So the other weekend as part of my spiritual practice I went out for a nice walk in my neighborhood to pick up trash. As the days have been growing ever warmer, it’s the perfect time of year to see what’s been left behind under the last vestiges of melting snow, sand, salt and grit along the side of the road. I found car parts, a glove, a cell phone, and tons of beverage cups, plastic bottles, wrappers, aluminum cans and broken glass.

My plan was to walk to the park, start picking up trash there, and work my way back home. I passed a lot of trash on the way to the park, thinking “I’ll get that on the way back” – but it turned out my huge bag wasn’t nearly huge enough to fit all the trash, so there was no picking up on the way home. Next time I’ll have to bring 3-4 trash bags. Or just pace myself and do a little each day! In the end it only took 15-20 minutes to completely fill a bag with trash. And during that short amount of time I was rewarded thrice, in the following ways:

1. Immediately found a dollar. A very dirty dollar, but a dollar nonetheless! : )

2. A couple walking across the street from me, going in the opposite direction, called out a thanks to me. I waved back.

3. I saw a wild turkey from maybe 10 feet away!

The turkey was the coolest part. It happened after I put the trash in the park’s dumpster, stripped off my winter coat and sweater because I was so hot by then, and sat on a bench for a rest. (I think picking up trash burns a lot of calories!) When I felt ready to walk home, I stood up and turned around just in time to see flapping of large wings behind a concrete barrier around the playground. At first I thought it was some kind of hawk because of the reddish hue to the brown wings. But then I saw its little head poke up — definitely turkey looking!

So I gathered my things and quietly approached, and saw the turkey crouching on the ground. She stood up when she saw me and looked at me hard. Then she hopped up onto the concrete barrier and I thought she’d wander over to say hello to me. Maybe she’s used to people in the park or gets handouts from them. But no, she was not quite that tame and took off after a couple minutes, flew across the park toward the trees.

Next time maybe I’ll bring my camera! But this is about exactly what she looked like (except imagine her in a very urban city park!):

Wild Turkey by flythebirdpath~} teddy

I guess the moral of my little tale here is that even in the city, nature holds little delights for you if you just keep your eyes open. Make your trash walk into an omen walk, a nature walk, a treasure hunt, or even a good excuse for exercise. (I found out the hard way that picking up trash by repeatedly squatting almost non-stop for 20 minutes really, really hurts the next few days! If you’re not fit, think about bringing along a trash poker or grabber instead. They cost around $10-$30, depending on length, quality, and whether it’s a simple poker or a grabber.) If you think about the fact that just 15-20 minutes of work can fill a whole trash bag, just imagine what you could do if you dedicated an hour, spread out, per week. Get friends and neighbors involved and share drinks and snacks afterwards! If you’re lucky enough to be part of a larger Pagan community or coven, consider adopting a stretch of highway, or a local park.

Have a nice Earth Day week everyone! Feel free to share your suggestions for Earth Week (and beyond!) here in the comments section.

In her defense, Elizabeth Barrette is hardly the first one to propose eating rabbit on Ostara, for the same reason that egg dishes are popular then – they take the symbol of the season and incorporate it into the festivities. Case in point, this quote from Edain McCoy’s book, Ostara: “A German woman who has no conscious knowledge that the hare was an animal sacred to the spring goddess of her ancestors still feels compelled to make a rabbit stew for her family’s equinox dinner, a tradition practiced by her grandmother.” (p. xii) Elizabeth herself tells me, “I researched traditional foods for the seasons/holidays, and that was one of them …. If people don’t like rabbit, they can substitute chicken or skip that recipe.”

I feel this actually provides a perfect opportunity to open a discussion with you, our readers. Do you eat rabbit or other game? Would you? Isn’t eating a wild creature, by hunting or trapping (which is quite common in the Midwest where Llewellyn is based) or raising and slaughtering it yourself closer to nature and the reality of that animal’s sacrifice than buying a plastic-wrapped irradiated filet of some animal in a grocery store? Wouldn’t it be better to eat a bunny, no matter how cute and loveable, than to eat a Big Mac? Many restaurants and consumers are now making the case for just that.

Photo by aussiegall

Obviously some people will say no way; especially those who rescue rabbits and other small critters, or keep them as pets. To them, the thought of eating a rabbit is akin to eating a dog or a cat, as rabbits are America’s 3^rd most popular pet. They share our homes and should never be placed on a dinner plate. But why? Is it the cuteness factor? (They are pretty darn cute.)  The fact that you know they’re intelligent? All animals that we currently eat are intelligent (to varying degrees, obviously) and sentient. I know many non-farmers back in Europe where I used to live who keep chickens and goats in their own backyards, care for them and live with them, and still eat them. This is what our Pagan ancestors used to do, after all.

