We would like to introduce to you our regular columist for 'Wild Thing' - Merlin's Mommy!

The Pagan Activist

Merlin's Mommy is a practising pagan/witch who lives in London and juggles a full time job in the "real" world with amateur herbcraft, healing, animal rescue and care.  She lives with five mad cats, a couple of foxes and a variety of sentient beings, depending on rescue and care requirements.

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2008:

May

April - Author on Hiatus

March

February

January

2007:

December / November / October / September / August / July / June / May / April / March / February / January

2006:

December / November / October / September / August / July

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Synchronicity is a weird phenomenon sometimes. I started this article around three months ago and needed more time for research, so took a month off to do this. Triggered by my use of my cat’s hair in a healing ritual, I started to think about the ethics around use of animal parts for this purpose.

 

This subject is a huge one. Coming from Africa, where animal sacrifice is common, with human sacrifice and use of human body parts for magic[1] sadly not as rare as one would have hoped, I am aware that this practice ranges from having magical tools and clothes made from body parts (human or animal), to actually sacrificing life to obtain a desired result.

 

In the subsequent weeks, I’ve come across a sudden increase in the amount of advertising from rather dubious magical practitioners in my area.  I thought initially that my greater awareness of practices involving animal sacrifice just meant that I was seeing more advertisements, but then became aware for the first time of one who was advertising by flyers in the local shopping centre and counted more than four cards over the space of as many weeks in my mailbox – I only ever used to receive one card from a man who advertised in this way once every three months.  I then went and counted advertisements in my local paper and there were three, whereas a few months ago there were none.

 

I am now aware of 11 animals (10 cats and one small dog) who have gone missing over the space of two weeks in an area adjacent to mine.  Now, these disappearances probably have nothing to do with magical practice.  It is far more likely that they have been used as bait for dog fighting.  However, it did make me think about the probability.

 

I am still researching some of the aspects which I would like to discuss in the coming months, particularly around the justification around animal sacrifice – there appears to be some distinction around when sacrifice is made to appease a god and when the departing life force is used to power intent.  However, the first issue I’d like to address is the very common use of animal parts in Western Pagan practice.

 

A few years ago, my ex-husband and I attended the Pagan Federation annual conference and had a super time.  We came across a stall which sold the most beautiful stangs and, having spoken with the man who sold them, we bought one.  Now, he said that he made them by collecting the antlers from deer who had shed them naturally, rather than bought them from a hunter or dealer.  I am normally sceptical about such claims.  However, the man was down to earth, not a salesman and I trusted him.  My husband now has a stang he treasures and I believe that no animals had been hurt in the process of making it.

 

Likewise, I have bought crystals and wooden items for ritual use and healing. None of these contain animal parts but the sourcing of both can have a devastating impact on the environment and thereby, animal life.

 

I saw a television programme on canned hunting in Southern Africa a while ago.  Louis Theroux, a renowned UK-based interviewer, was investigating this rather mucky pastime - where animals are bred and kept (and sometimes drugged) for the sole purpose of allowing “hunters” to bag their animal of choice.  He was given the opportunity of shooting an animal himself.  He couldn’t pull the trigger and the hunter very scathingly said to him – ah, you’ll eat the meat, but you won’t kill the animal”.

 

Whilst I shy away from purchasing most items containing animal parts, I used to buy crystals which are mined in the main by explosive techniques – I obviously also was happy to “eat the meat, but not kill the animal”.  Who knows how many lives were affected by my and other’s requirement to own crystals – how many animals and birds harmed and homeless and how many eco-systems wrecked?

 

Nowadays, being more environmentally aware, I don’t buy crystals, as it is virtually impossible to verify where they have come from.  Most shops will assure you that they have been obtained in a way that is not detrimental to the environment – one even tried to tell me that their cut-price crystals had been dug up by hand!

 

However, we all have to make judgement calls about what is personally acceptable to us.  I have seen pagans proclaim their right to wear fox fur as they are a druid (!), others refuse to wear leather, but who eat meat, unthinkingly buy ritual items made in China and others still who believe that hunting puts them in touch with their inner wildman and brings them closer to nature.

