Marking high spring and the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere, Bealtaine (Irish for “May” and anglicized as Beltane) is a major sabbat that observes the returning sun, the greening of the land, and a heightening growth period. In Irish, Bealtaine refers to the fire (tine) of the Celtic sun god Bel. The May season is a time of agricultural birth and growth, with considerable wealth to be gleaned from the exploitation of other animals. Complex rituals sprung up across the British Isles in an effort to regulate the system and ensure prosperity.
Bonfires have traditionally been held on the eve of May 1st for the protecting of “livestock.” Cows might be jumped over the May Day fires or they and their living quarters might be decorated with protective plants and herbs to maximize fertility and keep the evil eye or dangerous fae away. Witches were often accused of interfering with “livestock” as well. Indeed, fears of evil interference with animal-based agriculture was a major reason for the persecution of witches and the overall devaluation of women. Cows and other animals that failed to produce or took ill were sometimes diagnosed as being “elf-shot,” that is, they were literally thought to have been targeted by witches, fairies, or other interlopers.
In modern witchcraft and pagan practices, killing and eating animals has become a contemporary opportunity for the average, non-farming practitioner to interact with this agrarian tradition (West 2002). “Meat” may not feature as heavily, but Wiccan author Scott Cunningham (2007) advises incorporating dairy into May Day festivities. Bees, too, are often included in Bealtaine celebrations as mead (a fermented honey beverage) is regularly encouraged (Greenleaf 2016). Bealtaine may not incorporate speciesism as deeply as Imbolc or Ostara, but it nonetheless exhibits the characteristic romanticization of speciesism in “livestock” exploitation through the ritualized consumption of animal-based foods and drink.
A time of union, handfasting, and the start of the fertile season, Bealtaine also marks a time in which the “masculine” and “feminine” energies of the earth are thought to merge as the feminine darker months wane with the return of the sun. There are certainly many ways to reclaim this cross-quarter point in early May for a vegan witchcraft. For instance, it might become a time to reflect on the fruits of female labour as well as a time to celebrate the destabilization of gender polarities. Indeed, this is the season of the Green Man (also known as the Wild Man and the Jack in the Green). This figure, representing environmental renewal and the fluid boundary between humans and nature, could be a useful symbol to explore.
Bealtaine should also be a time to reconsider the dual oppression of women and other animals, particularly in light of the historical persecution of women accused of interfering with animal-based agriculture. Today’s vegan witches aim to spoil farming yields through liberating–rather than hexing–cows, sheeps, and other imprisoned animals. Thus, the first of May might be an appropriate time to reclaim this feminist power of resistance by elf-shooting the anthroparchy and raising the Bealtaine fires for the protection and liberation of its victims.
Works Cited
Cunningham, S. 2007. Cunningham’s Encyclopaedia of Wicca in the Kitchen. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications.Greenleaf, C. 2016. The Book of Kitchen Witchery. London: CICO Books.
Greenleaf, C. 2016. The Book of Kitchen Witchery. London: CICO Books.
West, K. 2002. The Real Witches’ Kitchen. London: Thorsons.
Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.
For many ecofeminists, pagans, and witches, Ostara marks the spring equinox and the beginning of the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. With mammalian oestrous informing its lingual origin, Ostara is often associated with the birth of new generations of “livestock.” Unfortunately, celebrations marking the return of the sun often prioritize the killing and eating of newborn harbingers of spring. For all its feminine associations, equinox takes on a very patriarchal character as celebrants reinforce human supremacy, violence against animals, and the domination of nature.
Kitchen witch Kate West (2002), for instance, writes that “lamb is very appropriate” for equinox feasting, “as is humanely raised [sic] veal” (85). Indeed, for many witches like West, Ostara seems to mark a time for child sacrifice. Historically, this child sacrifice would have included the killing of foetuses in using hens’ eggs as the fertility of the Ostara season is most popularly symbolized with other-than-human eggs. Today, however, most eggs are unfertilized and remain primarily symbolic in their representation of rebirth and renewal.
