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Letโ€™s Cob! Noon 4/1

Join us on April Foolโ€™s Day, 2023, for a free cob workshop!

A safely located mudslide has liberated a lot of perfectly-gritty clay soil, ready for building a cob structure.

(Cob is a building style that uses soil, vegetation, and found materials.)

Here, you may cob bare-naked!

A giant sculpture stands in the outdoor sky, surrounded by trees and plants, creating a unique art piece.

Available Materials

  • A ton of gritty mud
  • Woodchips
  • Freshly cut scotch broom, an invasive woody bush
  • Dry scotch broom
  • Buckets

Proposed Cob Structures

    • A cave in the shape of an open-mouthed sun
    • Something else that is beautiful and inhabitable

How to Participate

Arrive at Lupin Lodge sometime Saturday (4/1) morning or early afternoon, tell the front office that youโ€™re here to visit Leela for cob at the Upper Meadow.

Lupin Lodge is a clothing-optional naturist resort. Bring an ID for a brief background check.

Coordination Contact

Leave a comment below ๐Ÿ’š

Hidden Village

Refills: Bare Market

๐Ÿซ™

Growing up with Shorinji Kempo

A person in a martial arts uniform is striking a combat sport, such as karate, with an elbow in an indoor contact sport of Japanese martial arts.

Starting at age 5 1/2, I practiced Shorinji Kempo, a Japanese physical defense practice and form of Zen Buddhism.

20 years later, after attaining the rank of san dan (3rd degree black belt) I ceased practicing.

I greatly admired the tales of the founder, Doshin So, who had a spirit of righteous rebellion that got lost in the waves of blithe Japanese hierarchy that overtook the Shorinji Kempo organization after his passing.

I left to discover my own righteous calling.

Iโ€™m sorry, Hagata-Sensei, for leaving abruptly. At the time I did not have the words to tell you directly.

EcoFriend: Leela

Hi, my name is Leela.

I am an EcoFriend!

The person has long hair.

Motivations for ecofriendliness:

Imagery of vast expanses of farms (occupying supposedly 40% of land), plastic waste cluttering our oceans, land disruption from mines, runoff, and the absurd toll of suffering & death of animals from all of this.

Ways I am ecofriendly:
  • vegan
  • buy in bulk, from local growers where reasonable
  • forage when available
  • compost:
    • fruit waste
    • local vegetation
    • my humanure (human + manure)
    • found carcasses
    • biochar
  • diminishing use of chemical products
  • nudist
    • live primarily naked
  • guerrilla gardener
Ecofriendly-ish practices I used to perform:
  • cooked-food vegan
  • wearing exclusively sarongs, tubes (no/minimal fabric waste) and used clothes

A collage is created.

  • transform used clothes into fabricrete planters

A houseplant in a flowerpot blooms in the sunshine outside a building against a bright blue sky.

A lush green plant stands in front of a tall outdoor building.

Step-By-Step Instructions for an ecofriendly practice I recommend:
  1. Source mulch (โž•) and charcoal (โž•)
    1. mulch provides pleasant aromas and fungal colonies that break down various forms of organic debris into soil
    2. charcoal added to compost is called โ€œbiochar,โ€ and is studied to remediate soil of diverse contaminants, improve plant growth, induce drought-tolerance, and increase compost temperatures
  2. Source a lidded bucket
  3. Toss in a handful of charcoal and mulch in the bucket
  4. When the time comes, do your ๐Ÿ’ฉ business in the bucket
  5. After use, deposit any toilet paper used and add another handful of mulch + charcoal to the bucket
    • composted human manure (AKA humanure) is nearly universally implemented to fertilize practically all crops, including edible ones, since the beginning of agriculture
      • the exceptions to this are practically all downstream of humanure products in the form of compost and fertilizers

When full, go to an environment with diverse plants and incorporate bucket contents into a large, managed compost pile (๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ) or in a discrete location (๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ)