 

I don’t believe there are any easy answers to this – for instance, is buying something that has cost lives to obtain or make much different from sacrificing a life in ritual?  And if not, why do people (like me) have such an issue with it when we’ve been guilty of the same act, just at a remote and comfortable distance?

 

Perhaps there is no easy answer to this.  Perhaps as Pagans who are (mostly) sensitive about the environment and who need to be aware of the public perception of our practices, we need to make informed judgements and understand the true cost of the items we are buying and the activities these endorse.

 

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The pet shop closed on 31 December after 10 years.  It was quite a shock to think that I had known Marion for an entire decade of my life.  So much of my life as it is today depended on my walking into the shop in the first place (I had vowed never to walk into another petshop after I found a starving, unweaned, semi-conscious kitten in one and took her home – she’s still alive, aged 18 and living with my Mom) and so much of my past decade can be counted in pet shop events.

 

I started thinking about the funny times we spent:

 

The day when we appeared to have a succession of lunatics in one after the other …

 

… the woman who came in, dressed to the nines, who wanted a bone for her dog and spent 20 minutes discussing the merits of the various types, then decided she wanted one for free.  She also didn’t have a dog with her and said she had left him at the station or the supermarket, depending on who asked her.

 

… the man who came in after that, with his “close affinity for cats” who had never had one.

 

… followed by someone who wanted a pet but didn’t know which type they wanted (Do you have any dogs?  No.  Do you have any kittens?  No.  Do you have any rabbits?   No, but what type of pet do you want?  Oh, anything.  Response – sorry none of our animals are for sale and we suggest you think long and hard about the responsibilities of looking after an animal before you get one.)

 

Then there was the time that Marion was ill.  I, along with another volunteer were looking after the shop and the bunnies got loose in the garden, advertising the fact by suddenly appearing at the back door and virtually waving their paws at us.  Rabbits move very fast indeed, something I didn’t understand before I had to spend a long time running after them so they didn’t run into next door’s garden and became the foxes’ lunch.  We recovered all four when the other girl acted as goalie and I chased the rabbits towards her, whilst several customers waited, watched and laughed.

 

There was a week we had very poor takings and I managed to sell an average day’s takings in an hour one Saturday, celebrating the fact by lifting up my top behind Hugh and going “whazza!” at Marion.  I failed to appreciate I reflected beautifully in the back door and gave Hugh an eyeful to remember.

 

There was the time we had two mice come for a holiday (their owners were abroad).  They lived in this fancy cage with an elaborate tunnel on the outside that fitted together.  Marion was cleaning the cage and I was holding each end of the tunnel with the mice in it when it began to fall apart and the mice escaped.  Cue five minutes of frantic fumbling from me, trying to keep the blasted thing together, lightning reflexes from Hugh who managed to catch one of the mice and shove it back in the tunnel and lots and lots of swearing.  The three of us got the cage back together and said the bawdy equivalent of “thank goodness for that” before being interrupted by a quiet “ahem” – there had been a client at the counter throughout the whole drama and we hadn’t noticed her!

 

Then there was the time when I had proudly bought my besom from a local shop and took it in to show Marion.  Hugh said “do you know what that is?” and Marion and I exchanged knowing glances, said “yes” in unison and giggled.  Shortly after that, Hugh started referred to us and a few others as “The Coven” – no idea why.

 

There were the sad times too … when Lucky the rabbit was killed and other times when various special creatures passed over.  The day my Dad died, I was boarding a plane to Plymouth and got the call just in time to get off the flight.  Marion had met my Dad on several occasions and they were very fond of each other.  My husband was seeing someone else at the time and home was the last place I wanted to be.  I went straight to the pet shop, walked in and Marion knew immediately what had happened, without me having to say a word.  She took me outside and we sat in the garden, drinking tea, crying and laughing at our memories of a very special man.  She gave me strength to go home, pack and sort out a flight to South Africa.

