a conversation with Rae Sikora

While transcribing this interview, I was struck again and again with what incredible good fortune the vegan movement has in counting Rae Sikora among its advocates. Though many people may not recognize her name, Rae, as a pioneer in the field of humane education, has influenced thousands of people by showing through example how to live an honest, joyful, and compassionate life. She is a masterful communicator whether she's in front of an auditorium full of individuals or just one-on-on with a fellow activist. She exudes an infectious, passionate love for the other lives around her, whether they are people, groundhogs, or anything in between. Never didactic or patronizing, as an educator Rae instructs by asking questions and listening; one gets the sense that she genuinely understands that she, the teacher, also has something to learn. Her thirst for knowledge cannot be satieted; her openness is a truly rare gift. I feel that her approach to education is wildly bold and revolutionary yet rooted in a wonderful earthiness. In short, I think she's a phenomenon.

I first met Rae and her equally impressive partner Zoe Weil when John and I attended a workshop at the Center for Compassionate Living in Surry, Maine. CCL, which doubles as the Weil family homestead, is located on 28 gorgeous acres surrounded by ocean, meadows, woods and mountains. Through CCL, which was co-founded by Rae and Zoe, the first humane education certification program in the U.S. was born, and they also offer "Compassionate Living" and empowerment workshops. In subtle yet courageous ways throughout the weekend workshop we were part of, attendees participated in activities designed to help us reconnect with nature alongside Rae and Zoe. The workshop was not at all what I expected it to be, but was every bit as marvelous as I'd hoped. John and I went to Maine hoping to relax and detoxify from our fast-paced lives; we left Maine with the seeds of Vegan Street firmly planted. After spending just a couple days at CCL, basking in the collective joy that comes from doing what one loves, we had the courage to let our dream awaken and take root.

There's so much to learn from Rae about compassion, love and honesty. Most of all, though, I think Rae what has teach us is about gently challenging ourselves to evolve and grow so that we can come closer and closer to what we aspire to be. Although this is a long interview (even after being edited for length), I hope you have the patience to read it in its entirety so you can draw inspiration from Rae's wise words and insights, just as I have. I'll treasure her accessibility, strength, and deeply rooted compassion always. I hope you all have the opportunity to do the same.

I ended up turning to the woman in the leather shop and I said, "No, I don't eat meat," and my friend looked at me like I was crazy because I had just eaten this hot dog. My friend and I got outside of the leather store and she said, "Why did you lie to that woman?" I said, "I didn't lie to her; I will never eat meat again."

Marla Rose: First of all, do you think that you could explain a little bit about your background, and how you first became aware of animal and environmental issues.

Rae Sikora: I think that's an interesting question to ask anybody, because a lot of people will say it was when they first became a vegetarian. But I always think that it starts the first time a person has an awareness outside of the human experience. I think that for me the path my life has taken probably began when I was five years old. I was terrified of all animals, every single animal - dogs, cats, squirrels.

MR: Was this fear instilled in you in some way?

RS: I don't think so because no one else in my family was like that. I'd see a dog on the street two blocks away, and I'd be in the house for the rest of the day. My dad, when I was five-years-old said, "Enough!" because this fear stopped me from doing a lot of things and enjoying my life. Well, he came home from work one day, and he had stopped at the animal shelter, and he had this puppy. She was a sweet little mutt, and I was terrified of her. My dad said, "You are going to sit every night for an hour with this puppy on your lap." And I'd sit with this puppy on my lap and I'd press my back against the wall so I could get as far away from her as possible because I was just terrified. But, I just gradually started to change - this puppy changed me - and she became my best friend. Her name was Sandy, and she went everywhere with me. I went from having this fear to having this incredible connection.

MR: Was it just time that made you cross that line?

RS: Yes. She made me see that I had nothing to fear from her, and that she was just as vulnerable as I was. She gave love without conditions like I had never experienced and we became inseparable. My father actually thought that he'd created a monster (laughing). Things just evolved and grew, and evolved and grew for me. I started finding wounded animals that had been hit by cars, and I'd bring them home. I started doing my own little rehab station in the family garage.

MR: I think that a lot of people in animal rights now have a similar background. We start out with familiar animals, like dogs and cats, and really connect with them. The other animals are just other animals, so I think a lot of people start their affection and love for animals in a similar way that you did.

RS: Yeah, it's this evolution. It's easy to start when they're your family, and for me, that was even a leap.

