I transformed a duck into soup.

I’d never killed an animal before. Well, not with my own hands. I had always outsourced my killing to other hands. Or machines.

So even though I didn’t want to kill the duck,—writhed with sobs in the dirt as I clutched the soft body and felt its fear, its fight, its desire to not die, and could only think, I’m scared to die too; I don’t want to do this to you—I realized that I had already done this, countless times. I had just chosen to keep those relationships unconscious. Chosen to hand-off the pain or grief or dissociation or reverence or disgust or numbness—or however each individual received the life-force energy of this being—to another nervous system. I existed in this moment because my ancestors had done this. My life was birthed and sustained through the sacrifice of other life—severing plants from their life system; building me from and within human flesh; giving energy to a job in order to obtain food and shelter for me and position me as advantageously as possible within the social world.

But this reflection didn’t come until mid-way through the death process. I chose to join this skill-share—two women teaching a circle of women how to transform a duck into soup—over the dozens of other skill-shares offered, on a whim. I didn’t think much about it. Before we began, the teachers asked us, “Why now?” There were curious adventurers, seeking a stronger connection to their wildness. There were farmers hoping to pick up tips on processing ducks. There were former-, current-, and potential- vegans, wanting to witness the reality of what it would mean to consume an animal. Some women brought their children, so they could decide too. All I could say was, “It just felt right.” Even that was overstating it. I grasped for something more profound-sounding, adding, “I’ve never been this close before.” Meaning, to the death process.

Which was a strange thing to say, looking back, because I’d almost died in a car accident the month prior. I’d forgotten... Why didn’t that occur to me to say? I hadn’t felt strong emotions after the crash; never cried or felt fear. While I was waiting for my car to stop spinning across the freeway, I felt dread. But I was responding to the uncertainty and lack of agency, not the fear of death directly. Almost the instant my car collided with the center median, and once I concluded that it didn’t hurt that much when my head slammed into the airbag, I felt relieved. Alert, slightly breathless, almost wondrous. It felt easier to laugh for a few days after that. Otherwise, nothing. My body must have been holding my fear unconsciously for me, because it released a lot in my dreams—constant night-terrors. Maybe my body was unconsciously drawn to the duck death skill-share to release more repressed death energy. Whatever the reason, it didn’t hit me, the gravity of what we were really doing, until I held the live duck in my arms.

Of the eight ducks to be eaten, my duck was the last to be captured. It sensed danger, and put up the strongest flight. The other ducks seemed calm in their captor’s arms, even as they could see and hear one of their own being cut in half. Mine kept fighting the whole time. It was the largest, the strongest, and the loudest. I sat in the dirt and encircled it with my whole body. My arms were gentle but impenetrable.

I collapsed into its fear. I cried out: I’m scared. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be in pain. My human brain added texture to these fears: I don’t want to end, to change, to live in the awareness of the impermanence of all things, for this form to be transformed into something else. I don’t know what that will be like. I’m scared of uncertainty. I don’t want my life to be out of my control.

Shame pushed me back into separation: I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I don’t want to harm you. I don’t want you to suffer and die. I don’t want to do this to you.

Then, my shame was guided into a perspective: You already have. Every time you ate meat, you passed this off to someone else. And if you want to continue eating meat, you must do this. This will happen, whether or not you chose to be in conscious awareness of the reality of it.

Finally, the predator spoke: I want to live just as much as you do. If it was between us, I would choose my own life. I stand by this.

With this discovery, my face fell forward into the duck in acute gratitude. My whole body painfully suffused with, thank you. I wept with mercy. I felt the sacrifices that had led to me, that lived within me. Of the plants and animals that sustained me. Of the energy of my parents and loved ones that sustained me.

My tears stopped, breathing slowed. My attention turned toward stewarding the duck out of this realm with as much dignity as possible. I held it close to my slow heartbeat. I did not try to soothe it. That would have felt empty; an indignity to the gravity of the sacrifice, and the magnitude of my ignorance. I don’t know what’s on the other side of this. I don’t know where I’m sending you. I don’t know how much it will hurt on the way there. Probably a lot. Of course you won’t stop fighting. Life is sacred. I know what I’m taking.

We’re last to kill our bird. I sing loudly into my partner, who wields the blade, while I steady the bird. I pour my strength and peace into her. She severs the head.

I kneel in the dirt, cradling the headless body. My partner is next to me, gently stroking the head with blood-stained hands. I feel the life continue to exist in the body. The feet kick. The neck stem turns. The warm mounds undulate. I watch the dying process for minutes, surprised by how much feeling, by how much movement, by how much of the body’s systems—do not require the head. I hold the body with reverence.

Toward the end, weak disgust seeps through the reverence: remembering that dying bodies will sometimes evacuate their bowels, I feel an urge to reposition the bird’s genitals away from me. I decide not to, because being peed on is a lot less unpleasant than having your head chopped off. And indeed, I soon feel the warmth of the duck’s bladder spreading across my leg.

I watch the spirit leave. Everything goes limp, and suddenly it feels like a dead body.

We dunk the body in scalding hot water to loosen the feathers. We tie them up by their feet and pluck out all the feathers, to be used by other skill-shares. It begins to rain.

Once plucked, the bird becomes food to my imagination. We are no longer killing a living being; now we are preparing food.

As my psychic frame shifts from the death process of ducks, to the life process of humans, I grow bored. I lose interest in the labor of sustaining my life. As we are about to start evisceration, I wander away. I strip off my clothes and bathe in the freezing river.

That night, the broth is being handed out around the campfire. I take a few sips. I feel the raw vitality—so literal, I am overcome with disgust. I gag as I try to finish the cup.

I bring a jar of cooked duck home. I serve myself a few mouthfuls. It tastes living. Having declined to witness its transformation into food, my throat opens to retch in rejection.

Perhaps it is the life process, not the death process, to which I am not accustomed to being so close.