 

Plastered all over the door between the back room and the front of the shop were pictures of animals who had been homed, notes from grateful recipients of advice and care, along with the usual legal notices and licences.  I wish I had taken a photo of that door now,

 

Marion’s biggest concern about leaving the shop is the animals who now won’t receive help and care – there won’t be a shop on the high street for people to just walk into and animals will suffer as a result.

 

While it is true that she is now likely to miss a great number of opportunities to rescue and rehome,I don’t think that we are likely to have to start offering our services to other rescue centres just yet.  I am sitting with another cat in my spare room after a rescue on Saturday!

 

Marion came to meet the cat, to give a second opinion on its condition and also to understand a little of its personality so she could make sure that she suggested an owner to match the cat.  B, my partner, was saying that I had been on tenterhooks since Friday, when I managed to get hold of the people looking after the cat, and he was quite relieved it was all over, as I could relax (and so could he).  Marion explained that just about every single cat rescue we had been involved with had gone wrong at some point and she was absolutely the same – she didn’t relax until the cat was safe.

 

This kicked off a whole new set of memories about rescues that had occurred that were only funny when they were over …

 

… the cat rescue where we had successfully rehomed a cat out of a rather awful home, only to have the new owner dump it back on its doorstep the next day when she discovered her landlord wouldn’t allow pets.  The cat was lost for a few days after this, then returned to its old home and the old owner called me at 6am on a snowy winter’s morning to say the cat was back.  I had to go to work, so my then-partner went out with a cardboard cat carrier (Rule Number One of Rescue – don’t delegate!) and the cat escaped from it half way back to mine – it was a huge tom and a cardboard container was completely unsuitable for transport any distance.  We then had to call the old owner again (you can imagine the conversation) and I spent the morning trudging around in the snow, guilt-ridden and in a panic, trying to find the cat. Luckily, it returned to its old home yet again and we rehomed it later that day.

 

… the old “is it a boy, is it a girl?” question – currently, three of us, all of whom are fairly experienced with cats and have had upwards of 40 cats between us, have looked at the new cat and whilst we suspect it’s a girl, we can’t tell for sure – it has been neutered and has characteristics of both.  Short of hanging round the litter tray and peering from underneath when it has a tinkle, I think we’re going to have to wait for the vet to tell us.

 

… a cat I eventually rescued and rehomed who had become very close to a neighbour’s boy cat … so much so that they spent some time mating in a very companiable way (not at all like the hiss-spit-scratch of normal cat behaviour).  I was having … kittens because I thought the poor cat would have kittens and by that stage it was living with me … only to find out that the cat was a boy and the neighbour’s cat was gay.  Phew!  No kittens and a very relieved me.

 

While the days of the petshop are now over, I now believe our animal rescue days will continue!

 

© Samantha Jenkin 2008 

 

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As I may have mentioned before, I try and juggle quite a lot – a full time job, care for my animals, twitching and witching and sometimes it (and me) gets a little frazzled round the edges.  Now is one of those times and in my experience, just at the time when you need it the least, one more blinking thing happens.  Normally, you can cope with it, but in the circumstances, it just becomes a little too much.

 

Over the past month, I’ve had a boiler installation that has gone repeatedly wrong, with a service provider and manufacturer whose idea of service is laughable and currently have no hot water and no heating.  I’ve had a hugely busy time at work; we have all had to deal with the news that the pet shop is closing; one of the very cherished pet shop animals has died; and it is another Yule/Christmas without much money or time.  Once again, I am dealing with circumstances beyond my control and endings that have no apparent beginnings on the horizon!

 

My current job involves training and it was with my training hat on that I went to see some of our staff who are based at a pharmaceutical company.  This company doesn’t just test on animals, it has animal laboratories right there on site.  I have avoided the place for years and finally, just when I didn’t need it, the call came in.  I did do my best to avoid it again but there was nobody but me and I just had to get on with it.