  1. Keep an eye out for safe places to directly commit your waste into soil! Like the animal you are~
Ecofriendly practices I would like to Try:
  • 0 packaging
    • eating all fruit only from the land
      • especially durian
  • resting in cob structures (earthen dwelling made of vegetation and soil)
  • coordinating a massive decentralized movement of guerrilla gardening, that proliferates edible plants and stabilizes the climate
  • live freely in an abundantly growing food forest, among the rest of humanity
Live nearby? Letโ€™s coordinate:
  • bulk purchases
  • local harvests
  • places to grow plants
  • compost
  • seeds
  • dispersing compost and seeds
  • safe spaces to be naked and tech-free
Support my ecofriendly Progress:
  • Donate to the LeelaMaps project
  • Map land & resources for performing ecofriendly practices
  • Share LeelaMaps!
Motivated to help the planet?

Share your EcoFriend profile!

My Raw Journey: Leela

This is where I began my journey to raw veganism.

My Raw Journey

How I found out about raw vegan diets:

I remember my sister describing fruitarianism to me sometime when I was a young child. It sounded idyllic.

I was raised as a vegetarian, consuming dairy, eggs, grains, beans, veg, fruits, etc.

A person is taking a selfie.

In November of 2020 at this location, what was once the Here There camp, I was an adult who had the freedom to choose my diet among an array of free options.

Having recently returned to a cooked vegan diet (around 4 years) after sampling a meat diet (a few months), I meditated on what was the most economical and environmentally-friendly diet I could have. My thoughts returned to fruitarianism, though I was not sure it was healthy.

A person or animal is searching widely for food or provisions in order to obtain them. Full Text: forยทage /'fรดrij, fรคrij/ verb (of a person or animal) search widely for food or provisions. noun a wide search over an area in order to obtain something, especially food or provisions.

Regardless, I centered my diet on fruits that I foraged, which included:

  • feijoa (AKA pineapple guava): similar to guava
  • kousa: creamy, cheesy
  • persimmons: sweet and crispy or gooey
  • silverberry: astringent sweet little berries
  • unedos: both creamy and gritty, mango-banana flavor
  • lilly pilly berries: crispy & watery, clover-flavored
  • passionfruit: tangy wet seedy
  • ginkgo: dry fiber astringent cheesy umami
  • orange
  • pomegranate
  • apple
  • fig
  • plum

A litchi, surrounded by other natural foods such as produce and fruit, such as Unedo Kousa Feijoa, sits in the center of the image.

my article about locally growing resourcesWithin a few days, I found myself more active and productive: sprinting around Berkeley, barefoot in a loincloth bikini, charting fruit trees, and centering on my mission of thriving on locally grown resources.

However, after a couple months of being publicly harassed and conflicted with an emergent drive to be naked, I returned to cooked food. My energy sunk and I delved back into my social media addiction- where I learned about raw vegan culture (e.g. Freelee, zoodles).

How I have transitioned:

It started with working on my own mind.

I had phases of eating mostly mushrooms, as well asโ€œmedicinalโ€ โ€œorganicโ€ โ€œsuperfoods.โ€ These fads ended for me when I realized that this marketing was effective because of my distrust in foods and fear of the effects of normal food on my body.

At other points, I considered that wheat could be a superfood because of how it is the diet staple of so many people functioning in society. However, the development of idiosyncratic characteristics of both humans and the animals we have domesticated with foods, with grains as a filler, suggests to me that wheat and other grains are mutagenic and have broad deleterious effects that are hard to pin to any specific system, potentially weakening our capacity to observe the cause and effects of our own decisions based on culturally-transmitted beliefs.

A close-up of an individual.

Childhood nightmares: As a child, I dreamed about being offered greasy cooked potatoes. I could vividly see the glisten of the oil, which appeared to be poison. However, I had no rationale for this intuition, so I was afraid of appearing foolish to others or trying to spread fear. I took one bite potatoes (โ€œOne.โ€) and the glisten of the oil dimmed and seemed less eerie. I then continued to take more bites (โ€œTwo, three, fourโ€ฆโ€) and my sight faded until I woke up.

