By Maya Gottfried

Many of us seek soul mates in relationships, but what about “work soul mates”? What about the work we do that helps complete us? That takes us to the next place spiritually? For me, writing Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary was a soul mate job.

At age 35 I learned about Farm Sanctuary, a national organization (with shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif) that rescues and advocates for farm animals. I soon became (healthily) obsessed, attending NYC activist meetings, volunteering in the area of publicity, and participating at demonstrations. It was “work,” but with a spiritual aspect, fulfilling in ways my regular job as a publicist was not. As a child, I wanted to help animals by becoming a veterinarian when I grew up. I swiftly changed my mind after discovering some details of what a veterinary education entails. Though I hadn’t found my way to veterinary school, I had somehow managed to use my skills to help save animals. I felt alive.

I explored Farm Sanctuary’s website frequently. All of the animal residents had a name and a story. Truly, every story was proof of the subject’s strong spirit. These beings each had a family, a soul, thoughts, fears, quirks, and loves. In the places they had been (factory farms, stockyards, etc.), most had been abused, confined, separated from family members, and treated like soulless commodities of the food industry. Now they were free in the sun, lounging on the grass, and splashing in the water. And as one of the most amazing testaments to their enduring spirits, many of them now trusted humans.

I realized that Farm Sanctuary was a children’s book, it just hadn’t been written yet. There was a great truth here. It was a truth of peace and love and compassion. The book was (and is) the most important piece of writing I’d ever worked on. Unlike my other work, it had the power to save lives. If people saw what I saw, I hoped and believed they would be inspired to protect farm animals through veganism and other forms of activism.

Once Farm Sanctuary granted me permission to do the book, I found that the reality of writing it had grown truly intimidating. How was I going to know I had successfully portrayed the individuals living at the shelters? My other two books used poetry in an effort to communicate the soul. For this reason, Our Farm was composed of poems written in the animals’ voices. I dove in.

Then I found out I had colorectal cancer. The world stopped. I remember the bright white recovery room, sun pouring in, the uncomfortable doctor, and my mom’s look of uncertainty when I told her. I didn’t cry or start screaming or become overcome by any sort of hysteria. It was more like a message flashed in my brain, “Urgent: Your time may be limited.” After telling my Mom I had cancer, the next thing I told her was that I really wanted to do the book.

In Anatomy of the Spirit, written by Caroline Myss, Ph.D., the author quotes a Native American woman’s words on completing your work before dying, “…you cannot leave one part of your work unfinished before you die. Otherwise, you leave a part of your spirit behind.” When it is not possible to finish, the responsibilities are passed on to someone else, but not left undone. I think back to my desire to be a veterinarian as a child. That same soul, that same mind that began life wanting to help animals, now given a potential deadline, wanted to get that done before leaving.

I had chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is indescribable. It’s beyond words. My feet and fingers tingled, I could barely eat, and I couldn’t leave my apartment for weeks. I could feel the chemo when I cried. I practiced restorative yoga and drank green juices, which helped. Shining bright on my horizon was the book. It was bigger than chemo. It was bigger than cancer. It was close to God. A channel. My own personal ray of sunshine that I had been given to transfer joy, truth, and life to other beings. I focused on it during those horrible, nauseous, dizzy days of chemo.

When on breaks from chemo, I would visit the Watkins Glen shelter to get to know the animals better. Once chemo was done, the chemicals withdrew, and I finished the poems.

Through the eyes of the Farm Sanctuary residents I experienced the world anew. As I put myself in their sweet, innocent bodies and minds, I imagined what it was like to be happy and in the sun after so much meaningless pain. I saw the pure beauty of nature and the peacefulness of their new homes as they might see them.

I also learned from other people like Colleen Patrick-Goudreau who podcasts “Vegetarian Food for Thought” and Natalie Bowman at Farm Sanctuary. The organization’s president and co-founder Gene Baur’s book, Farm Sanctuary, caused me to re-examine the true nature of human relationships with animals. As children, people have an innate connection with and love of farm animals. I wanted to support this in my book.

As with any job, there were days of struggle, days when I didn’t know what to write, or how to communicate what I wanted to express. But I never doubted that writing the book was something I wanted to do, something I needed to get done.