Nonetheless, framing eggs as harbingers of life masks the inherent suffering and death involved in the exploitation of hens to procure these magical items. Murphy-Hiscock (2018), by way of an example, advocates ritually working with eggs to take advantage of the “abundant, fertile energy of nature” for “productive, creative energy” (89). This kind of ritual work sidesteps the questionable “naturalness” of apes consuming the ovary outputs of chickens, the vast majority of whom endure genetic manipulation, forced moulting, debeaking, lack of stimulation, ammonia-laden air, an inability to nest or roost, and extreme levels of overall stress, all of which contribute to the spread of zoonotic disease, haemorrhages, broken bones, premature death, and even cannibalism. This is a far cry from the “abundant, fertile energy of nature,” and better described as the death throws of violent anthroparchal oppression.
Some pagan and Wiccan practitioners advise “free range” eggs to avoid absorbing the energy of bird suffering, seemingly unaware of the suffering that remains inherent to egg production, regardless of source. All industrially-raised hens, after a short life in either a battery cage or an industrial barn, go to slaughter. The egg industry is also known to be especially exploitative of human labourers, many of whom are women of colour (Ducey 2018). “Free-range” schemes include many of standard practices suffered by birds incarcerated in conventional factory farming. Indeed, these schemes have been described as intentionally misleading to extract greater profit from concerned customers (Scrinis et al. 2017, Swanson 2013).
“Backyard hens,” too, must suffer the bodily exertion of constant egg production, the result of genetic manipulation that is neither natural nor sustainable for their small bodies. Indeed, this unceasing productivity eventually leads to reproductive collapse. Backyard hens who wane in production are vulnerable to abandonment or slaughter. Rescues and sanctuaries have only enough space for a few individuals cast aside from backyard operations, much less those rescued from industrial ones. Even the most kindly treated chickens (an infinitesimally small fraction of the billions of chickens exploited by humans every year) ultimately remain under human control. Humans will determine their access to resources, their quality of life, and their eventual life outcomes. This is not working with nature this is working over nature.
Wiccan leader Scott Cunningham (2007) has mused that Ostara is “a time of joyous celebration, for the killing months of winter were over” (37), but clearly this is not the case for all. Nonetheless, his observation that Ostara marks a time of moving past death and toward life could be an important aspect for vegan witchcraft to revisit. Veganism encourages mindfulness about one’s ethical and consumptive relationship with the world, commemorating life and seeking balance with nature. Rather than marking the equinox with the taking of others’ eggs, perhaps Ostara could be used to rededicate one’s commitment to the vegan path.
Indeed, the imagery of seeds, seedlings, and vitality are heavily utilized in vegan narratives and symbolism. Although eggs are centred as a traditional food for the Ostara sabbat feast, hot cross buns and seeded cakes are also recommended and may be plant-based. Cunningham (2007) also suggests incorporating edible flowers, for instance, which are just as representative of a budding spring as birds’ eggs. Greenleaf (2016) prioritizes beans, while Squire (2022) suggests nuts. Wheat, which is symbolically associated with the summer harvest, might provide another alternative. “Wheat holds magickal energy for abundance, fertility, prosperity, and protection,” Woodward (2021) explains, as it contains bran, germ, and endosperm, the nutrient-rich ingredients for life and reproduction, not unlike that of an egg. These traditions seem more in line with the affirmation of life that Ostara is meant to represent.
Works Cited
Cunningham, S. 2007. Cunningham’s Encyclopaedia of Wicca in the Kitchen. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications.
Ducey, K. 2018. “The Chicken-Industrial Complex and Elite White Men.” Pp. 1-17, in Animal Oppression and Capitalism, D. Nibert (Ed.). Santa Barbara: Preager.
Greenleaf, C. 2016. The Book of Kitchen Witchery. London: CICO Books.
Miernowska, M. 2020. The Witch’s Herbal Apothecary. Beverly: Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Robinson, S. 2022. Kitchen Witch. Shanagarry: Womancraft Publishing.
Scrinis, G., C. Parker, and R. Carey. 2017. “The Caged Chicken or the Free-Range Egg?” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 30: 783-808.
Squire, L. 2022. Earth Magick. Brighton: Leaping Hare Press.
Swanson, M. 2013. “How ‘Humane’ Labels Harm Chickens.” Pp. 204-222, in Confronting Animal Exploitation, K. Socha and S. Blum (Eds.). Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.
West, K. 2002. The Real Witches’ Kitchen. London: Thorsons.
