The last couple of weeks have been quite stressful and to my surprise I have found myself gravitating to creating mandalas to relax and regain my composure during these times. I am still working with mandalas on a smaller scale, however I am attempting to spend more time on each mandala that I do, so that they can be as neat and through as I desire. I have struggled to find a particular meaning and message that fits behind each mandala that I create, however I think as I continue this personal project an overarching theme may appear.

In Horgan’s The End of War and Nagler’s \ Nonviolence Handbook, the two authors talk about the importance of the end of war and a world of peace stemming from an inner strength and desire to engage in nonviolent behavior. To me, there lies a connection between this inner strength and the process of creating a mandala because both practices start with a center. When creating a mandala, I start by creating the most inner circles and then expanding my circle making outwards. I also start the designs on the mandala from the inside and work my way to the outside. The idea of starting from the center in a mandala creates the same impression of working from the inside to create peace and change in society.

As I continue to make mandalas, I hope to discover more connections between our nonviolence class, my life and my mandala making.

This fourth mandala entry comes after a long weekend of activity and travel, so the calm and relaxation of drawing was very much needed and appreciated. I find that through these personal projects, drawing has become something I do more often, not solely to complete the bi-weekly entry. Sometimes, in between reading or studying, to de-stress, I will draw a mandala or any other image. Now most of these are not masterful works of art, as I would classify them as doodles – but the positive effects or at least feelings are certain.  On top of this, I never considered my self to be especially artistic. Regardless, mandala drawing is enjoyable relaxing, and even give a sense of freedom because they are so abstract and can be made in so many different ways.

Over this weekend in Philadelphia I encountered homelessness all over the city. When I had money and/or spare change on hand I gave out some to those who asked and especially those who tried to perform some kind of job (e.g. holding doors, playing music). This mandala was influenced by this charity and is seen in the collections of coins in the four quadrants and the links between them.

Many people, especially those who have never attempted to become a vegetarian, think that choosing not to consume meat will have a drastic impact on their food choices and will make it more difficult for them to eat the things that they enjoy. After speaking with several of my friends who are not vegetarian, I have come to the conclusion that this assumption is generally tied to the fact that many people don’ eat very exciting meals to begin with even if they have meat in them. Growing up, since my parents are both from New York City, I was exposed to a multitude of different ethnic foods that I quickly learned to enjoy. My favorite types of food today are Indian and Thai food. These Eastern cuisines are much less meat-focused than our food culture here in the United States. Frequently, I will see many people eating plain pasta, meat without any sort of spices or sauce on it, or steamed vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, and potatoes. Indian and Asian food, however, place the center of a dish around a deep flavor or spice that can be replicated with any food serving as the main ingredient of the dish. This allows for vegetarian options to have much more depth of taste to them without getting bored of eating the same boring vegetables every day.

In my opinion, the only reason that holds many people back from stepping out of their comfort zone and trying new foods or lifestyle choices such as going vegetarian is that they are unaware as to how easy it really can be. All that is necessary is to be a little more creative in terms of what you choose to eat. Many classic American comfort foods that we have grown up with include meat. This I believe is what makes most people think that they could never give up their favorite foods and become a vegetarian. In reality, however, anyone can succeed in living a meat free life by incorporating new cultural cuisines into their meals and through taking risks to try food combinations and flavors to which they are unfamiliar.

Over the past couple weeks I have been working on gathering vegetarian recipes. I find this to be a very enjoyable way to encourage vegetarianism because I love to cook. My friends and family know this about me and like to have conversations about what I have been cooking recently. I am also finding that it can be helpful to share nutritious and delicious vegetarian recipes. People can try making the recipes and be aware that they are eating a vegetarian meal.

I sent the recipe links to a couple family members and friends by email. I have not heard back from any of them yet. I think I will call some friends and family this week to talk about vegetarianism and ask if they are interested in trying a couple recipes.

Eating vegetarian has been difficult for me at points because I am a division I track athlete. Some days I am working out for three hours straight. I sometimes want to eat meat to make sure I am getting enough protein after really hard workout days. I know that eating too many eggs is unhealthy and many alternate proteins for vegetarians contain gluten which I cannot eat. Therefore, on the occasion of a difficult workout day, I have had a little meat just to be precautionary for my health. My thought process is that reducing my intake of meat from once a day seven days a week to once a day two or three days a week still helps. If everyone ate meat only a couple times a week, there would be fewer animals raised for meat.

I look forward to trying to persuade friends and family to try eating meat only a few times a week. I hope that the recipes I share help them in reducing meat consumption by providing a set of instructions.

Here are some of the recipes I shared with friends and family.

