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In the Cully neighborhood, just below North Lombard Street, there’s a quarter acre of verdant land where the laws of our rapacious capitalist society don’t apply.
Sweethome Teacup, a yoga teacher who has recently turned to qigong, leads classes online from a cob temple (mud, straw, bottle glass) in her backyard and in person at nearby Fernhill Park. At the end of each class, students choose between paying her or making a donation to the Yoga & Animal Rights Alliance sanctuary (5240 NE Ainsworth St., yogaanimalrights.org) that she runs on her property, where abandoned goats, chickens, rabbits, cats and dogs find refuge.
Teacup has been fighting for animal rights since she saw a PETA documentary in her 20s. Every year, Teacup, now 55, leads a mindfulness retreat in northern Thailand. Much of the proceeds go toward rescuing elephants from abusive trekking companies and circuses in Southeast Asia.
It takes some doing to exempt yourself almost completely from modern commerce. Teacup calls herself a “freegan.” She has a rambling garden where most of the crops are volunteers from years past. She has a colossal fig tree, and she gleans fruit that goes unpicked around town. She’ll eat meat donated from stores if it’s going to go to waste (and so much of it does).
“If we’re stuck in the money world, then we’re owned by the system,” Teacup says.
Few people live their values the way Teacup does. She has volunteered at a bear sanctuary in Romania, where she scooped discarded yogurt from single-serve containers into big tubs where it could be frozen into “ice cream” to feed the bears. One of her dogs came home from Thailand with her. Neighbors turn to her regularly with strays. All the critters are lucky that there’s a woman who teaches yoga and qigong to feed them.
There’s a growing movement toward recognizing animals as sentient beings with rights that are similar to humans. At Teacup’s plot in Northeast Portland, those rights are already in place.
“People say, ‘This dolphin knows what I’m saying, look how smart it is,’” Tecup says. “Turn that around. Do you know what the dolphin’s saying to you?”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2024 here!