 

I travelled down on the train, all the while trying not to think about animal experimentation.  It was like trying not to think of a pink elephant.  I took some work down on the train and by the end of my journey, my pen was scoring the paper so much it tore.

 

They have quite high security (for obvious reasons) so I had to provide photo ID and also hand over my mobile phone (as it has a camera on it).  I did my training session with a really good bunch of our people and then was treated to a tour of the site (thankfully, just our bit, not the labs).  I was told proudly that the research they do saves not only people, but animals too (maybe I mentioned the laboratories once too often).

 

It had been raining, but as I stood outside, enjoying my cigarette, the sun came out and I could hear the birds and the seagulls and smell the sea air.  I felt terrible for the animals who, just a few hundred metres from me, would never feel the sun on their backs, never run in the fresh air and who were condemned to a short life of, at best, discomfort and a shortened life and at worst, pain, fear and an early death.

 

By this time, I was starting to scratch with the stress of pretending to be a very normal person who thought that this was all jolly good fun.  So I beat a hasty retreat as soon as I could and got out of there.

 

I got on the train and wanted to scream with the injustice of it all.  There is no doubt that the company looks after its staff well and people enjoy working there.  I would love to say that it all felt a bit like being in the Stepford Wives, with glassy-eyed followers of science walk around muttering, but that would be untrue.  The people who work there believe in what they do and they believe that animal experimentation is justified. 

 

I am completely against the use of animal testing for cosmetics, in university research and other spurious reasons.  I am not convinced that animal testing has a place in human pharmaceutical research.

 

But what about animal care?  Does it not make sense to test drugs made for animals on the animals themselves?  My cats have had life-saving drugs from this company.  It occurred to me that other cats suffer and die in these places so that mine can live.  And apart from refusing the drugs and thereby putting our own beloved animal’s health at risk, we don’t have a choice.

 

I came away wanting a good cry and a long, hot, disinfecting bath.  Sadly, I came home to a cold house, no hot water and loads of work still to do.

 

As I write now, the boiler has been fixed so I have heating and hot water again.  The cats are getting used to hugging radiators again instead of piling up under the covers with me.  I am not sure if anyone reading this has ever tried to sleep with five cats all vying for the warm human mummy tummy spot, but it is certainly entertaining, provided you don’t mind not sleeping much and don’t need to explain away strange scratches on your stomach.

 

On the subject, Winter is now fully with us both in the UK and the US – please spare a thought and some food for hedgehogs, foxes, birds and other wildlife who may have been caught short by the snow storms and ice and frost.

 

For those of you who celebrate New Year at this time, I wish you and your families a very happy time.

 

© Samantha Jenkin 2007

 

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In the midst of the ongoing battle to save the petshop, Marion and I had remembered that there were a few little ones to be buried.  For some time now, we have been burying the pet shop animals in my garden.  It started with Lucky, the rabbit, who died tragically and was buried with much regret and heartbreak.  After that, it seemed natural that the rest of the animals who found themselves residents of the pet shop, through circumstance and rescue, came to be buried there too, along with my foxes and a few other pets of our acquaintance who lived in homes without gardens.  Not for nothing is my garden known locally as Pet Cemetery.

 

Normally, a few times a year, Marion and I will get together to do this.  We take an evening out, I choose a spot in the garden and then either dig the hole myself or get someone in to do this (depending on the state of my back).  We then sit together, remember the animals and give them a proper send off and burial.

 

This time though, there was no time to do it together – Marion was completely tied up, she was having a tough enough time trying to rehome the living animals, never mind bury the dead, so I was on my own.  Drafting in my brother-in-law, who digs like a demon and who is very tolerant of Marion and my idiosyncracies, I set out on Saturday a few weeks ago to do this.

 

I had forgotten though, that amongst the little ones, was a cat.  The cat had been hit by a car up the road from the petshop and someone had picked it up and thrown it in a bin and then come and told Marion about it.  I won’t comment on that behaviour.  Nor will I comment on the behaviour of someone who lets their cat out regularly on a main road, next to a police station with cars and emergency vehicles zooming up and down the road at speed.