MR: Were your parents supportive of the rehab center in the garage?

RS: They were, I mean, they had created the situation (laughing). What could they do? They thought, of course, that I got carried away with it, that there were certain animals you shouldn't bring home. And so I started saying, "Well, how do you decide which ones you bring home and which ones you don't?" Now all this time I'm still eating meat, mind you. I was living in a family where we'd eat tongue, hot dogs, hamburgers, I mean a real meat-eatiing family. I never made the connection while I was eating Canadian bacon for breakfast. I never made the connection of tongue to a body part.

MR: Well, there's just such a disconnect.

RS: A total disconnect - I mean, we called it tongue and I never connected it with my own tongue. It was just a fancy name for something we put on sandwiches.

MR: Right. A lot of people are just fundamentally duped.

RS: It changed for me when I was fifteen, and I was with a friend in Chicago, actually. We walked into a leather shop; I was still eating meat...I had just had a Vienna Red Hot hot dog in Chicago with the works. But still, when we walked into this leather shop I said to my friend, "Don't buy that, it's dead animals," and the woman behind the counter said to me in a way that really wasn't accusing, "Oh, do you eat meat?" And my first thought, because I'd never made the connection, was that there was no connection. My first thought was, "She's nuts." But I stopped myself for a second before I answered her, and suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks - "Oh my God, what I'm eating is animals."

MR: Isn't it weird how obvious it should be to us?

RS: It should be, but after fifteen years of life, it just finally clicked for me. I probably needed those fifteen years for the seeds to be planted. I think it's sort of a cultural hypnosis, and I was just one of the hypnotized people for whom meat was just meat. You never know when someone's on the edge of coming out of that hypnosis.

MR: Right. That's why we have to be patient and open to people.

RS: Yes. It's taught me a lot. Anyone you talk to could be right on the verge of becoming a vegetarian or vegan, and you don't know. We should treat everyone as if they have this core of compassion. So anyway, I ended up turning to the woman in the leather shop and I said, "No, I don't eat meat," and my friend looked at me like I was crazy because I had just eaten this hot dog. My friend and I got outside of the leather store and she said, "Why did you lie to that woman?" I said, "I didn't lie to her; I will never eat meat again."

MR: You were just flooded with reality.

RS: It was instantaneous, like: "This is the truth."

MR: So you didn't even feel like you'd been a hypocrite because it was the first time you'd identified what meat really was.

RS: Yeah. I remember being shocked that I had never made the connection before.

MR: It's funny, because I also became a vegetarian at fifteen, and people will always say, "Wow - that's so young." And I just think, "God, why did it take fifteen years! That's so long."

RS: I know. People say the same thing to me and I think, "For fifteen years I was eating my friends."

MR: It's so ingrained and accepted that it's just a way of life...We don't even question what it is.

Nobody's shocked that they can't drive down the road, stop, dip their cup in a river and drink. To us it's normal now that we don't dare drink the water around us. That's normal now, but 500 years ago, if you had told someone that they couldn't drink the water, they would have said, "What are you talking about?!? Of course I can drink it.

RS: Exactly. I think then my activism just evolved from there. I was thinking about all different animal issues, all different environmental issues. Then I couldn't help it, and I expanded it to all issues: I looked at the connections between human rights and human health, our choices about the environment and other species. For some reason throughout history we have thought that the environment and human interests are separate. There are things that happen over time, and we just get used to them; we don't notice how shocking they are. Like right now, it's not shocking to people that there are childrens' cancer centers all over the country.

MR: Our obesity rate is mind-boggling, yet we have more diet pills and supposed remedies than you can imagine.

RS: And none of that is shocking to people because over time you get used to it.

MR: It becomes the norm.

RS: Yes, and nobody's shocked that they can't drive down the road, stop, dip their cup in a river and drink. To us it's normal now that we don't dare drink the water around us. That's normal now, but 500 years ago, if you had told someone that they couldn't drink the water, they would have said, "What are you talking about?!? Of course I can drink it." There's this natural human inclination to just believe that everything's a-okay. This is a very inhumane analogy, but it's kind of like the frog and the boiling water: if you take a frog and you put him in cold water, and you slowly bring it to a boil, he'll stay there and he'll boil to death, but if you throw this frog into a pot of boiling water, he'll leap right out. It's similar with people.

