What keeps us alive was alive before us.
Field Notes
Sometimes that is easy to see, as when one animal carries another. Other times it is easier to forget—in roots, leaves, grains, and fruit. But plants are living beings too, and none of us can live without receiving life from somewhere else.
The point is not that we are all predators. It is that eating places us in relationship with other lives. That relationship asks us to take only what we need, waste as little as possible, and receive what sustains us with respect.