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Letโs Cob! Noon 4/1
Join us on April Foolโs 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!
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 youโre 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 ๐
Hidden Village
Refills: Bare Market
๐ซ
Growing up with Shorinji Kempo
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.
Iโm 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!
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
- transform used clothes into fabricrete planters
Step-By-Step Instructions for an ecofriendly practice I recommend:
- Source mulch (โ) and charcoal (โ)
- mulch provides pleasant aromas and fungal colonies that break down various forms of organic debris into soil
- charcoal added to compost is called โbiochar,โ and is studied to remediate soil of diverse contaminants, improve plant growth, induce drought-tolerance, and increase compost temperatures
- Source a lidded bucket
- Toss in a handful of charcoal and mulch in the bucket
- When the time comes, do your ๐ฉ business in the bucket
- 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
- composted human manure (AKA humanure) is nearly universally implemented to fertilize practically all crops, including edible ones, since the beginning of agriculture
When full, go to an environment with diverse plants and incorporate bucket contents into a large, managed compost pile (๐บ๏ธ) or in a discrete location (๐บ๏ธ)
- 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
- eating all fruit only from the land
- 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? Letโs 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.
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.
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
Within 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 asโmedicinalโ โorganicโ โsuperfoods.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.
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 (โOne.โ) and the glisten of the oil dimmed and seemed less eerie. I then continued to take more bites (โTwo, three, fourโฆโ) 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 itโs 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 โblehโ 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.)
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 โvegetableโ 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
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.
I eat a lot of avocado, which feels like itโs rebuilding the fatty fluid (chyle) of my lymphatic system. On a fruit diet, avocado can induce a strong โdisassociativeโ 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.
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 ๐ฑ growing movement that tropicalizes inhabited temperate zones to be suitable for ๐บ๏ธ growing durian.
People who influenced me:
Freelee โthe banana girlโ โthe frugivoreโ
Michael Arnstein
Allen Manglona
Tina & Chippy โFitShortieโ
Sebastian Baum
Lexi Tavares
Eli Martyr
Nikolaos Mourtogias
Jules โJuicing Julesโ
Gillian Berry
Jeannette Donofrio โMs.FitVeganโ
Ways to support my raw journey:
Post forage guides (๐บ๏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
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 Readingโฆ
Ecuador Durian
Durian grows in this region
China Grows Durian
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 โnoodle night,โ Friday โpizza 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.
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 motherโs 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
