Bearing Witness
What does it mean to ‘bear’? While there are nuanced meanings to this verb, the first thing that comes to my mind is to hold or carry the weight of something. This could be literal, but for me it elicits more of an emotional feeling of heft or importance, dealing with something difficult in an enduring way. ‘Bearing’ a burden, being able to ‘bear’ a situation, ‘bearing’ of responsibility. All of these examples lead me to what I want to dive deeper into today, which is the act of bearing witness.
Perhaps you have heard of it, perhaps not, but bearing witness is a very real practice. An undertaking that can invoke a sense of interconnectedness, of perceiving a situation as it truly is, without preconceived beliefs or ideas clouding the experience. It is human nature to see everything through the lens of our conditioned thinking, but when we start to shift to this practice of bearing witness, we suspend the churning of our analytical brain and move to a space of presence and acute awareness of what is happening around us. This bearing takes ability, willingness, and knowledge enough to simply begin.
This of course begs the question: “So?! Why do it? What are the benefits of bearing witness?
On a personal level, it unlocks us from our conditioned ways of thinking and allows us to connect with a place of real, and true empathy. Rather than simply observing the situation, we can become the situation. We allow ourselves to become intimate with whatever it is we are seeing… be it hunger, poverty, disease, or suffering… it invokes a sense of oneness, of direct connection to an ‘other’, a realization that suffering of any kind impacts us all in a real way. On a societal level, it opens our eyes to clearly see the entire web of causes and conditions that exist to create the exact situation you are bearing witness to, and then the hope is, that it motivates us to take effective action to improve the situation.
I know a lot about the Horse Industry. I have read it all, watched countless videos, followed along as other rescues have gone to auctions and hoarding cases and even illegal slaughterhouses in the middle of Florida. I have talked to people about the realities encountered on the ground and it is tough to hear, watch, and think about even secondhand. And of course, being an empath, I can feel the pain and fear and sadness deep in my heart. But there is nothing like seeing something firsthand. Experiencing a situation in person, in real-time, and in the moment is a truly unique experience, a means to drive home a point in a way only being on-site has the ability to provide.
In the context of Rescue Ranchito and myself, the practice of bearing witness is to be present, physically and mentally, in an effort to acknowledge something exists, and to what extent it still persists. It is to embrace the suffering we often encounter by way of third party, but instead live it first hand. I believe if I am to truthfully and accurately tell the stories of our Rescue Ranchito Residents, all our future equine intakes, as well as speak to the Horse Industry at large, I need to see what is going on with my own two eyes, feel all of it with my own feet on the ground. This will not be easy, but one of the reasons I started this rescue was because I was called upon to move beyond my comfort zone, to take part in a radical act of shining a light on the truth, experiencing it, and then translating that truth back out to all of you.
We have all heard the Maya Angelou quote: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” I would imagine that rings true for many of us. I know in our hearts of hearts we all want to lead lives in which we are always striving to be the best versions of ourselves. For our kids, our spouses, our friends. And hopefully on an even grander scale, for others, for our collective consciousness. I believe this to be a vital mindset. To begin to think outside of yourself, to think of the impacts your actions have on the world around you. And so much of that starts with knowing. There is no excuse to ignore any sort of suffering, of turning a blind eye, of pretending it doesn’t affect you. If I can do better, facing the realities of the Horse Industry head-on, perhaps others will be inspired to follow in that path along with me.
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
— Elie Wiesel