MR: That's a great analogy; as the temperature is slowing being raised, we don't notice because we become acclimated to it.

RS: To me, if you look at all of human history, it's happening very quickly. But in people lives, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like it's very, very slow. Slow enough that people are not panicked. It's not a crisis situation because we're too used to it.

MR: Yes, and there are a couple of factors that add to this feeling: For one thing, we live in such a fast-paced world, we have such short attention-spans that if something doesn't happen instantaneously, it's difficult for many of us to notice it. Another thing that I wanted to comment on was when you were saying that a lot of people accept things as they are because they think everything's a-okay...That's true, but there are also a lot of people who don't do anything because they think that the situation's helpless.

RS: That is true; we become immobilized.

MR: How do you advise one to get beyond the point of stagnancy because he or she is so overwhelmed by the weight of it?

RS: Well, I have my own way of doing this. I think about what motivates me to want to know more. I'm just like everyone else, though. I have a part of me that doesn't want to know any more; I have my limits where I think, "Please don't tell me anymore. It's too ugly." We all have that. My motivation, though, comes from me being completely in love with this planet, and every piece of life on this planet. The people who are the most motivated are the ones who are in love with this planet, who are in love with the life forms on this planet. There are times when I've given up, though. There was a time after I'd been doing humane education for a while and I was flying all over the place, and I felt like: "Enough. I'm tired, I'm burned-out, we're not making any headway." This is typical: you look at how far you have to go, not how far you've come.

MR: That's true.

RS: I was flying to Monterey to a workshop that I was leading there and I thought: This is my last workshop. This was four years ago. Anyway, I went to Monterey, and I was a runner then, and I went running in the morning along the ocean, but I couldn't get to the ocean because it was all private land, you know, fences and shrubs. Finally, all the private land ended, so I ran immediately down toward the ocean, and I ran out to this rock out-cropping that was very low to the water; the water was lapping up right on the edge of it. I crouched down and I was just feeling the water. Suddenly I looked down at this clump of kelp, and this log in the kelp. And I looked closer and I realized that this was no log: this was an otter. I thought that he was dead, and then I decided that maybe he was sleeping. I said, "If you're sleeping, prove it." And then this little eye opened up and looked at me, and then the other eye opened up and looked at me. Then I remembered that otters roll themselves up in kelp to keep from drifting out to sea when they're sleeping. She was about 8 inches from me, just right there. And she unrolled herself from the kelp and for the next thirty minutes, she kept diving for urchins, coming up right next to me and eating. I fell completely and totally in love with her. I looked at her, and I had tears in my eyes, and I said: "I got the message. I've got it. I can't quit doing this work." My motivation comes from the beauty that's still here. It's not hopeless. I don't want to look back and think that I didn't do everything that I could. What I've had to do since then is say, "Okay, Sikora, you know what keeps you motivated and feeds your spirit." If I work too much and I don't get outdoors, if I don't go backpacking, kayaking, swimming, I will quit this work, because I won't be reminded of why I do this work, and reconnecting with what I love.

My motivation comes from the beauty that's still here. It's not hopeless. I don't want to look back and think that I didn't do everything that I could.

MR: Something that you and Zoe stress a lot in your workshops and in your basic philosophy is that if you aren't in love with the planet, if you don't spend enough time outdoors appreciating nature, you won't want to protect it.

RS: You don't take care of who or what you don't love.

MR: And we may think that we love nature in an abstract, detached kind of way. I know that one of the things that you like to ask people is if they had only 24 hours to live, what would they do; who would they spend it with, where would they spend it. We should strive to live our lives as though we have a limited amount of time.

RS: Yes, because we do. We don't know how long we have. I know that if I found out that I only had 24 more hours to live, that humane education would be the work I'd be doing. There are so many people who wouldn't be doing what they're currently doing.

MR: These are really good questions to ask oneself, because I think we get stuck in rigid ways of thinking and living.

RS: We all need to live more in line with what we care about. How many people spend most of their days doing things that they don't care about? A lot of times I'll ask these questions when church groups ask me to come, which I really like because it's not preaching to the choir -

MR: It's a whole different choir.

