That anyone would journey through life as both healer and butcher seems wildly absurd. Beyond incongruous and beyond my ability to reconcile until I realized my reaction to Mr. O’Donoghue (Healer. Butcher. post 2.21.13) is a cultural one, based absolutely in the dynamics of my consumer culture.

People assume that as a vegetarian I have issues with eating animals. Not true. If I had issues around killing for food I would starve. Everything I consume, animal or plant, sacrifices its life force energy. What I have issues with is factory farming and the horrific conditions in which animals in this country are raised and slaughtered. The Meatrix provides a compelling overview of these practices. When animals, and plants for that matter, become mere commodities they lose their place in the web of life, no longer considered cohabitants with us on this planet. Any sense of honoring or sacred connection and relationship is gone.  http://www.themeatrix.com/

People in O’Donoghue’s village are clearly able to seek him out for both healing and a good cut of beef without apparent contradiction or incongruity. Perhaps because factory farming hasn’t taken over completely in Ireland. Perhaps because they haven’t completely lost a knowing that the food we eat and healing are all part of the web. Perhaps they haven’t lost the connection.