 

Marion had gone straight up the road, retrieved the cat’s body, checked whether or not it was actually dead and not just wounded (she was dead) and then read the collar.  She was a gorgeous cat, called Poppy, a dark tortoiseshell and quite young.  She called the owner and explained what had happened and that someone had found her cat.  The owner was very upset, thanked Marion and said that she would collect Poppy’s body.

 

Time went on and it became obvious that the owner wasn’t going to collect the cat’s body.  Marion had three choices – pay for a cremation (which was way more than she could afford), throw the cat’s body in the rubbish (not actually an option she or I would consider) or give her to me to bury.  She knew I’d be upset.  I was and on several levels.

 

Keith, my brother-in-law, dug a superb hole – just the right size and the right depth.  I had prepared a card with the little one’s names, dates of the birth where we had them and dates of death which I then wrap in plastic so that if anyone ever digs up the garden, they know what they disturb.

 

I took the little ones out and did my usual and then I took Poppy out.  Marion always wraps the little ones in towel so that I can place them straight in the grave without having to unwrap them.  Poppy however was in a box and wrapped in plastic for obvious reasons, so I needed to unwrap her before I could bury her.

 

The damage from the car which hit her was obvious on one side.  However, this did not detract from the fact (i) she was absolutely stunning and (ii) it was a complete waste of her life to have it cut so short.  Thankfully, she appeared to have died very quickly and had not suffered.

 

I placed Poppy in her grave and the little ones round her and sprinkled flowers over them.  Poppy looked so peaceful and so beautiful and my heart broke to think that her owner not only treated her carelessly in life but carelessly in death also.

 

I buried her with as much love as I could send her as well as a fervent wish for a happy afterlife.  It seemed important to do this properly, more so than normal.  I guess I was trying to make up for the fact that she had had a short life with such a useless owner.

 

I covered the little ones up and Keith, bless him, finished off and levelled the ground for me.  I lit incense and sprinkled essential oils over the top to ensure that they would rest undisturbed.

 

It left me with a question.  What type of person leaves their animals like so much rubbish to be disposed of by others?  Was Poppy’s owner just too upset to collect her?  Or was she just behaving as she had done when Poppy was alive, with no thought to her own responsibility for her animal’s welfare?  How can someone be so selfish as to offload that responsibility onto someone else?

 

I would never, ever, no matter how badly damaged they were or how upset I was, allow someone else to bury my animals.  They are my responsibility in life and they will be in death too.

 

However, people won’t be able to dump on Marion much longer.  Despite taking expensive legal advice, the most her solicitor could achieve was a further two month’s notice.  The shop will close after Christmas.

 

 

© Samantha Jenkin 2007

 

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I held my usual Halloween/ Samhain bonfire party on Saturday.  Many of my friends, whilst having pagan sympathies, would be a little cautious of engaging in ritual, so the evening tends to be low key, full of food, good company and a large supply of mulled wine.  That doesn’t stop pagan people asking where the naked women dancing round the fire are and a certain amount of ribbing goes on, which we all enjoy.

 

This year’s party, if anything, was by far the best.  I didn’t hold one last year – time, enthusiasm and money were absent in large quantities – and the previous two year’s had been held in odd circumstances – the first just before I got married and the two sets of friends were getting to know each other and the second a month before my husband moved out and only one of my friends aware of the situation, which didn’t make for a relaxing evening from my perspective.

 

This year though, my circle has contracted again to just my friends and family.  Although very different and from different walks of life, they all get on well and none are phased by sitting around a big warm fire and quaffing loads of alcohol and food.  The weather was reasonably kind and the fire was unreasonably big and hot.

 

We sat around and discussed our personal news, our families, our animals and a range of other topics.  We laughed like mad, even when discussing quite serious topics.  My best friend’s pet shop is under threat – her landlady has sold the premises and the new owner wants her out.  Through a combination of charm and circumstance, she has some right of appeal, a process which started this week.  However, she is not in the best of health.  Having seen off cancer, her kidneys are failing and her specialist told her to avoid stress at all costs.  A legal battle is the last thing she needs.

