“Nature has the answer to every question. The more we evolve, the more we can confirm that Nature’s products are actually healing and the gateway to a better life” – Zdeno Chara, NHL Legend Vegan.

Tonight is hockey night in Canada.

Drivers proudly display their NHL license plates as they speed home to scream at their televisions. Soon, across the country, millions of eyes will be following the same movement. A puck sliding across the ice.

When the season changes, they will collectively track a spherical object. A ball cracking off a bat or arcing towards a hoop or tiny hole.

Stadium crowds will erupt.
Stats will be tracked.
Championships hotly contested.

From youth, our attention has been carefully cultivated to follow these small objects with fierce devotion.

Meanwhile, beneath our feet, another ball is turning.

A blue and green one.

The living sphere that hosts every forest, every river, every bird in migration, every nest, den, and burrow, every child learning to walk across the dewy morning grass.

And this ball—our home—is now being placed on biodiversity-loss alert as we continue participating in normalized violence toward life itself. And yet distraction—not action—remains our dominant pursuit.

The oceans that regulate the breath of the Earth are warming, bottom-trawled of life and losing the fight. The forests that once inhaled our carbon are being cut far faster than they can grow back. The soils in which our food is grown are being eroded and sterilized, stripped of the microbial life that makes fertility possible. Soon we will have exhausted their ability to forgive.

Slowly, quietly, the vibrant blues and greens of this once vibrant ball are turning toward desertification gray.

And yet we remain mesmerized by smaller orbs and find meaning in lower stakes.

We watch the puck.
We watch the ball.

But, meanwhile, the only ball that truly matters struggles to breathe, struggles to keep all of her children alive and healthy.

This is not simply an environmental crisis. It is a crisis of attention—and of consciousness.

Because the same culture that distracts us with endless entertainment also normalizes a deep violence: the systematic exploitation of life itself.

Across the planet, billions of animals are born into systems designed not for relationship but for extraction. Mothers are turned into production units, and what they produce is turned into a commodity. Nowhere is this more visible—and invisible—than in the dairy industry.

The word dairy sounds so gentle. Pastoral. Comforting. But behind that misleading word is a simple biological truth: cow’s milk exists for baby cows. Just as a human mother’s milk is made for human infants, a mother cow’s milk is made for her calf.

And just as with humans, for cow’s milk to be produced, a mother must first become pregnant. This basic mammalian fact is often obscured by the fanciful notion that a cow is a natural milk factory, extravagantly turning the cheap input of grass—which we don’t eat—into a rich drink for our pleasure. One obvious implication of this fact (an implication which nonetheless often eludes us) is that for the milk to be collected and sold to humans, the calf—a mere by-product of the process—must be taken away.

This cycle of pregnancy and separation is the rhythm of an industry built on the breaking of the very mother-child bond it first forcibly creates.

The cries of calves calling for their mothers; mothers searching and bellowing for their young—these are part of the soundtrack of the system.

But dairy cows are only one category of victim, of course, targets of a much broader violence that includes not just farmed animals but wild animals, which are snared, trapped, hunted, or “culled”, their dependent cubs or pups or chicks dying slowly in dens and nests while awaiting mothers that never return. And the violence extends even to the forests, oceans, and other ecosystems these animals inhabit.

The most pernicious aspect of this violence is that it has been normalized and thereby made almost invisible.

We call forced confinement “raising”

We call forced separation “efficiency”

We call slaughter “processing”

In a system that allows the separation of animal mothers and offspring, many humans feel an increasing sense of loneliness and disconnection. This is not accidental. When a culture organizes itself around the exploitation of life, the emotional cost is not borne only by the animals.

Some of it seeps into the human psyche.

I see this beginning even in my own grandchildren.

They are beautiful, curious, compassionate beings, born with an instinctive love for and fascination with animals and the living world. Yet they are already being gently indoctrinated into the system. Trained to cheer for teams. To memorize scores. To track the movement of a puck or ball across a screen.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with teams. Humans love to gather. We can benefit from cooperation, shared purpose, the energy of moving together.

But I sometimes find myself wondering: What if we taught our children to root for a different kind of team?

Team Mama Earth.

What if the greatest goal our children grew up cheering for was the restoration of forests, the protection of oceans, the return of wildlife, the freedom of mothers and babies of all species to live out their natural lives?

What if children learned that every compassionate food choice, every tree planted, every river protected was a point scored for the living planet?

What if the greatest victory wasn’t defeating an opponent but healing the only home we all share?

The work of awakening—or, rather, preventing sleep—begins in the hearts and minds of our children. The lyrics of an old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song echo in my mind when I think about this moment in history: “Teach your children well… their father’s hell did slowly go by.” It reminds us that each generation inherits the damage caused by those who came before it—the effects of systems created without a full understanding of their true costs.

But the song also carries hope.

That children might grow beyond the limitations of their parents.
That they might see more clearly.
That they might choose compassion where we once chose convenience.

Our grandchildren are not only watching the games we watch; they are watching us.
They are learning to celebrate what we celebrate. To normalize what we normalize.
They are learning what to value and protect—and what to ignore.

This is why reconnecting them with the living world is so urgent.

As Richard Louv writes in Last Child in the Woods:

“Time in nature is not leisure time; it is an essential investment in our children’s health.”

“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.”

Louv’s research shows that children deprived of daily contact with forests, soil, rivers, and wildlife face increased risks of anxiety and depression, reduced attention, lower creativity, weaker physical health, and diminished emotional connection to the living world.

Nature is not an optional activity, like hockey, baseball, or soccer. It is essential to the development of a healthy mind, a compassionate heart, and a fully connected human being.

The good news is that awakening is happening. Around the world, people are beginning to look up from the endless cycle of distraction and see the larger picture. They are recognizing that the real crisis is not just climate or biodiversity loss—it is the loss of our sense of connection to life.

And they are responding.

Families are choosing plant-based foods that nourish the body without separating mothers from babies. Farmers are regenerating soil and restoring ecosystems. Communities are protecting forests and watersheds. Grandmothers are teaching children that compassion does not stop at the human species.

It is the beginning of a profound cultural shift, a movement away from normalized violence and toward sacred relationship. Away from exploitation and toward stewardship. Away from separation and toward belonging.

When humanity has fully awakened, our focus will have changed. The small games will still exist. People will still gather to play and celebrate. But our gaze will rise above the rink and playing field, above the scoreboard and the stadium lights. From a vantage point above our petty contests, we will see the great blue and green ball spinning in space—the home of Team Earth.

Because the only victory that truly matters is the healing of our shared planet, and the only championship worth celebrating is the triumph of life itself.

On April 6^th, we shared the following video, created by Ray Kowalchuk, at the Charter of Compassion’s Golden-Rule-Day virtual gathering. Please feel free to share it widely.

https://youtu.be/WDOs-P27Nzg

International Calf and Cow Mothers Day 2026

May 9–10

A global invitation to remember, to grieve, to tell the truth—and to take creative action to protect the mother-child bonds that make milk sacred.

Please join us at the upcoming Climate Healers Convergence on April 25-26 as we prepare for International Calf and Cow Mother’s Day 2026. Help us launch this inaugural event whose goal is widening the circle of compassion to include the mothers (and children) of all species.

With reverence and resolve,

Tami Hay & Paul Papin,

for the Million Vegan Grandmothers
Happy International Calf and Cow Mother’s Day
May this be the first of many!