Woodward, L. 2021. Kitchen Witchery. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications.
Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.
Celebrated around the first of February,1 the pagan holiday of Imbolc2 marks the turning point from deep winter to spring’s edge in the Northern Hemisphere. Imbolc was historically a point of celebration as domesticated animals were nearing the season of birthing. As such, dairy is perhaps the most ubiquitous association with this early spring festival (Greenleaf 2016). This connection is amplified by Imbolc’s alignment with Ireland’s Saint Bridget’s Day, Bridget being the saint of healing, hospitality, and nonhuman breastmilk. Modern ecofeminists, witches, and feminist pagans often frame this breastmilk as symbolic of nurturance, a “mystical gift” (Woodward 2021: 101).
The pasture itself is a site of considerable suffering. Mother sheeps are genetically manipulated to produce multiple children to maximize the surplus value to be exploited from their labour, leading to high mortality rates for both mother and children. Pregnancies coerced deep in the winter to meet spring market demands for babies’ flesh, furthermore, leave newborn lambs vulnerable to freezing weather. As a result, almost one in five British lambs do not survive to slaughter. All lambs are subject to “tail docking.” The severing of their tail is accomplished with a knife, hot iron, or a rubber band that causes slow necrosis, and anaesthesia is not offered. To increase their market weight, improve the palatability of their flesh, and reduce their capacity to resist the violence they endure in the trade, male lambs have a similar procedure inflicted on their genitals.
Source: Wikicommons, James T M Towill
Even in “wool” production, suffering is high; these sheeps also undergo manipulated pregnancies, early removal from their mothers, and unanaesthetised mutilations. The “live export” trade, furthermore, relies heavily on the production of sheeps’ hair. Once “wool” industry victims become burdensome and less productive with age, they are crammed onto transport ships to countries where they can be slaughtered for food and religious purposes. With animals exposed to extreme heat or cold, overcrowding, accumulating filth, poor air circulation, fear, and stress, conditions are so horrific on these multi-level ships that death counts are high. These ships occasionally wreck as well, with animals trapped below deck or flung into open sea where they die by drowning.
With pandemics (most of which have zoonotic origins) now a regularity, sometimes these ships will be denied port, leaving animals to suffer on board for weeks until they die of thirst or heat exhaustion. In these cases, Nonhuman Animals back up in their home countries as well, prompting hasty destruction. After Brexit and COVID-19, for instance, Irish dairy farmers experienced a “calf tsunami” as the domestic dairy industry expanded and international markets shrunk. Many infant boys were shot in the head by farmers a day or two after birth as farmers could not cope with their care as they awaited transportation to offshore slaughterhouses. Male babies are the inevitable “byproduct” from the systematic exploitation of female bodies and always meet with a violent end.
Modern witchcraft ignores these unsavoury realities of “meat,” “dairy” and birds’ eggs production, drawing instead on delusions of peaceful, consenting relationships with other animals. For instance, one Imbolc ritual invites practitioners to “celebrate the day by giving thanks for all the things that sheep have given us” including “fleece for sweaters and milk for cheese” with an “Imbolc prayer.” However, the process of domestication itself troubles the possibility of consent, and domestication by its very nature manipulates the minds and bodies of other animals to facilitate human mastery. Domesticated sheeps are born, live, and die at the whim of human desires.
Vegan feminism sees domestication as an anthroparchal system of oppression that intentionally undercuts the agency of Nonhuman Animals, locks them in bondage through physical and cognitive manipulations and architectural incarceration, and replicates anthropocentric hierarchal arrangements (Mason 1993). Regardless of whether this domestication takes place in backyards, rural pastures, or factory farms, it entails violence and oppression. This is no gift; it is theft.
The modern nature of Nonhuman Animal agriculture has not only rendered insensible the horrors inflicted on Nonhuman Animals, but it has also rationalised speciesist exploitation such that nonhuman bodies and excretions are readily available and artificially affordable for most. The ubiquitousness of animal-based foods has influenced witches’ dietary preferences. This, in turn, has shaped how sabbats are celebrated. Dairy and other forms of animals’ flesh in early agrarian societies would have been scarce, and were, in some cases, intentionally omitted through the rest of the winter months; this practice would be adapted into the Christian practice of Lent. Despite this modern emphasis on abundance and feasting, Imbolc was historically a time of purification, often calling for fasting. Fresh foods were scant and stored foods would be running low. Fasting may have taken on a spiritual, ritualistic quality as a measure to regulate food stores. Practitioners originally forwent any flesh, dairy, or eggs. Later, Lent laws would be relaxed, and fishes and other animals’ products might be allowed.