 

But it got me thinking.  What if the pet shop closed?

 

M operates the business well.  We live in an area which is a mixture of low income and medium income residences.  I was amused to see on Wikipedia that our area is named one of the most deprived areas in London.  With deprivation and poor social structure comes poor people care and poor companion animal care.  M spends more time advising and rehoming than actually selling things.  If her shop closes, the advice and contacts she has will not be available to the people and animals who need it the most.

 

She could run the business from home.  She has enough regular customers to make this viable.  However, the true value of her shop in the community can be seen when people walk into her shop with an abandoned animal, or at their wits end because they’ve taken on an animal they haven’t the first clue how to look after.  The closure of the shop will be an end to being able to help in this way.  Her regular customers tend to be sensible owners and they tend not to need that level of advice and support.

 

The year’s end is a good time to reflect.  If I look at what M has achieved in the last year, despite her serious illness and personal stresses and strains, I find a remarkable achievement from a remarkable woman.

 

All the local animal charities know her, like what she does and help where they can when animals are left in her care or owners are unable to cope.  People come into the shop as they have been told that she will be able to advise them.

 

Many involved in animal care find animals easier to relate to than humans.  M cares for both equally.  She’s at times flustered and stressed but her love for animal and humans shines through every single thing that she does.  I consider it a privilege to know and love her and I am constantly thrilled that she loves me back.

 

We don’t get enough time to ourselves – the time we spent together tends to be taken up with discussing situations and problems – but she never fails to be there when I need her.  I support her as best as I can – by listening, by advising and by helping out when animals need it.

 

I couldn’t handle half as well as she some of the people who come in.  Don’t get me started on the fraught mother of two who took on a 8 week old Staffordshire bull terrier puppy and who wanted a magic spray to stop her dog peeing on the hall carpet.  She lives in a flat and expected the now 12-week old pup to let her know that it wanted a wee, wait for her to open the door and take itself down two flights of stairs and outside and pee on the grass verge.  I don’t think I have that sort of bladder control, so I am not sure how she expected the puppy to have it.

 

Luckily, I’ve learned from M (who wasn’t in the shop when this woman arrived).  I was able to deal with the situation and advise her properly, without telling her to go to the library and get a book on dog care and when she’s decided she’s not up to the job, bring the dog to me.

 

My own reflections of the past year are quite mixed.  As with every year, there have been good times, bad times and in between times.  I’ve come a long way from this time last year in terms of getting over my (soon to be ex-) husband’s betrayals, coming to terms with the deaths of people close to me and also balancing my work, home and witch life.

 

I’ve been able to contribute to animal care and rescue, not in the quantity I would have liked, but enough to have made a difference.

 

So here’s to another 10 years of the pet shop.  May M win this latest battle and may she be able to spend many more happy-sad-stressful-funny years in my neighbourhood, helping animals, their owners (and me).

 

Blessings to you and yours this Samhain.

 

© Samantha Jenkin 2007

 

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It’s that time of year again … when leaves turn red and gold and brown and drift to the ground … when the scent of fire and smoke drifts across the lands … when animals are brought in to shield them from frost and wind … and when we start to focus on the year past and the year ahead.

 

It is also when small animals are burned to death in bonfires lit by people too careless to check for them first, when people delight in tying firecrackers to cats and dogs and when fireworks are responsible for countless deaths and injuries to pets.

 

Please take care of your pets and local wildlife by:

 

(i)      Checking wood stacks or bonfires for hedgehogs and other small mammals who may have made their home in it, before setting them alight.

 

(ii)      Not lighting fires in areas you shouldn’t and by making sure that any fires you do light in proper areas are completely out before leaving.

 

(iii)     Make sure all your pets are indoors and in a safe environment before letting off fireworks or before your neighbour does.  Sedate them gently if necessary to prevent them becoming stressed.

