(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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