But we now live in a more enlightened age. We have the freedom of a wide range of options open to us. Surely I would never eat a bunny if I could help it. But then again, I don’t eat pork, beef, chicken, turkey or goose either (in case you haven’t noticed, there is a goose recipe in the 2011 datebook as well). I am a vegetarian only partly based on Pagan principles – harm none, value and respect other forms of life – but that only goes so far, since I am still willing to eat plants which have their own devas, their own spiritual vibration and evolution, after all. I’m really vegetarian because of environmentalism; producing a pound of meat consumes many times more natural resources, and causes much more pollution and deforestation, than producing a pound of vegetables or grains. So from that point of view – putting a higher value on living lightly on the land– I would actually prefer people to trap, hunt or raise bunnies and eat them once in a while than to build mega-chicken factories where millions of birds live foul and miserable existences just so someone can buy a cheap chicken sandwich whenever they feel like it.

Meat used to be a valuable commodity, not something you’d eat every day. Industrialized society has found a way to industrialize and cheapen animals by abusing them rather than attempting to follow a more sustainable, humble diet. In my own personal opinion, I feel that most people could safely cut back their consumption of meat (although obviously people’s individual nutritional needs will differ) and when eating meat, could attempt to buy either USDA organic meats or those sold by local, humane producers.

All consumption of meat has a cost – an environmental cost, an emotional cost, a spiritual cost. For some people, the idea of eating a sacred rabbit costs them far too dearly and they will never do it. At the same time many Pagans accept the fact that humankind have been omnivores for millennia, and don’t have moral qualms about it. And you know what? Both positions are fine, because Pagans are simply not a homogenous group with strict religious taboos or scriptures.

Please join the conversation. What do you think? Are you upset that Llewellyn included a recipe for rabbit? Does Paganism inform your dietary choices? Are you interested in seeing the occasional game recipe in our annuals and books, or does it always turn you off? Please chime in, we really value your opinion, and this is a big one.

So I went online to find out what is really happening. NASA is not actually bombing the moon; first they crash landed a “rocket stage,” and then, four minutes later, they crash landed a separate spacecraft that had been carried by the rocket but detached before the impact. The whole point was to first send up a large plume of debris from the larger rocket crash, which would then be analyzed for water content by the array of instruments on the second, smaller craft to follow it.

Both of these missions were accomplished this morning, and you can see a graphic representation and some NASA video about in on the BBC website.

Well, I have to admit – when I first heard they were deliberately crashing things on the moon, I got worried. I love the moon! It is a huge part of my life as a Pagan, and life on Earth is indebted to it for its help in regulating our tides and stabilizing the Earth’s rotation on its axis. But the NASA website about the LCROSS program (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) reassured me that no lasting or major damage was done to the moon, which is actually hit all the time by the same kind of debris that hits the Earth’s atmosphere and causes “shooting stars” – only the moon has no atmosphere to slow down such projectiles, and thus we have its familiar pockmarked and cratered appearance.

Yet there are points in their FAQ page that make me uneasy. For example, the whole point of the mission is to look for water (in the form of ice, ice-coated dust grains, or vapor) in the deep craters of the moon where the sun never shines. They argue that a source of water on the moon would be a great help for space missions in the distant future taking off from the moon – with their own source, they wouldn’t need to transport as much water up there. So far, so good.

However, then they go on to say that while the moon has plenty of oxygen tied up in its surface, “hydrogen is the other key element that could make rocket fuel production practical on the moon.” Rocket fuel production on the moon. Think about that for a minute. They want to make rocket fuel on the moon? (Now I’m imagining all kinds of buildings, infrastructure, guys in hard hats, and so on.)

Also I found out that this is not the first time a spacecraft has crashed on the moon – there have been at least 20 impacts of terrestrial spacecraft into the moon. To me, that means 20 pieces of terrestrial junk that no one will ever remove or dispose of. For some of these impacts, they haven’t even been able to locate the impact crater, so they reason these kinds of spacecraft wrecks up there will be “very hard to notice.” And, since the moon is already inhospitable to begin with, “bathed in cosmic rays and solar particle radiation,” it shouldn’t matter if we make it even less livable, so to speak. So I guess that is their case for polluting the moon.

I’m sorry, but as a Pagan I see the moon as something beautiful and sacred, and it pains me to think that after trashing our own planet, we have developed the resources to go up and trash the moon. Does this make me an anti-science, anti-progress religious fanatic, just like the ones I have so little respect for? Maybe in my own way, but I can’t help it.

What do you think? Is it OK to leave debris and possibly set the stage for rocket fuel production on the moon in the name of science? Do you think that this is a Pagan issue at all? Is it even an environmental issue, since it’s not our environment nor one any of us can possibly conceive of living in?