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Thursday, February 7, 2013

MARMA (On Loving a Chicken)

(click for video)


I have a pet chicken, her name is Marma.  I got her when she was just a few weeks old, she lived with me and my dog Pete in the house for the first two months.  I had to keep her on my lap in a towel most of the time so she didn't poop everywhere but since it was summer and fall we were outside alot.  Then I finally got her a chicken diaper off the internet (many city folk have pet chickens).  That worked for a while but she hated it so eventually I put her in the chicken house with the big girls...she made friends quickly with two other birds and they kept her close.  She took walks everyday with Pete and I and even would follow us down the road for awhile until she started liking food too much and would stop for long periods of time.  She sat with me in Meditation until she was 3 months old, 3 times a day.  

She is aware, maybe not aware that she is a chicken, but what is a chicken anyway but a word we place on an animal so that we can all pretend to agree that we know what it is.  But I didn't know what she was or is... I had not ever had a chicken anywhere but on my plate.  So my thoughts were that I would get a chicken and let it tell me who it is...and what happened...to me...she is me in a body that people call a "chicken" just like my dog is me in a body that we call "dog" and just like "you" are me in a body called "whatever your name is."  Because what annimates all of those things is who I am. (and who you are btw :o) and this has deepened in me ... in knowing Marma.  Who knew a chicken could reveal who one is and yet she has.

So Marma has taken road trips...she has even been to burning man...she has been to the ocean in both California and Oregon...she has been to two concerts...the Avett Brother and Brandie Carlile, she has sat with Pete (our dog) and I in cemetaries and campgrounds and she has laid with us on the floor of the redwood forest as we listened to the wildlife come to life when no one else was around and she didn't cluck...not a peep and we all laid so still and were gifted an amazing treat.  She has been attacked by dogs (took over a day to recover from that and she even had puncture wounds) she was grabed by a hawk and I screamed so loud that it scared it and it dropped her and shit on her (i literally scared the shit out of him) lol. 

She is quite amazing and I see how other people look at her, because normally she is on their plate and not walking around town (cause we now live in town and she still walks with Pete and I ... accept I carry her and when she has to poop she wiggles in my arms to let me know to put her down.  There is an awareness in her, that people do not want to see because they don't want to look at that they eat her. 
But in all times of history, when things go a rye, people turn to canibalism, we are just eaters...so I don't really care that people eat chickens (it's not my thing ... to do any longer but I used to ... before I realized what I was eating and that there was no respect or regard for what I was eating, or how I was getting it and who had given their life to sustain mine.)  Marma has shown me all of that. 

I had no idea I would fall in love with a chicken...but I have and she has shown me that we are much more a like than we are different, I am so grateful and in debited to her ... you don't get to pick and choose who you fall in love with ... I just stuck my hand in a basket full of chickens and lifted one out ... named her "Marma" and brought her home ... she could have been any in the bunch ... but now she is like no other and yet she has shown me that all chickens are just like her ... they just haven't been picked by me.

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