut trees to settle a true Polynesian village at their current site.
The mighty Wailua River, for certainly it is mighty, and able to sustain more villages is an obvious choice for village founding more Mauka than the exisotng current modern settlements and which would provide both water and arable lands to sustain basic food source and future population expansion,
Certainly akamai Polynesians would not locate their new village
where inadequate water source and arable lands would not serve generations to come, next door to a hotel or the busiest highway on Kauai.
What with modern availability of personal land transportation available to each of age village resident, for keeping existing jobs, income, and or ties to various island wide cultural obligations and recreation, settlements more mauka make more modern Polynesian sense.
Certainly a successful village whose inhabitants are looking at generation sustainability would look further than being squeezed into a hotbed of conflict (Coco Palms) when the vast reachable mauka regions of Kauai are still sitting there ripe for using, and would seem more in their rights of holding onto or generations to come.
Who would argue against a relocation of a successful true Hawaiian village based on tradition organized under the old Alii system to sustain health, as well as respect and care for the kupuna and keiki, hard work for the capable, firmness against laziness or criminal behavior.
There is a lot of responsibility and hard work in founding a village and if that village is in place, more inhabitants will come. If it is State land, what vested rights do Honolulu state workers have in Kaua’i mauka lands, compared to and when the native peoples of Kaua’i are in need of new villages, places to live, love, and Mahailah each other as Hawaiians.
The span of time since Hawaiian Culture dominated every aspect of life on Kaua’i is not to far gone to not be implemented again. Perhaps more study into the nuts and bolts of Hawaiian Culture is now at a time to be in the forefront.
How can one expect to live true and traditional Hawaiian if you never did already. It ain’t a tent encampment with a hole in the ground that makes a Hawaiian Village.
Mahalo,
Charles