Today, few practice plant-based winter fasting, as Nonhuman Animal products have become so ubiquitous with intensive genetic manipulation and industrialized agricultural practices. Modern witches seem a bit unclear about this history. The Real Witches’ Kitchen, by way of an example, notes that “fresh food would not have been plentiful at this festival” (80) but nonetheless suggests that “lamb is ideal for this feast” (West 2002: 81). Likewise, The Witches Feast (Brooks 2023) offers a vegetarian stew recipe to celebrate Imbolc in an attempt at historical accuracy, but eagerly advocates roasting an “herby leg of lamb” for March’s spring equinox as this “delicious and impressive looking feast […] makes the most of the meat that would have traditionally been available at this time of year” (57). Imbolc, then, seems to be considered a celebratory time for drinking the breastmilk of pregnant mothers who are preparing to give birth to their babies, while equinox3 entails consuming the babies themselves.
It seems odd that the patriarchal domination inherent to domestication, reproductive manipulation, and blood sacrifice would remain so central to ecofeminist spirituality today. However, while it is true that speciesist traditions remain prevalent in many ecofeminist spiritual paths, being feminist practices, there are no set requirements for ritual observance. This suggests, to some extent, a degree of capriciousness and ample room for retooling for multispecies inclusivity. Bridget was not just associated with the birthing of new lambs and other animals destined for use and slaughter, but midwifery in general. After retreating and resting in the winter months and cleansing body and home, might new rituals for celebrating rebirth and renewal be developed beyond speciesist practice?
The Irish government, for instance, declared St. Bridget’s Day, February 1st, a national holiday in 2018. A corollary to the more equinox-aligned St. Patrick’s Day that follows in March, St. Bridget’s Day honours the major feminist achievements in recent Irish history. But advocates for the holiday emphasize the holiday’s importance in celebrating healing in an era of climate devastation. As the Director of Woman Spirit Ireland explained in an announcement of the new saint’s day: “In a post-Covid world, we will be able to reflect further on her role, asking how the integration of nature, culture and technology can serve to heal our wounds and the vulnerable earth.” Bridget, in other words, has come to embody an ecofeminist worker of magic, and this might easily replace the exploitation of sheeps and cows in a vegan Imbolc.
Notes
Imbolc is rooted in Western Europe, but has also been practiced as Candlemas with the coming of Christianity. In the United States, it transformed into Groundhog’s Day. All variations celebrate the turning of the seasons, the release of winter, and the increasing daylight hours.
Imbolc (pronounced “eem-ulk”) is an old Gaelic word that translates to “in the belly.”
The modern witch community refers to spring equinox as Ostara, a reference to the “livestock” oestrus season.
References
Brooks, L. 2023. The Witches Feast. Salpe Publishing.
Greenleaf, C. 2016. The Book of Kitchen Witchery. London: CICO Books.
Mason, J. 1993. An Unnatural Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
West, K. 2002. The Real Witches’ Kitchen. London: Thorsons.
Woodward, L. 2021. Kitchen Witchery. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications.
Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.
Although most of the early vegetarian feminists were not quite willing to acknowledge or resist the inherent violence in animal-derived foods and products beyond “meat,” political veganism in the West has been in practice since at least the early 19th century. The famous Alcott family of the United States, for instance, understood Nonhuman Animal rights as complementary to their abolitionist efforts. In the 1840s, they attempted to put their transcendentalist philosophy and social justice values into action not simply by practicing veganism by way of diet, but by creating a utopian-oriented communal farm (Francis 2010, Shprintzen 2013). They acquired a large 90-acre tract of farmland in rural Massachusetts they named Fruitlands. Here, they hoped to grow their own food—all vegan—without the use of horses, oxen, or other animals for draught nor manure.1
This emphasis on the utopia should not suggest that people of the era had an unfamiliarity with plant-based living. In 19th century Ireland, for instance, colonization ensured that the agricultural exploitation of cows and other animals for flesh and breastmilk was relegated primarily to British colonial landowners bound for industrializing England and the booming slave trade in the Americas. The Irish peasantry survived primarily on the farming of potatoes and other vegetables for their own consumption, and vegetarian advocates of the day saw this as evidence of the nutritional suitability of animal-free consumption (Wrenn 2021).