The Cooks at Stone Pier Press. 2018. “Easy Quinoa Burgers.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/easy-quinoa-burgers

Schaefer, Rebecca. 2018. “Garlic Green Beans.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/garlicgreenbeans

The Cooks at Stone Pier Press. 2017. “Vegan Asparagus Lemon Risotto.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/asparagus-lemon-risotto

The Cooks at Stone Pier Press. 2018. “Baked Sweet Potatoes with Chili Lentils.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/baked-sweet-potatoes-with-chili-lentils

For the past two weeks or so I have been practicing a type of meditation called Vipassana Meditation. This type of meditation is similar to mindfulness, except it utilizes a key concept and strategy called “mental labeling”. “Vipassana” is a Pali word meaning “clear-seeing” or “insight”. This practice focuses mainly on attaining a clear sight on your physical and mental being, without holding on or concentrating on one thought or feeling.

One way to practice Vipassana is to sit on a cushion on the floor, or on a chair, sitting with a straight spine. To develop concentration, one must focus on their breath and chest movements. This specific exercise is called samatha practice. While focusing on the breath, other perceptions and thoughts can creep in, such as sounds, physical feelings, thoughts, emotions, etc. Vipassana focuses on accepting those sensations, and then returning to the breath. The attention is kept on the breath, and everything else continues in the background.

To aid in concentration, one can use the “noting” method. This method requires one to focus on the main object, called the primary object (the breath). A secondary object is anything else that may pop into our minds. If a secondary object pops into your concentration, the labeling method suggests you label the thought or feeling with a mental note, such as “noise” or “memory” or “feeling”. This helps your mind to move on quickly and not focus on the thought. This concept and practice of focusing on your  main object, while being aware without attachment on secondary objects is called mental labeling.

Vipassana meditation was definitely a first for me. I had never used the labeling method and was a little skeptical on if it would be effective. I found it to be really helpful during my meditation. Putting a quick and easy label on something made it easier to move on from the thought and go back to my primary object of concentration. Overall, Vipassana helped me better connect with how my body was feeling and working, as well as my mind. I found my mind to be busy with thought about schoolwork, assignments, and scheduling. Once I was able to label those thoughts and release them, I was able to focus on lightening my mind and helping me focus and go into different obstacles with a clear and focused mind. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who would like to try meditation!

For me, the mandala has become a symbol of peace and calmness. Anytime I see a mandala either that I drew or see one elsewhere, I can take a step back and breathe and feel at least slightly more mindful. Additionally, I prefer to relate my mandalas to something significant in my life. Recently, I came into contact with a pocket watch at a festival and I have been using it as of lately. Immediately, I noticed a mandala-like abstract design on the back of my pocket watch, which serves as the theme for this 3rd personal project.

A clock, just as in the stopwatch, appears in the middle of the mandala, and it goes to represent the importance of staying on time and not wasting time. Both of these are things I hope to do in the future. Furthermore, there are flower-like images around the centerpiece

Picture of mandala

Pocket watch

which relates to our current change of seasons in the falling of leaves, changing of colors, etc. Coincidentally, I purchased this stopwatch at the Jim Thorpe Fall Foliage Fest.

Regardless, this mandala is based off a pocket watch and is intended to keep in mind good time management habits and a motivator because the time one has is limited.

For my project, I have decided that I am going to have my team members write either why they think it is important that we speak out against social injustices, as Azza Soliman has in Egypt, or why they think equality in general is important. However, what this has helped me to realize is how separated the distance runners are from the sprinters on the track team. I have spent about two weeks attempting to speak to them about it, but I seldom come in contact with any of the distance runners because we do not practice together. This has created a sense of division among the members of the team, and I plan to use my personal project to try to be more friendly with the cross country members.

So while there is a divide between team members, I see this divide not as a negative aspect of our team, but rather as a challenge for the team to overcome as a whole. By eventually getting everyone’s thoughts on this, I will be able to create what I decided will be an art project that displays a map of Egypt, and a gender equality sign in the middle, which is made completely of the answers that the team members will write. This will have the explicit social message of gender equality, which is what Azza Soliman has fought for in Egypt. Creating this art project and simply being able to communicate better with other members on the track team will benefit both a presence of social justice and a sense of friendship among the team.  

In my last post, I posed a future aim to find information about why the US’s rates of meat consumers are so high, and to see whether or not a decrease in this percentage is realistic. 

According to an article in Psychology Today, though our society has gained much knowledge and awareness about the atrocities of the meat industry, we still have yet to moralize our preference for no animal cruelty into a set value. Having this shift from a meat culture into a vegetarian one has proved difficult for multiple reasons, one of which is from an economic perspective.

In the US, maintaining meat in one’s diet provides more “bang for your buck”, then not. Because of the US’s industrial scale production of meat, it is extremely cheap. Not only is meat cheaper than vegetables/vegetable based products, but it is far more nutrient dense. Therefore, it takes way more food to fill one up on a vegetarian diet than it does otherwise. This reality has allowed for meat to become a staple in the American diet. This is a hard issue to combat, especially considering the economic pressures that come with trying to feed yourself, let alone an entire family.

