By Sharon Gannon

 My own journey to becoming a vegan, animal rights activist yoga teacher began when I was three years old. I lived in Florida with my mother, father, little brother, and friend, Mrs. Goose. My parents referred to Mrs. Goose as my “imaginary friend.” I did not know what that meant at the time. In my mind, Mrs. Goose was a goose only a few inches taller than I was. We all lived in a big rented house at the edge of the Everglade Forest.

One day as we were returning home from the grocery store, Mrs. Goose and I ran out of the car. We wanted to race each other to the front door. As we ran, we both spotted something colorful lying on the stone porch steps. Mrs. Goose told me to slow down and be very quiet. She waddled closer to take a look, then told me to approach quietly. As I got closer, the shiny black, red, and yellow being who was lying on the steps, bathing in the sun, opened her eyes wide to look at us. I had never seen such a creature. She lifted her head to speak. She spoke in such a low whisper that I had to lean down very near to her face to hear her.

I leaned down, and she was just about to tell me some-thing when I heard my mother screaming behind me. My mother came quickly, pushed Mrs. Goose out of the way, and grabbed me. My dad came running with a crowbar and hit the shiny lady, breaking her back. I heard her scream, and I tried to get free from my mother to run and help her. Mrs. Goose was doing her best by flapping her wings, squawking, and trying to interfere. My dad hit the lady again, this time breaking her body into two pieces. My mother let me go. I ran to see the beautiful shiny creature lying lifeless in the sun, one eye still gleaming open, looking at me. As the wind moved through the cypress trees, I heard her whisper, “Why?”

Without intending to, I had caused the death of a beautiful coral snake, minding her own business, sunning herself. I realized that I had the power to influence the actions of other people, for better or for worse, and I had better be careful.

I went to a Catholic school from first to sixth grade. Every morning, the day began with a catechism lesson. In first grade, we learned the Ten Commandments. The day that we learned Thou shalt not kill, I came home from school and was excited to tell my mother that we aren’t supposed to kill. She was fixing a dish for dinner she called “peasant stew,” which had cut-up hot dogs in it. I knew that hamburgers and hot dogs were animals who were killed so that we could eat them, so I was very excited to tell her the news. She responded: “Don’t worry. It’s okay that we kill these animals because they are raised for it.” I went off by myself to think about this statement.

I felt very confused. I had only recently heard the story of Hansel and Gretel and the witch who fattens them up, intending to pop them in the oven and eat them for dinner. I felt bewildered, angry, and disturbed that my mother did not see the connection. I felt even more disturbed because I wasn’t able to communicate to her that there seemed to be something very wrong with what we were doing. I realized that if my mother was going to change her behavior, I had to be able to communicate to her in a way that did not make her angry, and  for that to happen, I couldn’t be angry myself. I had to find a better way.

Years later, in 1982, while living in Seattle, Washington, as a dancer, poet, musician, and painter, I went to see The Animals Film — a British documentary that probed into the relationship between human beings and animals. I went because the soundtrack was by Robert Wyatt, a musician whom I admired. Academy Award-winning actress Julie Christie also narrated the film.

Those two hours and twenty minutes in the movie theater altered my life like no other single incident. The film exposed the cruel, exploitative, and inhumane way that we human beings treat animals. The film explored the use of animals as entertainment (from stuffed toys to pets), as food, as providers of clothing, and as victims of military and “scientific” research. It ended with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) rescuing animals from a laboratory. The movie caused me to radically rethink art, the purpose of the artist, and what I was doing with my life. If I wasn’t contributing to stopping the insanity I saw depicted in this film, what was the value in what I was doing?