Veganic farming, for that matter, was not unknown prior to the industrialization of agriculture. For instance, abundantly available seaweed was used as a potent fertilizer in Ireland, while Native Americans did not rely on Nonhuman Animals for plowing and many tribes ate very plant-heavy diets (Robinson 2024, Teufel 2009). While the destruction of the American buffalo is often cited as a strategy in Indigenous genocide, less discussed is the assault on the American chestnut, a far more widespread and actively managed food source for natives of North America.
The Alcotts were familiar with these vegan-oriented food production systems and more, citing them in their writings as rationales for their own experiments. What they were less familiar with, however, was how to operationalize these techniques with little practical experience of their own. As upper-middle class artists, authors, and speakers, they were truly unprepared for the immense efforts needed to operate a fully self-sustaining farm. Louisa May Alcott (who authored the famous classic in American women’s literature, Little Women) was also acutely aware of the gender politics that remained largely unchanged in this little utopia (Shprintzen 2013). The male inhabitants of the project continued with their busy advocacy and lecture circuits, leaving the women behind to maintain the everyday drudgery of operating a working farm.
Within a year, the project came to an end. Historians have pointed to the eschewing of Nonhuman Animal labor as reason for the failure (Francis 2010), but it seems more likely that the philosophical interests and commitments of the residents distracted from the material requirements of farm life. They seemed more interested in pontificating about utopia than doing utopia.
That said, Fruitlands does provide evidence of early interest in the manufacture of a vegan society, one that was born of an intersectional praxis given the founders’ participation in so many social justice efforts of the time. It was also evidence of an early vegan feminist critique of male privilege in the movement. As would become a pattern across the next century, women would be burdened with the drudgery of organization and project upkeep, freeing men to undertake the more glamorous and celebrated public-facing work.
Notes
Many “back to the land” hippie and feminist campaigns in the United States fail to consider the legacy of colonialism and Indigenious removal in the “taking back” of land. Fruitlands (now a museum) continues to occupy traditional lands of the Agawam, Nipmuc, and Pawtucket tribes in Harvard, MA.
References
Francis, R. 2010. Fruitlands. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Robinson, M. 2024. “Indigenous Veganism.” Pp. 295-313, in The Plant-based and Vegan Handbook. Y. Athanassakis, R. Larue, and W. O’Donohue (Eds.). Cham: Springer.
Shprintzen, A. 2013. The Vegetarian Crusade. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Teufel, N. 2009. “Nutrient Characteristics of Southwest Native American Pre-contact Diets.” Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine 6 (3): 273-284.
Wrenn, C. 2021. Animals in Irish Society. New York: SUNY Press.
Wrenn, C. 2022. “Society Writings.” Pp. 333-348, in The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies, L. Wright and E. Quinn (Eds.). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.
My research on the role of Nonhuman Animals in pagan thealogy finds winter solstice, or Yule, a conflicting time for other animals. Following the mass sacrifices of Samhain,[i] the winter solstice season is comparatively dormant agriculturally speaking. As a time of relative scarcity, however, this would have created great difficulty and persecution for Nonhuman Animals who would be the most vulnerable to dwindling food supplies and harsh weather. Sadly, solstice time often encouraged one final burst of sacrificial activity.
In Europe, a number of stone henges have been constructed to align with this solstice, including the famous Stonehenge and Avebury sites in Southern England. To attract thousands to the region, the winter solstice was celebrated in prehistory with several days of feasting. Although these spaces can be psychically powerful for modern visitors who feel a connection across the millennia to ancestors who organized their lives around the celestial, these are highly sterilized spaces today. When in use, they would have been sites of incredible violence against Nonhuman Animals. Thousands of Nonhuman Animal skeletons have been found at Stonehenge and Avebury, especially those of pigs, who appear to have been marched to the sites from afar and ritually slaughtered for the festivities (Madgwick et al. 2019).
