The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

The Domination of the Feminine / 133
country and people into war, poverty, and ruin. We sometimes see this
mythic archetype thrust strikingly into reality on the world’s political
stage, with false and rigged elections and the disastrous consequences of
administrations that further the oppressive and violent herder mentality
by propagating war and the interests of a privileged elite at the expense of
disadvantaged people, animals, ecosystems, and future generations.
At a deeper symbolic level, the mask and the usurper represent not
only the deluded and conniving ego, but also our native herding culture,
which has spread and conquered less aggressive cultures and still
enforces its mentality of domination and its core practice of commodifying
and eating animals. The usurper continues today, attacking nature,
women, animals, and the vulnerable as it strives to consolidate control in
a few elite hands. It derives power from the public’s regular daily meals
of hidden violence. Consuming and killing have become defining activities,
fed by the disconnectedness and repressed guilt that accompany our
suppression of the feminine principle. Beings who are the subjects of their
lives are forced into the role of mere objects, and both people and animals
end up becoming things. The way hunters, fishers, and herders look
at animals, the way corporate developers look at nature, and the way
men are typically taught to look at women, and how women typically
learn to be looked at by men, are all part of this process.
Enormous suffering is inevitable in all this, polluting relationships
and eroding the spiritual sensitivity that sees beyond materialistic, I-it
dualisms to the sacred subjects that are always present in living beings.
As individuals and as a culture, our ability to heal, transform, and
evolve beyond this old defiling mentality is tied to our food choices
more than to anything else. To meditate for world peace, to pray for a
better world, and to work for social justice and environmental protection
while continuing to purchase the flesh, milk, and eggs of horribly
abused animals exposes a disconnect that is so fundamental that it renders
our efforts absurd, hypocritical, and doomed to certain failure.
We are hearing a call from our inner wisdom to reawaken respect
for the feminine principle. Can we ever be successful in answering this
call while still imprisoning, raping, abusing, and killing millions of
mothers just for our pleasure, continuing our subservience to social