RS: That's right (laughing). Most of them are not savvy to the same issues that we would be. Sometimes I'll just ask the question: who or what do you care about? I list it on the board, everything they say. Then I say, "Okay, for the next hour we're going to try to determine if your lives truly reflect what you say you care about." They say the earth, they say the animals, they say their families. Then I tell them that I want to talk about some things that they may or may not do that have a positive effect, and some that have a negative effect on the things that they say they care about. Many people's choices and lifestyles don't reflect what they say are their values. I mean, look at you, Marla: you've taken some leaps in where your energy goes, where your attention goes, where your money goes.

MR: It's become this holistic approach: my work reflects my life and vice versa. It's something I've cultivated over time, and obviously something that you have too. A lot of people compartmentalize themselves: this is my work and this is my life and this is what I eat and this is who I am.

RS: People have very different definitions of wealth and success. In my definition, I am a millionaire. I get to choose what I do with a lot of my time...I hike up the mountain with my dogs every day in the afternoon.

MR: You live very closely to what your ideal is.

RS: Yes, which is so wonderful. And it's not that I don't work my butt off for CCL: I get up every morning and I'm working it. But for two hours every afternoon, I am out of there: I am hiking or I'm swimming or I'm kayaking. There is also a wealth I gain from doing something I feel passionate about - there's no question about what I'm contributing with my time. With my definition, I am a success.

MR: It's very much a construct of the industrial world is that success is gauged by the material possessions we have gained through our work. We don't usually question that definition. How have you begun to get over the guilt that one feels when he or she thinks that they're not being "productive" as defined by our society. There are people who would consider hiking or kayaking for two hours to be slacking off.

RS: I used to have a lot of guilt, and I got into trouble with it. The guilt started to make me question: How dare I take the time to do things that feed my spirit when there's so much suffering going on? I can't take a minute out of my day to do something as frivolous as hike, make a really nice meal and sit down to it. There was an intense amount of guilt. I was constantly aware every minute: Oh, I'm enjoying this, but while I'm enjoying this there are so many animals suffering. I would look at my dogs and think: "Okay, I'm enjoying them, but how many dogs are suffering? I need to get back to work."

MR: How did you start to work through this guilt?
Every year I do a ten-day silent meditation course. A lot of people would say that this is about as unproductive as you can get. I know that for me, it's been the most productive thing, because it's helped me be a thousand times more effective with the work that I do. It's allowed me to keep loving in the face of a lot of pain.

RS: I think that it changed for me, because with that guilt I ended up getting very out of balance. I never said no to anything; I was completely fried. Do you know how many people I knew who were the most creative, amazing workers for animals and the environment who got completely fried, and you never hear from them again. They don't resurface. I think that productivity and how we define it is a really interesting thing to look at and try to understand. Every year I do a ten-day silent meditation course. It's very, very difficult. From 4:30 am until 9:30 pm, no eye contact, no body language, no communication with anyone, and you meditate all day. A lot of people would say that this is about as unproductive as you can get. I know that for me, it's been the most productive thing. Meditation has been very productive for me, because it's helped me be a thousand times more effective with the work that I do. It's allowed me to keep loving in the face of a lot of pain.

MR: These steps that we take that may seem unproductive or selfish make us into better activists, better educators, better people. People don't value it because they don't see the actual results.

RS: What meditation does for me, you can't even put a price on. It helps me realize that everything's always changing. There's much more than what we see here, there's so much that we have no control over.

MR: One thing that meditation really teaches is that in our daily lives we often strive for is a sense of solidness, a feeling that we fully perceive how the world is.

RS: This is the way that the world will stay.

MR: Meditation teaches us how illusory everything is.

RS: The issues that we work on are heavy and they're dark. We look at the darkest side of human behavior in our work. You have chosen to do something where you bring really wonderful humor into it, and creativity and art. These things are going to make our movement blast forward.

MR: Thank you.

RS: You show the alternative way of life and you bring so much joy into it. That's a very attractive thing to a lot of people.

MR: Thank you so much. What we're trying to do is not gloss over the reality, but instead we focus on creating this alternate world where what we believe is already fully accepted. We're not going to fight and argue because it's the most natural thing in the world. It's not questioned. We're trying to push this into the world-wide vernacular.

RS: You're not off in the fringe.

MR: I have no problem with people who live more in the fringe, and I think that we should always have a fringe movement pushing us forward. We always have to be aware of including as many people as we can, though.

RS: Absolutely. I think of it as community on so many levels. What we're asking people to do is see themselves as part of a community. One thing that the people in this movement have to understand is to make others feel as though it's possible to be a part of this compassionate community. It shouldn't be set up so people think, "Oh, that's just for those other people. I think they were born that way."