Today, many winter solstice traditions are less harmful to other animals as observers are more inclined to mull wine and decorate the yule tree (Cunningham 2007). Wassailing, an old English practice of blessing “livestock,” pastures, orchards, and other agricultural spaces, has been revitalized in recent years and has the potential to celebrate a positive relationship with nature and other animals. It must be considered, however, that wassailing is not typically engaged for the benefit of those being blessed, but rather for those who are doing the blessing given its purpose of increasing agricultural fertility. Vegan wassailing could be adopted to alter this narrative, blessing imprisoned Nonhuman Animals in hopes for their consequent liberation or blessing animals residing at sanctuaries to symbolically support their continued healing.
Indeed, winter solstice is a time for contemplating the return of the light and would also suit the contemplation of peace on earth, particularly given its correspondence to holy days of peace across the world. Yule is also deep in the “womb time” of the Wiccan calendar, making it a point of feminist reflection as well. Kitchen witch Sarah Robinson (2022) notes this might be a time for witches to convene for celebration, and, indeed, from a vegan perspective, this might also be a day for acknowledging the feminized labour exploited from other animals and celebrating cows, chickens, and other nonhuman mothers.[ii]
Winter solstice initiates a time of feminist observance culminating in the Wiccan holiday of Imbolc (known as St. Bridget’s day in Ireland, Groundhog’s Day in the United States, and Candlemas in other Catholic regions) at the end of January. For witches and Wiccans, solstice and Imbolc celebrate the burgeoning rejuvenation of humans, other animals, and nature. Z Budapest describes her coven’s winter solstice celebration as including a “period of humming that builds up to a birth scream,” a ritual reminds participants that “we are reborn along with Lucina”[iii] (1986: 74). Her coven has similarly adapted other sabbats to feminist interests.
As the Yule season slides into Imbolc, a period often used for Wiccan initiation, Budapest marks this period as a reawakening of women’s knowledge and wisdom. Here, women figuratively come into the light, resisting patriarchal attempts to block women from education and enlightenment. A vegan witchcraft might honour these months of darkness by resting, revisiting feminist theory, and supporting free-living animals who, in the Northern Hemisphere, will be tried by the hardships of winter. Supporting life in a season that has historically served as an occasion for death is a revolutionary act.
[i] Samhain marks the third harvest festival of the agricultural year, today known as Halloween.
[ii] Much of the merrymaking of the Yule season has only been possible with the invisible preparatory labour of women. In Ireland, Nollaig na mBan (“Christmas for women”) is still celebrated two weeks after Christmas, allowing women a day of respite from the exhausting work of carrying the festivities for their families and community.
[iii] A reference to Diana, goddess of childbirth.
References Budapest, Z. 1986. The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries. Oakland: Consolidated Printers. Cunningham, S. 2007. Cunningham’s Encyclopaedia of Wicca in the Kitchen. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications. Madgwick, R., A. Lamb, H. Sloane, A. Nederbragt, U. Albarella, M. Pearson, and J. Evans. 2019. “Multi-isotope Analysis Reveals that Feasts in the Stonehenge Environs and Across Wessex Drew People and Animals from Throughout Britain.” Science Advances 5 (3): eaau6078. Robinson, S. 2022. Kitchen Witch. Shanagarry: Womancraft Publishing.
Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.
From the Papers of Marti Kheel Archive, Harvard University
Formed in the early 1980s, Feminists for Animal Rights (FAR)1 was typical of radical feminism in the latter half of the 20th century, embracing lesbianism in a larger social justice space (the Nonhuman Animal rights movement included) that more or less adopted a “don’t ask don’t tell” that approach. Founder Marti Kheel openly identified as gay and gender “deviant” (Kheel 1998: no page), and FAR participated in LGBT+ events from its beginning.
In its first year of official operation, FAR participated in the San Francisco International Lesbian/Gay Freedom Day, its table ironically placed next to a “burger” stand. FAR also marched in the Boston Gay Pride Parade with its banner as well as signs that read “Extend the Circle of Compassion: Go Vegetarian,” “Subvert the Dominant Paradigm,” and “Vegetarians Taste Better.” The latter was apparently the “crowd favorite” (Solomon and Stone 1999: 10). Regular engagement is listed throughout the twenty years of FAR’s newsletter publication, including attendance at the East Bay Lesbian and Gay Celebration and the Lesbian Empowerment Conference in Florida.
The Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists, a branch of FAR, explains the centrality of this intersectional thought to the vegan feminist approach:
When the group formed we decided to call ourselves Ecofeminists because the term underscored for us the connection between feminism, animal liberation, and ecology. We also chose to include Lesbian in our name because most (but not all) of us are lesbians, and we see our visibility as lesbians as a political issue. We also identify the oppression we face as women and homosexuals as intricately related to the exploitation of animals and the earth by the same patriarchal mentality
(Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists 1991: 4)
One FAR article, “‘So, What Do You Eat’ and ‘What Do You Do (In Bed)?’,” draws connections between veganism and lesbianism in how they are marginalized and how their personal relationship with their own body is scrutinized:
What do I eat? Anything I want, as long as it tastes good, is nutritious, is accepted by my body, and does not directly harm, or indirectly support harm, to any other creature on the planet. What do I do (in bed)? Anything I want that feels good, with or without a partner, is accepted by my body, and does not perpetuate hetero-patriarchal structures or beliefs.
(Post 1993: 13)
The connections were not always apparent. FAR members were regularly frustrated by the intersectional failure between anti-speciesism and gay rights. FAR organizer Batya Bauman (1990) notes, for instance, the regular occurrence of individuals claiming to be “animal lovers” in singles classifieds in popular lesbian magazines that also mention personal interests that include “fishing” and eating “meat.” FAR (1984) took issue with the “Gay Rodeo” as well, distributing protest literature on the event and sending letters of complaint to the gay publication, Coming Up.
Houston LGBT History.org
Likewise, FAR was adamantly opposed to AIDS research conducted on Nonhuman Animals, insisting that all progress in AIDS research had been achieved through nonanimal experiments (Todd 1991-1992). Kheel reiterated this value, insisting that the “best cure lies in prevention,” as animal-based testing is “morally bankrupt” and “scientifically invalid” with high failure rates and unintended side effects (1984: 4). “As a gay person,” she continues, “I sincerely hope that the gay community will question the type of research being done on their behalf and condemn all research that inflicts pain and suffering on innocent beings.” (4).
It would not be until the 2010s and 2020s that the professionalized Nonhuman Animal rights movement began to openly acknowledge and respond to sex and gender diversity and queer vegan theory established itself in scholar activism. These developments in visibility may reflect the larger successes of the gay rights movement, but it should be clear that the thoughts and actions of vegan feminists were aligned with these issues for many decades prior. Although third wave vegan feminism is often presented as an important countervoice to heteronormative feminist theory of the 20th century, the truth is that vegan feminists of that era were also explicitly engaged in queer activism, recognizing and responding to important intersections (and intersectional failures).
Notes
Although FAR was perhaps the most well known (or at least well remembered) of the lesbian-inclusive vegan feminists groups, it was certainly not the only one. In Britain, for instance, Lesbians for Animals’ Irreducible Rights surfaced in the late 1970s, bringing speciesism (vivisection, in particular) to the attention of the gay community through publications, leaflets, and participation in rallies (Adams and Gruen 2022).
References
Adams, C. and L. Gruen. 2022. “Ecofeminist Footsteps.” Pp. 1-43, Ecofeminism, C. Adams and L. Gruen (Eds.). London: Bloomsbury.
Bauman, B. 1990. “What is Loving Animals All About?.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 5 (3-4): 1.
Feminists for Animal Rights 1984c. “Gay Rodeo—A Sad Event.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 1 (1): 3.
Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists. 1991. “Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 6 (1-2): 4.
Kheel, M. 1984. “The Monkey Business Behind AIDS Research.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 1 (2): 4.
——. 1998. Untitled talk. Papers of Marti Kheel. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. Archive item sch01622c00397—MC962_4.17.
Post, L. 1993. “‘So, What Do You Eat’ and ‘What Do You Do (In Bed)?’.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 7 (3-4): 13.
Solomon, S. and R. Stone. 1999. “Taking Action in Boston.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 11 (1-2): 10.
Todd, B. 1991-1992. “AIDS & Animal Research: False Hope, Wasted Lives.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 6 (3-4): 1-9.
Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.
