Yulin Dog Meat Festival

The Chinese Yulin Dog Meat Festival is due to take place 22nd June. It is an absolutely horrific event, with many dogs and cats boiled and burned alive.

Horrifically, it is Yulin's way of annually celebrating the June solstice....by capturing over 10,000 dogs (many pets, and still with their collars on), dragging them by a rope attached to a car, skinned alive, burned, tortured, and kept in small cages without room to move, awaiting their gruesome fate.

People have witnessed dogs being slaughtered whilst still wagging their tails....I can't even begin to imagine the horror and the pain these beautiful souls have to endure, and it has to stop. I've never been too keen on the two legged ones compared to the four legged and winged ones, and this makes me even more ashamed to be part of the two legged clan. What they are doing is absolutely barbaric.

I know these following pictures are horrific, but they need to be looked at, and passed on, so that as many people as possible can become aware of the plight of these defenceless animals, and at the very least sign the petition at the bottom of this post.

Thank you for reading, and passing this on....these beautiful creatures desperately need our help. Right now they are all being transported to this terrifying fate, in appalling conditions. No animal deserves to die like this.

Please sign the petition now, and share it with as many people as possible. Click Here.

For the Love of Kwan

I have been wanting to start a blog for a long time, but didn't know where to begin. What would my first topic be, would anybody be interested, would I have time to write regularly etc etc... Then today, from pictures I saw from Free The Bears Fund, a charity I have supported for many years, I knew exactly where to start, and I knew I actually need to find the time to write regularly, to hopefully get people interested and care enough to help.

I am passionate about helping people move away from abuse, to work towards finding self esteem, self worth, self love, eventually finding the confidence to 'shine their light' after their abuse. This is the main work I do and I had really thought my first blog post would be in connection with that. But I am also an animal healer and communicator, and passionate about raising awareness of the plight of our Animal Kingdom, and how many suffer at the hands of human abusers....like Kwan.

This beautiful young Sun bear was found starving in a dark room during a routine check on wildlife at a temple in Thailand a few days ago....and look at her. Would you even know she was a bear? This not only breaks my heart, but fills me with so much anger and disgust that people allow animals to suffer like this. Sadly she was found too late, and although I'm sure she would have felt loved in her final hours whilst being cared for by people from the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, who discovered her, she would still have been in so much pain...emotionally and physically. And I can't even begin to imagine the trauma and fear she must have endured before she was found...every second must have felt like an eternity to her, subjected to inconceivable suffering. No animal should ever experience anything like this...but many do.

And it was whilst looking at the pictures of Kwan that something suddenly stirred within me, and I knew with all my being that I wanted to make sure her death was not in vain...and at that moment I knew exactly what my first blog post would be about....  

I feel strongly about the abuse of not just humans, but animals too, and I am passionate about working towards finding an end to the abuse of both. Because of all that Kwan had obviously endured, I have given this a lot of thought today, and have now decided to have two blogs (which is a turn up for the books considering this time yesterday I wasn't even sure how I was going to write one, let alone two!!). One will feature articles about adults and children healing and moving forward after abuse, and the other will cover the abuse many animals suffer, and ways in which we can help stop this...the latter will be called For the Love of Kwan. The former, You Can Reach Your Stars.

In 2009 I started up a magazine covering the plight of some of our Animal Kingdom, and exploring ways in which we can help. Free the Bears Fund was one of the organisations featured in this first edition, and they have supported the work of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand for many years now, so were aware of Kwan's situation. Free the Bears Fund do amazing work, and through my magazine I was going to feature a different bear in each edition that had been rescued by them, but unfortunately I became seriously ill just as I was launching it, and everything had to be put on hold for a few years.

Reading about Kwan, and seeing the appalling state she was in, has pushed me to find time to get this magazine going again. It was initially in hard copy, but for now I will continue it through this blog, and eventually an on-line magazine...once I've worked out how!

In the meantime if anybody would like a hard copy of the initial issue (I have a gazillion of them as the launch never happened), please email me at willowstormfaery@aol.com with your postal address and I'll pop one in the post to you.

And if any of you feel you would like to make a donation to help with the amazing work Free the Bears Fund do, then please visit their website www.freethebears.org.au. Please do this, For The Love of Kwan, bless her beautiful heart.

And please keep reading this blog...I am determined that through this we will make sure that Kwan's death was not in vain, and hopefully more and more people will become aware of the abuse of a lot of our Animal Kingdom...we will work together to create a safer, happier world for our fellow beings.

With love and hope for the animals, and For the Love of Kwan,

Willow xx