Richa Shukla Moorjani Instagram – It’s unfathomable to me that a certain privileged few of us get to spend a warm holiday in our homes surrounded by loved ones, as a Nightmare continues to unfold elsewhere. While we grapple with the unspeakable suffering and pain happening in the world today, I’m dropping this post here for the US context on Thanksgiving day, where I believe our domestic treatment of the land and sea very much seeps into our foreign policy. The world circumstances today mandate that while we use our voices and bodies to demand justice, that we also turn our gaze inwards, (when we can), and recognize how unimaginable bloodshed manifests too in our smallest everyday choices, and the way we relate to the environment around us – to the water, the soil, to other life forms. It’s unsurprising that a holiday rooted in indigenous erasure till date is laced with a very modern ritualized cruelty, which is cleverly and systematically invisibilized on a deep level. I’ve learned that turkeys are highly intelligent, emotional, and social beings, with remarkable traits and embodied personalities. Just like our beloved pets at home. I’ve also learned that they are tragically *left completely unprotected by federal regulations before slaughter*, meaning they are not rendered senseless while they are brutally killed. An estimated 46 million of them each year. 💔 “The appalling cruelty endured by turkeys and other animals on industrial farms is an affront to our humanity. …Factory farms house thousands of birds in warehouses and killing them en masse is typically done in the easiest and least costly way possible, with no regard to animal suffering.” – @latimes May today be a chance for those of us privileged enough to be blessed with health and safety to reimagine tradition, and to nurture compassion that we may extend to all beings who are hurting so immensely right now. 🙏🏽 Would you like to Adopt A Turkey with me this year? You can do so through @farmsanctuary which works tirelessly to save the lives of other factory farmed animals too. Please never stop demanding a *permanent* ceasefire. And the safe return of all innocent hostages. Love and light to You. -RM ✨