 

(iv)     Keep children and pets away from fireworks and do not let children play unattended with fireworks, including crackers.

 

On a related theme, a few weeks ago, I spent the day in Greenwich.  It was one of those typically English summer days – breezy, chilly and overcast with occasional spats of rain.  I wandered round the market and then over to one of the parks.  The park has some lovely old trees and I tottered about, looking at them and watching the squirrels.

 

I then decided to trot over to the rose garden, about which I had been told.  En route, I spotted a group of people in the middle distance.  They had set a fire at the base of one of the trees.  Typically, there were about 15 of them, all swigging beer and making a racket.  I was absolutely incensed.  Whilst I am not afraid to confront people, I find in most cases that people know they’re being idiots and when I point this fact out to them, no matter how nicely I do it, the conversation invariably degenerates into a shouting match.

 

I was enjoying my day, I felt very relaxed after a stressful week and did not fancy a public ruckus.  I figured it was the park warden’s job to locate and berate, not mine and so, taking a deep breath, I turned in the opposite direction, towards the roses.

 

As I had planned to go to the market, I’d had a fluffy rare velvet-dress-and-silver-jewellery moment and was attired in clothing more suitable for Charmed than country.  In a nod to the amount of walking I was going to do, I had finished my outfit with great big boots.  I imagine I was a little unusual-looking.

 

As I entered the rose garden, admiring the scents and beauty, my inner voice was going – “yup, very nice, but I guess that tree isn’t having such a good day, having its roots burned”.

 

Now, my inner voice has been known to be very wise indeed.  It has also been known to get me into a variety of scrapes.  In the past, it has been heard to say:

 

(i)    Go on, get into the water, you chicken shit, there’s no rip tide (I nearly got swept out to sea).

 

(ii)   They’re only a group of young guys, challenge them for Gods’ sakes (just before I discovered the gang was being run by Yardies)

 

(iii)  Throw a brick, go on, it will be fun and you know you really want to!  You can after all, run in high heels (shortly before I got chased down a street in South Africa by several irate members of the local women’s army college and their guard dogs).  My mom took a while to recover as we were already under police surveillance for anti-apartheid activities and I had my school headmaster’s daughter with me at the time.

 

I just knew that this was going to be a bad idea.  So I stifled it.  But there it was again - thin, reedy, irritating and making distressed tree noises.

 

I swung round and stomped back towards the idiots.  It took me a good five minutes to get to them, by which time I had stomped myself into a real humdinger of a temper, ready to take their ears off.  As I approached from behind the tree, I could see that smoke was still billowing out from the base.

 

As I got nearer, I started to think about how, temper aside, I might approach them.  About 100 steps away, they noticed me, looked up and stopped talking.  In the last few steps towards them I thought about saying something lighthearted, but my face gave me away.

 

All this thought (and the tree trunk) prevented me from taking another look at the fire as I got closer.

 

I popped my head round the tree, looked down and said …

 

“Phew!  I am so glad that you have lit a barbecue in a sensible container and not lit a fire round the base of this tree”.

 

After a second or so of complete astonishment and silence, one of the guys said “What do you think we are? irresponsible?”

 

I backtracked, explained that I had seen plenty of people do stupid things in parks.  When I was interrupted by “Yes, but not us”, I realised that I had made a complete plutz of myself and was headed (yet again!) for an argument.

 

I smiled widely (and maybe a bit wildly), wished them all a good barbecue, wheeled round and stomped off in the direction in which I had come.

 

The roses were beautiful but I made sure I gave the barbecue tree a wide berth on my return journey.

 

I’ve decided that my inner voice is definitely no good for me.  The next time I hear it, I’m buying a metaphorical cork.

 

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I sometimes get some very odd looks when expressing my views.  I like to think of myself as a fairly middle-of-the-road, moral, reasonably sane, rational, fundamentally decent person.  I doubt that’s true all of the time but it is something I work on.

 

So when this month’s topic came up and I found myself laughing, I did a little “am I reacting rationally, kindly and sanely to this” check.