So now that the book is out and I’m cancer-free, does that mean I have nothing left to do? Of course not! The book has brought me to a new spiritual place. I feel stronger, more truly accomplished, and more connected to the beauty, love, and joy that exist in the world. I know I can help others and I want to do MORE! Everything I work on doesn’t have to be a life-saving endeavor, but I look forward to meeting my future soul mates.

Maya Gottfried is an animal-loving writer of poetry and prose for children and adults, as well as a publicist. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with two fabulous cats, and drinks a lot of vegetable juice.

Jenny has put together a list of triumphs for our animal friends in 2009. Hope it motivates you to make your first Monday in 2009 a meatless one!

This Thanksgiving I was asked to speak at the Berkshire Vegetarian Network’s holiday dinner, and in the true spirit of the day (and a bad bout of writer’s block) I came up with a list of ten things for which I’m thankful. The food was great and with my veins coursing with a tremendous amount of carbs, I delivered the speech — which was a big hit with the Berkshire set. Being a very generous person, I thought to myself, who am I to deny the lovely readers of CSL this collection of precious little nuggets, suitable for livening up any holiday gathering? Here they are and, in advance, you’re welcome!

10. I’m thankful that the number of vegans in the U.S. now out-numbers the membership of the NRA! Whoot! Whoot!

9. I’m thankful for the legislative victories in a number of states across the US that ban the most egregious practices in factory farming. Even though the new regulations only make it marginally better for animals living in intense confinement operations, these are steps in the right direction and they set a precedent for more improvements.

8. My husband Doug and I are very thankful for the hood in NYC’s East Village that we like to call “Vegantown” – First Ave below 12th St – where you can’t swing blob of tofu without hitting a vegan-friendly restaurant!

7. I’m thankful for all the healthy, humane plant-based alternatives for holiday meals that are popping up everywhere online, in books, magazines, and newspapers—and even for Holiday Diva Martha Stewart, who devoted an entire show to the horrors of the meat industry without feeling the need to offer the industry a rebuttal. She took the opportunity to educate her audience on factory farming, with help from author Jonathan Safran Foer (of “Eating Animals”) and filmmaker Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.).

6. Oh – and that makes me thankful for Jonathan Safran Foer whose book “Eating Animals” has received a tremendous amount of media coverage and who has become a wonderful spokesperson for farmed animals. Even when confronted with an unbelievably asinine or hostile question, he is able to articulately answer with a sharp wit and calm nobility.

5. I’m full of thanks that I’m not in a room where the focal point of the day’s celebration is the carcass of an animal who suffered his/her entire short life for the trivial pleasure of unimaginative palettes and holiday tradition. (OK, so shoot me, this one only works on Thanksgiving Day BUT – you gotta read this awesome article by Ari Solomon about us vegans (can you say RIGHT TF on!).

4. I’m thankful that the days of embarrassingly rubbery or chalky soy cheeses are almost over – such as with the invention of Daiya cheese, which melts so well and tastes delicious on pizza, in casseroles or quesadillas. And for Dr. Cow Nut Cheese, which (despite the giggle-worth name) is made from raw, healthy nuts and not from the hormone- and antibiotic-laced mammary secretions of a bovine.

3. I’m thankful for the Thanksgiving ham that collided with Celebrity Chef Paula Deen while she was “helping to deliver more than 25,000 lbs. of ham & turkey” to the less fortunate. I wonder Paula ever stop to think about ill fortune of the dead frozen animals she was tossing…or of the irony of the incident since she is a spokesperson for the nation’s top pork producer — Smithfield Foods.

2. I’m thankful for all the attention over this past year that the media has given to the myriad of issues surrounding consuming animal products—the environment, the lack of sustainability considering population growth, the impact on our health and finally, more than ever, about the ways in which farmed animals are treated. It’s finally happening friends! People are starting to care!

1. I’m thankful for all the animals at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary that we have been able to help and care for. Each of them is an individual whose life matters very much to them—and to us–and we love each of them dearly. They make our fight easier by showing visitors how unique, friendly, sentient and forgiving animals can be when shown kindness and are allowed to live a normal life with others of their kind.