MR: I'd like to talk a little bit more about the vegan and animal rights community and divisiveness. One thing that I've noticed in any political or activist community that I've been a part of is that this exists. One side says that the other side is too radical, the other side says that the first side is too conservative and appeals too much to the mainstream. How do we begin to start to work with each other?

RS: I think that it's happening; I think that our movement's changing. I've noticed it. There used to be more nit-picking. I used to think that this movement was a battle of egos. I see less and less of that.

MR: I think that those people get weeded out.

RS: I think so too, because who wants to work with those people?

MR: There have been different activists that I've questioned the motives of: Is it an ego thing? Is it about self-promotion? If they care about different species, why would they alienate so many people who could help them?

RS: We have to be able to accept each other for where we're at. There are people whose only issue is companion animal overpopulation. Okay, so many of them are not vegetarian or vegan, but they're having a very positive impact in one arena. How do you open their minds to the possibility that in their personal lives they could look at their lifestyle choices? You don't do it by telling them that they're not doing enough, but by befriending them and telling them how thrilled you are by what they're contributing. That makes them more open to looking at their friend who's a vegan, and it makes them more curious about it.

One thing that the people in this movement have to understand is to make others feel as though it's possible to be a part of this compassionate community. It shouldn't be set up so people think, "Oh, that's just for those other people. I think they were born that way."

MR: It's so important that we remember to be compassionate to each other, and to ourselves.

RS: It's very important.

MR: I'd like to talk to you just a little bit more about nonviolence, because that's really something you've championed in this movement, back when it really wasn't quite as popular as it is now. The inclusiveness that you've noticed in the movement is directly related to the nonviolence work of activists. Can you talk a bit about how you came to the conclusion that nonviolence was the most successful way for you to approach things?

RS: It was just a feeling that if someone has a core of compassion in them, which I believe everyone does, that the core of compassion can be expressed in all forms of nonviolence. It's logical to include all life forms when trying to live a nonviolent life. We're all harmed by unnecessary violence that's around us.

MR: Was there something pivotal that started you on this path? Was it something you read, or was it an instinct you had? We're there people you met at an important time in your life?

RS: I think that I experienced a lot of violence growing up; I grew up Jewish in an anti-Semitic community. I was regularly beaten to a pulp. My hair would be pulled out, buttons would be missing.

MR: That's awful. It was probably formative in your compassion for the underdog.

RS: Yes, I think it was.

MR: What do you think about the direction within the animal rights movement of more "violent" actions, like trashing laboratories or throwing pies?

RS: This is my personal perspective - it's not a CCL answer: If I were living during the Holocaust, what means would I use in order to stop the violence and stop the suffering and pain? I think I'd do just about anything to stop the violence, short of more violence toward another living being. I don't think I'd shoot people, but I'm just about positive is that what I'd do is I'd destroy property and do whatever I could to expose the reality. It's not the form of activism that I've chosen. I know that a lot of people say that it does more harm than good, and I would never condone hurting one living being to save another living being, but I actually think that the people who put their lives on the line and do what you were talking about are heroes. It's really a hard life; these activists often give up basic freedoms. Even though it's not my form of activism, I think that we need to have all the forms of activism.

MR: Exactly.

RS: That's how things changed in Germany: it wasn't because everybody said: "Okay, we're going to take the educational approach, or we're going to take the more aggressive approach." We need to be diverse.

MR: I agree. I think we need diversity to keep things dynamic. Different approaches work for different people.

RS: You might alienate people with a break-in lab action, but an equal amount of people might say, "Yes!" I use footage all the time that brave people got by breaking into places, like the film "Unnecessary Fuss" [PETA's video]. I want the freedom to do my kind of activism, and I want others to have their freedom too.

MR: I think we should remember the more quiet heroes too. People like Betty Smith in Oklahoma who became a vegetarian a year ago and is trying to start a potluck in her town.

RS: Yes, she's a hero too. I think you're right. We all have the potential to be heroes for a movement that values life. I define a hero as a a person who takes a leap of heart and a leap of faith and a leap of courage; it's made from the motivation of love.

MR: That's definitive for me, what you just said - a hero is someone who's motivated by love and compassion.

RS: It's often a gamble, but that's why we're here.

MR: Thanks so much, Rae.

RS: Thank you.

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