Even as I pursued raw vegan and fruitarian diets as an adult, any shaming or fear that I held onto would later translate into craving for nostalgic cooked food to which I caved. These nostalgic foods connected to feelings of safety established in childhood, which were placating a sense of fear that I had in the very practices that I was performing. Witnessing this experience, I could better empathize with my own and othersโ€™ psychological discomfort and looping behavior.

From my experience and those shared by others in raw vegan groups: the longer one goes without cooked food, especially grains, the more physically punishing they are to ingest. As most people consume these things on a daily basis and are not familiar with what itโ€™s like to go without, it appears that our food cultures persist the broad desensitization to foods that were likely developed in periods of scarcity.

Salads, initially seasoned with conventional cuisine spices & herbs, have played a role in replacing traditional meals. Occasionally after eating greens, I feel an acute, funky โ€œblehโ€ experience which seems like a relatively small compromise.

Broadly speaking, the experience of fruit is positive even when going without for a long time. (It has been a long time since I have gone without fruit, though most varieties of fruit I have gone without for days and weeks at a time.)

The shelf displays an array of fruits.

I keep an array of fruit on hand to support intuitive grazing.

What I eat:

At the present time, I predominantly eat store-bought fruit, including savory โ€œvegetableโ€ fruits. I also eat baby & mature greens (mostly brassica and spinach; eaten on their own and in salads).

These fruits and leaves are eaten when desired, mostly in the morning then snacking throughout the day.

Example of what I eat in a day:

  • 4 oranges
  • 1 mango
  • 5 medium avocados
  • 2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes
  • a few handfuls of baby greens
  • a handful of dates
  • several pods of jackfruit
HOW I DESCRIBE MY DIET NOW:

I describe myself as a raw vegan (due to the consumption of leaves), though many consider me to be fruitarian (due to the lack of nuts)

Why I eat this way:

During prior diet styles (since-birth vegetarian, cooked vegan, brief dabbling omnivore) I had a pungent body odor, regular bursts of light acne and a deep unsettling feeling that consuming denatured biomatter was denaturing me in ways, such as:

  • malformed or asymmetric tissue development
  • premature aging
  • prolonged youthfulness
  • frayed hair (particularly cooked beans)
  • limiting capacity of thought (particularly salt)
  • mutating us like domesticated animals

A person is smiling happily while taking a selfie outdoors, their face illuminated by the sun and framed by a tree, their tooth, skin, lips, eyebrows, cheeks, iris, jaw, and plants visible in the portrait.

I have had minor allergic reactions to various commercially available nuts (brain fog & acne), plus they are difficult to harvest manually in nature, so they are not part of my diet.

Fundamentally, I sense that my present form of raw vegan / fruitarian is a much safer diet style – and that the raw salads are the one remaining source of confusion. In the past I went several months without salads so I expect to leave them behind again, however they have settled my nervous reaction to crowds in confinement (such as the supermarket) and it feels like the leaves are helping scrub my gut.

A green avocado plant sits atop a delicious dessert inside an indoor setting.

I eat a lot of avocado, which feels like itโ€™s rebuilding the fatty fluid (chyle) of my lymphatic system. On a fruit diet, avocado can induce a strong โ€œdisassociativeโ€ experience, much like ketamine, except it feels grounding in observing bodily processes. Specifically, I begin to be aware of the both sides of my body at the same time, in contrast to the regular isolated or scattered floating focus.

Durian, another fatty fruit, feels deeply nourishing and healing.

Recommended reading: Summary of The Durian Theory

How long I have been eating this way:

I have eaten a predominantly fruitarian diet for the last 1.5 years, though the transition I described started about 2.5 years ago. (At the time of this writing, I am 34.5.)

