Because I want to eat protein off the landscape, I choose to kill other beings.
I want to do it well.
I want to become a more efficient killer.
I want to understand how the things I kill live.
What they eat, where their trails are, when they’re most active during the day.
I want to know where their internal organs reside so when I drive an object through the animal, I kill it most ethically.
I’m specifically using the word kill because that is what I am doing.
I have no desire to appease anyone or soften the blow that I am a killer.
Like all our progenitors, I come from a long line of people who regularly killed.
It is a great honour to take life.
I recently slaughtered a sheep.
I held its face down while another wielded the blade.
The animals fearful eyes met mine and I saw myself in it.
We slit its throat from ear to ear.
Its carotid artery sprayed blood all over us as the heart continued to pump.
For minutes after nearly severing its head the animal fought for life.
It continued breathing hard as the nervous system continued to send signals to the muscles and organs.
Its entire body fought with everything to be here.
A deeply moving moment— no one understands the sentient will to live until they have looked death in the eye.
When the sheep finally expired it gave one last giant sigh, then the body jerked violently for a moment as its life-force finally left.
This intimate act of killing had me reflect on our culture.
We’re simultaneously death-phobic and obsessed with death.
We hide the bodies of our deceased relatives immediately upon their expiration, yet let our children kill endlessly in virtual universes.
We blast our dissociative brains with movies, music, and entertainment that promotes, lauds, and celebrates death, yet are terrified of our own mortality and squirm at the thought of sentient life being taken.
Participating in death is a reverent act.
If all of us spent a little more time around death, perhaps the sanctity of life would be more esteemed.
When I kill, it's a moment where I am integrated into the sacred cycle of life.
It’s no longer a foreign concept — something that happens somewhere else to other beings.
I watch life literally leave a body with the blood on my hands.
It feels familiar — as if I am finally understanding how I fit in here.
I am an active participant in an ancient ritual that spans eons.
I kill because it reminds me of my own fragility.
When I engage in the process of death, I consecrate the gift life.