Finding Lost Connections

Finding Lost Connections: do we need to disconnect from the manmade and reconnect with nature?

by LeeAnna Tatum

By losing our direct connection with the food we consume, have we lost touch with an important part of our human spirit?

Throughout our human history, mankind has been intimately connected with its food - life quite literally revolved around the acquisition and preparation of food. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that we as a society began to distance ourselves from our food supply. And it wasn’t until World War II that we really began to take giant leaps away from the sources of our food and the animals and the land from whence it came.

In distancing ourselves from the source of our nutrition and from the natural environment, have we lost a part of ourselves and our connection to the earth? Could reconnecting with our food sources, both plant and animal, be key in restoring our health and in healing the planet?

One man is making it his mission to help people reconnect with that part of themselves that has lain dormant, giving voice to the spiritual nature of food - acknowledging the vital aspect of death in the sustenance of life.

Bryan Kyzar is part of Generation X, perhaps the first generation of humanity to be so thoroughly disconnected from their food sources. Family farms were disappearing at unprecedented rates in the mid sixties being replaced by larger corporate owned conglomerates, with that trend persisting even today.

Though he didn’t grow up on a farm, Bryan grew up in Louisiana, close to the coast. Hunting and fishing were a part of his childhood experience and he always maintained that type of connection to his food.

“Our generation had lost our connection to our food. We didn’t have to go out and milk the cow in the morning, we didn’t have to help grandpa kill the chickens. So the (mealtime) prayer, even though it was heartfelt and sincere, for us it was just something that we did. It was never really explained to us why.”

“Nobody ever said, these animals are alive and we take care of them and we nurture them and then we harvest them so we can eat, we can live, that’s why we’re thankful. It was just like it was just a gift, something God had bestowed upon us and we were thankful for that.”

Bryan is a carpenter by trade but over the past few years has found himself drawn into a very different type of work. Not easily summed up with a tidy job title, Bryan’s new work involves teaching people about respecting and even celebrating the circle of life - the death that is necessary for life.

“My goal is to bring the spirituality back into the process and raise people’s consciousness to the fact that these animals do have a life, they have a soul, they have a spirit, they’re giving that up for us. And if we’re going to take that life, it must be done in a spiritual and respectful manner,” Bryan explained.

Drawing on Native American prayers and practices, Bryan brings a sense of reverence to what can otherwise be a seemingly barbaric act (to those of us who have allowed ourselves to be completely spared from the realities of being carnivores) - the slaughter of animal for food.

“I think a big importance of it too with the live animals and the things that we’re teaching is it really takes those drastic measures to put that in front of people so they see this animal is alive and its life is taken and that it’s giving its life for us to really wake them up and digest what they already know,” Bryan said.

“We can be told it a thousand times, but when we witness it and we’re a part of it and it’s done in this manner that we do it, with a lot of prayer and a lot of respect, it’s definitely more acceptable. It’s not just some macho thing with guys killing something.”

“To me, the spirituality is what it’s all about and bringing the community together and … I hope to embed the thought process of taking care of the things that take care of us. It starts at the animal that we’re eating at that event, but then that leads to supporting the farmer that raised that animal in a fashion that was good for his land and for the animal as well.”

I first encountered Bryan at a boucherie - the work of slaughtering animals and preparing them for food - held at Comfort Farms. A community event designed to bring together farmers, butchers, chefs and community members to learn more about the process of raising animals for meat and then preparing them.

I’m not a hunter and had never witnessed an animal being slaughtered. I tend toward the squeamish and I was really not sure what to expect. I only knew that I didn’t really want to be there I just felt a responsibility to be there.

I felt that since I do eat meat, I at least owed the animals and those who raise them for slaughter the courtesy of acknowledging what it is I essentially demand of them through my food choices.

So, there I was.

I came away from that event changed. In ways that are difficult to describe other than to say that it was an experience that touched my soul. And that was something I never would have thought to expect.

When I interviewed Bryan for this article and I heard him describing the impact he hopes to have - helping people feel re-connected to the earth, bring a sense of being grounded, have a greater appreciation for life, and more importantly - a greater appreciation for death (as odd as it seems in our culture to say). I felt all of that.

Through his role as a master-of-ceremonies of sorts, Bryan helps to elevate the experience to something beyond animal harvest and butchery. With his calm demeanor and the almost musical cadence of his voice, he brings a sense of ceremony and reverent celebration to the event.

