Of pigs and mice and judgment

Last Sunday morning, as I drove from Raleigh to Winston-Salem to lead the Intentional Joy workshop there, I hit the road feeling lighthearted and happy despite the gray skies and rain—not my favorite driving conditions. But I soon found myself locked in one of those road tangos with a big truck—I’d pass it and the next thing I knew, it would pass me, and so on. I just couldn’t get away from it. No big deal except that it was hauling hogs to slaughter. I might have been able to disassociate from it, but there was one little pink ear sticking out of the slats getting soaked in rain, and that grabbed my heartstrings and yanked hard.

Oh, how I wanted that truck to exit! Or at least slow down so I could pass it so I could forget about it. I started thinking about how miserable to be crammed in that truck with the rain pouring in the openings. How confused those pigs must be. How frightening it must be to be herded onto a truck when you’ve never left the farm, and forced to ride miles and miles over the road when you’ve never experienced that kind of odd motion before. And then, to end your confusing, scary experience at the slaughterhouse, with the sounds, smells, and sense of fear and death in the air.

The trailer had a bumper sticker on it that said “Who farted?” and it made me immediately go into judgment about the driver of such a vehicle. “How tacky! How can he do what he does? He must be operating at a very low level of consciousness if he can do that without it bothering him. He must be almost unconscious to be able to do it!” I decided. (Of course, I had no idea whether what he did bothered him or not!) This did not make me feel better!

“JUST EXIT, PLEASE!” I yelled from within the safety of my car. But we passed exit after exit and still, he was right there with me. I needed to feel better about this. I needed not to be feeling the extreme empathy with those pigs. I asked for help in shifting my thoughts and feelings about the whole thing, and suddenly, I was able to see with crystal clarity how I was not helping the pigs with my judgment of their situation. I had the thought, “What if Nature has provided for them? What if it’s not as bad as I’ve decided it is? What if getting away from the factory farm is a blessing in their minds? What if being slaughtered and moving back into the bliss of Prime Matrix is a blessing? What if I could stop seeing the hogs as victims? What if I just accept this as being in Divine Order? What if I simply view this as God having the experience of being a hog going to slaughter?

And, of course, the very moment I had that thought, the truck exited and turned north toward Virginia.

On a related note, as I drove from Steve’s and Stephanie’s house to the airport on my way home to Denver, a hawk rose up from the ground about 12 feet from the road and flew right over my windshield—not but about 3 feet above my eyes. Dangling from its talons was a mouse. Instead of thinking, “Poor mouse,” I immediately thought of the article I read some time back about the Creator providing for prey so that their experience, once the initial fright passed, was that of ecstasy. This is brought on by the release of chemicals (endorphins, I think) stimulated by the shaking motion of the predator, or, in this case (I’m guessing) the swinging movement brought on by being snatched up in the hawk’s talons. Or, maybe, just from the innate knowing of what was going on. Surely, the Creator in all “its” wisdom provided for pigs, too.