 

I have been loosely involved with a group called “Husky Justice”.  This group was founded as a result of an appalling act of cruelty in South Africa.  Phillip Matthyssen, who owned a smallholding and a number of animals, including a six month old husky puppy, had killed the puppy.

 

It wasn’t just that he had killed it.  The puppy had bitten through the wires of its enclosure and, doing what puppies do, had come across of the man’s prize birds, which he promptly ate.  The owner decided that the correct course of action was to take the puppy’s lower jaw off with a chain saw and leave it bleeding, screaming in pain and dying in his yard.  His neighbours heard the puppy and called the police.  The police arrived just as he was finishing burying the body.  They arrested him.

 

Now, the South African justice system is completely overwhelmed.  It has difficulty keeping track of and dealing with the numerous crimes that occur involving people on a daily basis.  So there was not much hope that this would even come to trial.  When it did, to the surprise of many of us, it became clear that the owner might escape a prison sentence.  The most that was likely to happen was that he be fined and his animals taken away.

 

The Husky Justice campaign attracted 40,000 signatures and hit the press in South Africa in a dramatic way.  Even people who had, up until then, not really felt strongly one way or the other about animal welfare, were horrified by this crime, signed the petition and visited the Facebook site.  By the time the case came to court, Husky Justice had organised themselves into a coherent, focussed group and a number of supporters were at court in person, to make their feelings known.

 

You can imagine our collective horror when, not only did he get off with a fine, part of which was payable to the South African Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which had conducted an investigation, but he was also allowed to keep the rest of his dogs.  He was however forbidden to keep huskies in future.  Photos from court showed him alternatively smirking or hiding his face.  As he was fairly well off, his fine was paltry in comparison with what he had done.

 

There was a fair uproar in animal protection circles but there was nothing that could be done.  There were the usual calls for him to be hunted down and killed in the same way as he had the dog and someone even offered people money for information as to where he lived.  All rather hysterical and over the top, but I understood the strength of feeling behind the drama.  Personally, I don’t want to share the earth with someone who could do what he did and laugh about it afterwards but I also don’t think I am in a position to make a final judgement as to someone’s worth on this planet.

 

A couple of Monday’s ago, I was having a very busy, stressful day.  I checked my emails at lunchtime and also the news.  I came across a news item.  It made me laugh.  So I did my “Am I sane? Am I nice?” check, found out that I didn’t give a flying duck.

 

You see, Philip had been driving along a deserted stretch of highway at 4am that morning.  He appeared to have been speeding.  His car left the road and crashed.  He was flung from it and suffered very bad head injuries.  Local labourers, hearing the noise, were too scared to go and investigate.  So Philip was left by the side of the road, slowly dying from his head injuries, until a motorist driving past called the wreck into the police.   By the time the emergency services got there, he had died.

 

Due to the high profile of the case and the fact that he had received death threats, the police investigated the crash.  They found that there were no other vehicles involved and apparently no foul play had occurred.  Whilst I feel for his family (how awful it must be to have a son or a brother who could behave like that in the first instance and then lose him), I feel absolute rocks for the man.  I tried to be appalled by my lack of empathy and failed in that also.

 

Had the victim of that crash been just about anyone else, I would have felt genuine sadness.  It’s a horrible way to end your life – in pain and dying alone.  And I am sure that the puppy would have been pleased to tell him that.

 

My morality has shifted.  I think a few years ago, I would have been a bit concerned about my own reaction.  I hate to admit this, but it brightened my day up that the world was less one abusive person and this one specifically.  There has been plenty of talk about how his karma caught up with him.  I am not convinced that the universe works in that way.  I see plenty more instances where people seem to get away with their behaviour for years and years and I can’t see why the universe would intercede in this one but not the others.  I like to think of it as a charming coincidence.

 

© Samantha Jenkin 2007 

 

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The other day I broke a cardinal rule of mine.  A need arose where someone needed training in a fairly advanced form of healing to try and help a cat who is dying.