When a fierce desert storm threatened every creature underground, it was the gentle, misunderstood tarantula who held the earth together with silk and courage.
Tag: compassion
This Month in Compassion: December 2025
December opens with World AIDS Day — a global moment of remembrance and resolve — but it also reveals a deeper reality unfolding across the United States: a federal government growing increasingly silent in the face of suffering. From HIV prevention and civil rights protections to hunger, housing, and public health, compassion is receding from national leadership at a time when communities need it most. This month’s This Month in Compassion examines where empathy is thriving at the grassroots level, where it is disappearing at the federal level, and why ethical governance demands that compassion remain at the heart of every policy decision.
Deconstructing Dominance: The Language of Oppression from Barn to Boardroom
Words shape how we see — and who we harm. From barns to boardrooms, euphemisms like “processing” and “human capital” make cruelty sound routine. The Humane Party calls for truth in language, reminding us that liberation begins with the courage to speak honestly.
This Month in Compassion: September 2025
September is a month filled with awareness, remembrance, and calls to action. Across health, cultural heritage, and social justice, September … More
EDITOR’S NOTE: When Mourning Becomes a Moral Test
Every time a public figure passes — especially one with a complicated relationship to animals — a familiar fracture emerges … More
This Month in Compassion
Recognizing what matters, even when others will not. At the Humane Herald, each month is an opportunity to remember what … More
Four-Letter Words
A poem on linguistic conflicts related to the interpretation of words
Breaking the Silence
A new poem by guest contributor Heather Leughmyer, on the harmful complicity of silence and the beneficial effects of breaking this silence.
Thoughts on the Vegan Message
Advocating for animal rights is about the fundamental tenets of compassion and filling every waking moment of our lives with the highest good we possess as living beings—our capacity for kindness, empathy, and seeing ourselves in every other living being who shares our identities as living, sensitive and feeling beings who are aware.
Cultivating Well-Being
We’re attuned to the suffering of sentient beings and so, as part of our daily self-care, it’s worthwhile to remind ourselves and our compassionate readers of the individuals and organizations which are doing so much to promote a kind world—four examples follow along with a prescription: no less than one belly laugh daily!
Survival of the Fittest or Beyond
In our world now, what is needed most of all is for humans to coexist with all forms of life, especially human animals and non-human animals. Working together instead of against each other would allow the planet to rebuild and become healthier than it has been in years.
The Humane Herald 