On Sunday, I spent my afternoon at Tavern on the Green for Farm Sanctuary’s “Celebration for the Turkeys”– an annual event aimed to protect turkeys and promote compassionate Thanksgiving traditions.

The event featured delicious food by Candle 79, a silent auction with tons of cruelty-free products, and a slew of special guests, including: Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Peter Max, Ally Sheedy and author Jonathan Safran Foer.

I had the chance to sit down with Foer to discuss his latest book, Eating Animals, and find out why he chooses to support the efforts of Farm Sanctuary. Check out the interview below!

Michael Parrish DuDell: Why are you here today supporting Farm Sanctuary?

Jonathan Safran Foer: Farm Sanctuary was the first place I went when I did my research for this book. I had a really wonderful day. In many ways it established a tone for the rest of my research, which was that these issues all depend on how you tell them—how you present them. It’s not the case that the world needs new values, it just needs a new story—a story that more accurately reflects what’s going on in the world and more directly connects it to who we already are, not who we want to be, just who we already are.

I think Gene [Baur] does a really nice job of that. When people think of Farm Sanctuary, I think they imagine a place where rescued farm animals get to spend out their life. But that’s not really the point of the place. The point of the place is to push legislation, to lobby, but also just to tell stories—to tell better stories than the ones that are floating around. So that was a real inspiration for me and not only am I happy to help in anyway I can, I feel like I owe something.

MPD: Many people believe that your book has the power to set a new tone for the movement. What kind of reactions have you received thus far about Eating Animals?

JSF: The awesome thing, the really awesome thing is, with the exception of one, not a single review has questioned the importance of the conversation. Plenty of people think that I’m an asshole, plenty of people think that the style should have been different, but there’s been about 150 or 200 reviews of the book and exactly one has said, “This is not something we need to think about.” And it just confirms what I was suspecting, or at least hoping, which is that everyone cares about this—they really, really do. It’s just a question of connecting the dots in a certain way. I think we need to move away from the dichotomy of, “you are either a vegetarian or you are not,” to “you are either someone who cares about this or you are not”—because in fact everyone cares about it. We just have to find a way to appeal to this broad consensus.

The meat industry goes to such lengths to conceal their actions. Does anybody really think it’s right to put pregnant pigs in crates? Nobody does. Nobody really thinks it’s right to put egg-laying hens in tiny cages for their entire lives.

I think the movement has lost something in the last couple of years with the infighting and divisiveness. It is important whether you are fundamentally against the consumption of animals or not, but it’s not as important as all of these overlaps. Everyone agrees on ninety-nine percent of farming, and then there’s great disagreement about the other one percent. So why are we losing time with the one percent when we could be gaining so much with the ninety-nine percent?

MPD: If you could get one famous person to go vegetarian this Thanksgiving, who would it be?

JSF: I don’t know if I think of it in quite those terms. Like I was saying, there’s something that seems dichotomist about that—like turkey or no turkey. Look, someone like Glenn Beck could not have a turkey and that’s fine, but what I would so strongly prefer is that he had a week-long series about animal agriculture in America. I have no interest in prying a turkey from his hands. Frankly, he could do so much more good in the world then his individual choice.

I was on Martha Stewart the other day and she did a whole show devoted to the problems with the meat industry. It was so incredibly brave. She got on television and said, “The meat industry is bad. The meat industry is secretive. We don’t want these products.” She said she’s having a vegetarian thanksgiving. This issue’s going to tip by people acting like that.

You know, Glenn Beck already cares about this stuff, he does. I mean these are very traditional American values—they’re even conservative. I would love to engage him in a conversation where that became apparent, where he left not feeling angry with me, but angry at this industry that’s taking advantage of his values. It’s all about finding ways to mainstream this and to make all these alliances visible, and then maybe one day we’ll have the luxury of getting into arguments over that one percent.

A big thank you to Jonathan Safran Foer for spending time with us and to Farm Sanctuary for hosting this event. Make sure you pickup a copy of Eating Animals, and don’t forget to visit FarmSanctuary.org to find out more about all their Thanksgiving events.

This interview was also posted at Ecorazzi.com.