Click here to return to At Ease Natural Scents Web Site - Making A Difference In the summer of 2007 I was sorting through an accumulation of horse stuff that I had been collecting for several years. Anyone that has ever owned a horse knows how tedious of a task this can be. I came across three bottles of a horse massage liniment that I had bought but had never used. I decided to take them out to the barn and use them up as there was no expiry on the bottles.     Jimmy Running Away From Questionable Liniment     The next day I brought my horse in from the field with the intention of giving him a massage that would include the use of this liniment. As I often do, I brought my horse into the arena, took off his halter and initiated the massage. Everything was going as well as usual until I started to massage in the liniment. Shortly after its application Jimmy started to fidget around a bit. This fidgeting turned into a complete evasion as the horse ultimately trotted away from me. When I would get close enough to apply the liniment on him he would quickly face me so I was not able to make contact with his body and then run off again. I finally realized that it must have been the liniment that was bothering him. I decided to see if the bottle had a list of ingredients to help me determine what was causing this reaction. I read the back of the bottle and I came across a starting note which read “Not to be applied on horses to be used for food consumption!” This absolutely floored me! Many thoughts crossed my mind as to how one could possibly eat a horse. I looked into the eyes of my horse, my best friend and I could feel the pain of all those of his kind that had gone down the brutal road to the slaughter house for this purpose. I also was once again shown the power of the horse and their intuitiveness when it comes to reading energy. I have honestly never had a better teacher!  Having recently educated myself within this industry Iknow that many of the horses used for food consumption have been poisoned during their lives with the administering of antibiotics, hormone injections, vaccinations, chemical pastes and all other kinds of medications to keep a sore horse “sound and serviceable”. This treatment also includes cows and many other animals as well that are used for food consumption. An interesting thought to ponder here is that “we are what we eat”. When we bite into a fancy steak or however else the meat is prepared, the environment from which this animal has come from now becomes a part of us!  I am not writing this for the purpose of converting anyone to a vegetarian diet however I want to share with you the inhumane way of how we are treating our animals that we do use forfood consumption and ultimately the effects that it has on our bodies when we consume these toxic (inorganic) products. An interesting parallel to this story goes back to a day in January, 2006. My horse had shown colic symptoms early one morning and luckily it did not become a more serious problem. It was time to do the regular chemical de-worming for all the horses at the barn but I had to decline this as my concern for causing more harm to my horse became more important. I decided to research natural herbal de-wormers. The horse did very well with this natural treatment as fecal samples were coming back clean from the lab however one day in the fall a sample came back and tested positive for a certain parasite. It was recommended at this time to use a strong chemical de-wormer to clean out the infection. I did not want to do this as we had done so well the natural way so my research here was obviously not yet done. I ultimately hired an equine health care practitioner to train me on how to use a new physiotherapy machine that would enhance my massage work. All was going well with the treatment I was doing on my horse when I noticed the practitioner open up a brief case and then selected several small bottles from it. She opened one up and started to drip melaleuca oil on her hand. As I was asking myself where she was going to apply the oil she walked up to my horse, allowed him to sniff it and before I new it he was licking it straight off her hand! When she walked away he obviously wanted more as he leaned so heavily on the crossties to follow her they nearly snapped from the pressure he put on them! Jimmy licked off her hand this day between 25 and 30 drops of this oil! I understood very quickly that he was self medicating himself. I also noticed that his spirit picked up remarkably after taking the melaleuca oil. Jimmy Saying No To Toxic Substances The following day I went back out to the farm to check in and see how Jimmy was doing. Thinking I was so smart because I knew what my horse wanted I put six drops of melaleuca oil in the palm of my hand and put it up to his nose to sniff. Well, his head went up in the air three feet and it wasn’t coming down anytime soon! I finally read this as a big “No Thank You!” I had brought along some others oils and to my amazement the first oil I offered him, spearmint, was delightfully licked off my hand! He proceeded to consume around 15-20 drops. Over the next couple of weeks he wanted more of the spearmint until one day finally he didn’t want it any longer. I then offered him peppermint oil and again, but only for a few days he self-medicated himself with this oil (all of these oils are good for digestive ailments and parasites etc). I tested other oils on him after this but he did not want any. What I find most interesting about this story is how the horse knew intuitively (or at least it seemed so) which oils his body needed to help him deal with a parasitic issue and also how he knew to reject something as toxic as this horse liniment was. Since this time I have used these same essential oils extensively with excellent results for both my horse and myself. I will only use 100% pure therapeutic grade essentials as they have no synthetic components to them which alters their effectiveness. These oils work deeply and down to the cellular level. Incidentally, Jimmy presents himself to be totally healthy from the inside and out today. He did suffer a nasty kick above the stifle joint this past spring but with lots of massage, essential oils, other therapies I provide (and losing a few extra pounds!) I have found the healing process has been tremendous. My horse also has become much more resistant to parasitic infections due to a natural diet which includes some supplementation, regular herbal de-wormers and of course his essential oils! Global Warming Another note to be made while on the topic of Food For Thought is not only the impact animals in feed lots suffer and the impact this kind of food consumption can have on our health, but the effect that the meat production industry has on our environment. Brendan Brazier, author of the book The Thrive Diet says that “The production of animal-based foods uses a huge amount of resources and an incredible amount of energy from fossil fuel to produce. Food production and its transportation is the No. 1 draw on fossil fuel, (making it) the greatest contributor to artificial global warming. The energy used in producing and distributing food accounts for roughly 60 percent of the total energy North Americans produce. Of that 60 percent, 85 percent is generated from the burning of fossil fuels-coal, oil and natural gas. The production, processing and delivery of food has a tremendous impact on our environment greater than any other industry”. Finding a solution to rectify this is not easy for a problem as vast as this. One thing we can do to help support and even rebuild parts of our planet is to not support corporations that practice poor environmental policies such as unsustainable and inefficient land use and the use of toxic herbicides and pesticides. Today, if we do some research we will find that there are now smaller, environmentally conscious companies that are taking steps to clean up and put into practice a more sustainable, environmentally friendly way of producing food products and other consumer goods. Protect The Earth I do not think that it is a moment too late for us the consumers, to pick up the ball and make better and more educated choices about where we are spending our money and for which industries we are supporting. Our planet will thank us for it!   Click here to return to At Ease Natural Scents Web Site - Making A Difference