This website is a ‘new beginning’. This is the first Journal entry that I am writing. Additionally, and deliberately, this website launches at the beginning of February, the time of the Celtic festival of Imbolc which was seen as marking spring’s arrival and the beginning of the season of lambing.
Across the world, spurred by the now very noticeable, and bad, effects of climate change, together with the sudden shifts of behaviour and viewpoint the Covid-19 pandemic has caused, humankind is waking up to a need to re-consider and alter its activity, and to make it more benign. Acting as a point of focus is ‘The Great Reset' initiative of the World Economic Forum.
A critical recognition demanded of humans is they must accept, and be in, a state of interdependence with nature, rather act as top-dog over it and exploiter of it. And for this, humility must be cultivated, for taking trouble to understand nature well. The new beginning, the re-start, will be for humankind to see itself as on a level playing field, interconnected with all the other - different and various - living things of the planet.
In the realm of sheep, this means getting to know them as creatures rather than seeing them as objects for human use and exploitation, and merely and solely as farming items.
A general new beginning at this moment for the country from which I am writing, the UK, is in the working out of how it shall be and operate, now that it is not a member of the European Union. The UK tells itself that it has good animal welfare standards. Nonetheless, a UK great new beginning in the area of animal welfare would be raising animal welfare standards a lot higher, and, doing this with, as the background, an entire new perception of animals and so how they should be treated. The new perspective would involve seeing animals anew and regarding them in a context that they are our equals and deserving of an equivalent treatment as we humans give ourselves.
So, there is moment now for a world of new beginning, and as part of which sheep are given higher regard and treatment.
1st February 2021