Another factor that persuades the eating of meat is its health benefits. Besides the fact that meat has a higher protein density than anything else, meat (particularly beef), provides heaps of iron, which has been found to be a critical component to our overall health. Though iron is present in other foods like quinoa, tofu, legumes, etc. the amount of iron in these foods is proportionally insufficient compared to the amount found within one serving of beef. Iron is essential in maintaining proper amounts of oxygen carrying red blood cells in our bodies. If our body doesn’t have enough iron, then we cannot produce the amount of red blood cells needed for proper heart and lung functioning. This can result in major fatigue, inability to breathe properly, and other major issues. As someone who is highly anemic, I cannot emphasize iron’s importance enough.

Iron’s importance is just one example of how overall health can actually be affected by meat, which may be one of the reasons Americans feel inclined to eat it.

In a different Psychology Today article about the declining vegetarians in the US, it was reported that back in 2005, 3 times as many US adults reported being “ex vegetarians” than current vegetarians, showing that about  75% of prior vegetarians had resorted back to eating meat. Out of those, 35% of them went back because they had noticed a decline in their health.

After realizing this pattern, I figured that many of these health concerned people were/are probably unaware of 1) iron and its importance, and 2) one’s ability to sustain healthy levels of iron through daily supplements. From this, I concluded that if Americans were more aware of the fact that one can feel just as healthy without meat as they do with it, that they may be less likely to quit the vegetarian lifestyle due to health related reason, and that there may be more people willing to join the vegetarian lifestyle.

I realize that educating people about iron and their ability to feel great without meat wouldn’t necessarily lower the US’s number of carnivores by a huge amount, but it’s something. After reading articles proposing the two reasons above and various others, I feel that it may be more realistic for people to try and take steps in reducing their weekly meat intake, instead of finding ways to turn all Americans over to the vegetarian lifestyle.

Sources:

“Why Do Most Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat?” Psychology Today. Accessed October 24, 2018. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201106/why-do-most-vegetarians-go-back-eating-meat.

“Why Are There So Few Vegetarians?” Psychology Today. Accessed October 24, 2018. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201109/why-are-there-so-few-vegetarians.

As with my last sketch collage, I focused on Kurlansky’s Nonviolence : The History of a Dangerous Idea as my source of creative inspiration. Looking back on my last discussion, I noticed that the practice did not feel as meditative as my original collage, most likely because I had not set specific parameters for my focus and allowed myself to narrow in on some of Kurlansky’s points that I found personally conflicting or troubling. In order to redirect my focus, I decided to choose more specific inspiration for this practice – I chose my top six favorite rules/observations of nonviolence that Kurlansky lists in the appendix:

1. The problem lies not in the nature of man, but in the nature of power
2. Despite all of society’s promotion of warfare, most soldiers find warfare to be a wrenching departure from their own moral values.
3. The state imagines it is impotent without without a military because it cannot conceive of power without force.
4. Violence does not resolve. It always leads to more violence.
5. A propaganda machine promoting hatred always has a war waiting in the wings.
6. Behind every war there are always a few founding lies.

Below are my artistic reflections of these observations. These sketches ended up being much more crude and cartoonish than my others, most likely because I spent much more time analyzing the meaning and translating it into art than on actually finessing the details of my work. I found that choosing narrow and specific concepts and forcing myself to convey them through symbolic imagery was very useful in diving deeper into the meaning of each statement. Representing a written idea through art requires utter commitment to your own interpretation of that concept, and I am finding it is a really powerful way to solidify my understanding of texts.

Throughout the past couple weeks, I have been continuing to work on eating vegetarian. I shared this video with some of my friends and family. I think it explains well that eating even partially vegetarian can make a difference. The video talks about a movement towards making vegetables and grains a center of the meal rather than a large piece of meat.

I recalled voting that occurred last year in Massachusetts when I watched this video. I remember discussing in some of my high school classes the different laws that we were voting for in Massachusetts. Question three was passed and prohibited farmers from raising animals in confined spaces that prevented lying down or turning around and the sale of products from animals confined in that way. I remember arguing that this bill may not be good because it would raise costs for local farmers and simply cause us to import more meat rather than raise it within the state. Now that I look at the bill from another view point. I think it is a great movement towards protecting animals and giving them a right to living comfortably.

I have begun to lean towards the viewpoint that people do not need to be completely vegetarian to improve the quality that animals are living in. This is a larger lifestyle change that in which some people are not ready to commit. Perhaps what is needed is a larger emphasis on eating dishes that are vegetable and grain centered and working on limiting meat intake. I am thinking of sharing vegetable and grain centered recipes with friends and family to help them practice the habit of eating less meat.

Sources:

The Humane Society of the United States. 2017. “Working to Protect Farm Animals” Filmed September 2017, Video. 2:49. http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/campaigns/factory_farming/

WBUR. 2016. “Mass. Voters Approve Question 3, Banning Certain Farm Animal Confinement Processes.” Accessed October 22, 2018. http://www.wbur.org/politicker/2016/11/08/question-three-animal-confinement-results