Challenges I faced in the transition:

1) This process has caused me to viscerally observe the insanity of modern civilization and my own indoctrination. This was a very difficult phase and was the justification for both numbing myself with cooked foods and giving it up.

A person is consuming a fruit.

2) Internalized voices of people echoing modern diet lore played upon the notion of motherly concern for my health choices (allied with advertised food culture of the 1950s) which was, also, an internalized voice.

3) My favorite fruit, durian, grows exclusively in tropical regions and is expensive to import. I have considered moving to a tropical durian-growing space, but my living conditions are specific (must be allowed to be naked in nature). Considering scalability of my ideal lifestyle, I find that it is important to develop a ๐ŸŒฑ growing movement that tropicalizes inhabited temperate zones to be suitable for ๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ growing durian.

A durian tree stands outdoors, bearing ripe fruit ready to be enjoyed as a delicious food.

People who influenced me:

Freelee โ€œthe banana girlโ€ โ€œthe frugivoreโ€

Michael Arnstein

Allen Manglona

Tina & Chippy โ€œFitShortieโ€

Sebastian Baum

Lexi Tavares

Eli Martyr

Nikolaos Mourtogias

Jules โ€œJuicing Julesโ€

Gillian Berry

Jeannette Donofrio โ€œMs.FitVeganโ€

A person is enjoying a durian, a popular Southeast Asian food.

Ways to support my raw journey:

Post forage guides (๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ) for your property or region

Donate fresh durian or $

Post a place to stay where:

+ nudity in nature is allowed, in a warm, humid climate

+ me and my loved ones can enjoy foraged or affordable fresh durian

= share privately to leela at leelamaps dot com

The individual has long hair.

Join me!

I am available to converse about transitioning to a raw vegan diet: contact me by leaving a comment below.

Transitioned or transitioning to a raw vegan diet? Share your Raw Journey!

Continue Readingโ€ฆ

My Map Memoir

Ecuador Durian

Durian grows in this region

A person stands outdoors at Nikolaos Mourtogias JJ Shredz tropical fruit farm northwest of Ecuador, holding a durian with the text "6d" written on it.

China Grows Durian

Durian trees at the Durian Base in Sanya, China are preparing to harvest their first crop of the "king of fruits" in Southeast Asia. Full Text: 11:20 47 Bangkok Post Durian from China? Hainan gears up for first harvest of SE Asia's 'king of fruits' PUBLISHED : 19 MAR 2023 AT 14:44 WRITER: SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST 5 2 f LINE ๅคฎ่ง† ๆ–ฐ้—ป At the Durian Base in Sanya, 93.3 hectares (230.6 acres) of durian trees are bearing young fruit. (Photo: CCTV via South China Morning Post) bangkokpost.com

My Childhood Home

This is where I grew up with my parents and my older sister.

Neighbors would come and go, but for about 18 years we stayed in this house during the weekday nights & mornings and long weekend days.

This house held our rituals:

  • Wednesday Top Ramen โ€œnoodle night,โ€ Friday โ€œpizza night,โ€ Sunday bagel mornings with dad
  • Hindu ceremonies at the closet altar and at the backyard Shiva Lingam

In our front yard we had a small, non-fruiting pomegranate tree.

Our backyard was wild and grassy until my dad took it upon all of us to implement a regime of black landscaper fabric, pebbles, and a eucalyptus that overgrew its space.

A person holds a cat.

We usually had two cats, a dog, sometimes an aquarium of fish, hamsters, and other assorted pets that did not linger for long.

My sister and I shared a messy room, which we were to have tidied before mealtime.

My parents shared a dark-themed room, with a portrait of a sexualized woman straddling a dragon in an ornate frame at the head of the bed.

A third bedroom was occupied by my motherโ€™s baby grand piano, that she practiced on often.

We were a conflicted family, quick to cry and argue.

Yet, with dinner-time rituals we congregated on the couch to appreciate a fundamental family bond.

Former Site of Devi Mandir