Through the process - the spilling of blood, the skinning of the animal, the butchering process that turned an animal into meat - throughout it all there was an overwhelming sense of reverence, of respect for the sanctity of life, of appreciation for a life lost, but also a celebration of the way that life would carry on through the food it would become. It was powerful. It was meaningful. And it has stayed with me.

And since that day over a year ago, I have often thought about how our disconnection from our food sources has enabled us to turn a blind eye to the ways our industrial food system has removed every bit of that life and celebration and sanctification from the process of making our food.

How can this not affect us on a spiritual level?

Bryan uses burning sage both prior to slaughter and immediately following. It has ties to Native American ceremonies but also serves a practical purpose of purifying the air of bacteria.

Bryan explained that by losing our connection to our food and, just as importantly, to the natural world; in his opinion, we’ve lost a connection to a primal part of ourselves. We’ve lost our connection with the earth as we’ve become more and more connected to a man-made world.

“...Our generation has disconnected itself so much from being natural. We’re always plugged into something, we’re always in a building where everything is against what’s going on outside - the air conditioning, the lighting. We’re driving cars, we’re on our phones. None of that is natural.”

“So there’s this hole in a lot of people who just don’t know where it’s coming from. And this is what we’re missing, we’re missing that connection with the thing that created you, we all come from the earth, we’re all connected to everything that is around us that was not made by man.”

“We go to this unnatural place (grocery store) and buy these things that are packaged and wrapped and weren’t given any love they didn’t have a good life … it’s another one of those things we’re so programmed to do, we don’t even think about it.”

“But when you consume something that is of a more spiritual and natural nature… I think that’s a good first step into getting back to what you want. And hopefully that will make you want to go in a garden and put your hands in the dirt and grow your own food and have the satisfaction of not only having something delicious but … getting some dirt under your fingernails and squishing mud between your toes and feeling the sun on your face. Listening to the birds outside.”

“I tried to reach people a long time through art and entertainment … but it really took … bringing actual death to the table to really jar that primal self that had been buried for so long. It’s not something we were taught to embrace. That goes back to Native American culture, from day one they were taught to embrace the ground, the animals, the wind, the rain - everything that was natural was held close to them.”

“I think we really need to get back to that as a people. That’s why I keep doing what I’m doing because it’s not easy on me. It’s taxing and it’s a burden to have to take those lives - it’s not something that I enjoy.”

Bryan, like many others who are tasked with the responsibility of slaughter, has taken a lot of heat from vegans and vegetarians who view the killing of the animal as cruel. But he believes that eating meat is a natural part of life and something that we, as a people, are going to continue to do. And if meat is going to be eaten, we should do it in a way that respects and honors that life.

“But I look at it as … this is going to happen, people are going to continue to eat meat, they’ve been doing it since the beginning of time and that’s not going to change. But we can change the way that we treat it, that we do it, that we look upon it.”

“What I’m trying to make people understand is there is so much more to it (the slaughter) than people realize and once you experience it, it’s just … that part of it, the whole death part of it, fades away and you connect with that natural circle of life and your inner primal feelings of being a human.”

“Celebrating that life… instead of this morbid, depressing image the world has put on (death) - take that away and celebrate it. There is that grieving, but it’s healthy to move past that and to celebrate that life and appreciate it for what it was. Appreciate what that life gave.”

Boucherie Welcome and Butcher’s Prayer By Bryan Kyzar

Today we honor sacrifice and the traditions of the Boucherie…

We honor the spirits of those who have given themselves for us. Man and beast. Warriors that fight for our safety. Animals that nourish us and our Creator that provides both.

By harvesting our animals, growing our vegetables we gain a deeper respect for life and a pride that only comes from providing for yourself and working together. We must learn to not be dependent on an industry that makes us and the earth unhealthy in so many ways. It is our responsibility to teach others what we have learned here today. The emptiness and displacement many of us feel can be filled by returning to the primal things in life. Grieving. Sacrifice. Hard work. Community. Love. Pride in what you do and the understanding that in order for us to live another life must be given.

Today is a celebration of those who live and those we have lost. It is a celebration of community togetherness and healing.

Prayer:

We thank you, mother earth, for the gifts you have given us. The people we love. The air we breathe The water we drink and the food we eat.

We ask that you give us the strength and wisdom to keep these things sacred and teach others to do so.

We ask for a peaceful transition of the animal spirit we sacrifice today. Let it be willing so that we may live.

We ask that you keep our warriors safe as they perform the task of the harvest. For these here in the physical and those in spirit we pray.

Amen