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.
I’m sorry, Hagata-Sensei, for leaving abruptly. At the time I did not have the words to tell you directly.
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
- forage when available
- compost:
- fruit waste
- local vegetation
- my humanure (human + manure)
- found carcasses
- biochar
- diminishing use of chemical products
- nudist
- 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 (➕) and charcoal (➕)
- mulch provides pleasant aromas and fungal colonies that break down various forms of organic debris into soil
- charcoal added to compost is called “biochar,” 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 💩 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
When full, go to an environment with diverse plants and incorporate bucket contents into a large, managed compost pile (🗺️) or in a discrete location (🗺️)
- 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
- 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? Let’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?
This is where I began my journey to raw veganism.
My Raw Journey
How I found out about raw vegan diets:
I was raised as a vegetarian, consuming dairy, eggs, grains, beans, veg, fruits, etc.
I remember my sister describing fruitarianism to me sometime when I was a young child. It sounded idyllic.
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:
I keep a lot of fruit on hand, honoring cravings of nostalgic foods without restriction- including interpreting and connecting with their associated memories. Over time, these feelings have neutralized and I’m finding ease in my fruit-based diet.
At times I diverged into food obsessions, such as a “mushroom diet.”
Salads, initially seasoned with conventional cuisine spices & herbs, have played a role in replacing traditional meals.
What I eat:
At the present time, I predominantly eat store-bought fruit, including savory “vegetable” 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 it’s rebuilding the fatty fluid (chyle) of my lymphatic system. On a fruit diet, avocado can induce a strong “disassociative” 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, whereas I usually had a floating focus at isolated or scattered points.
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 🌱 growing movement that tropicalizes inhabited temperate zones to be suitable for 🗺️ growing durian.
People who influenced me:
Freelee “the banana girl” “the frugivore”
Michael Arnstein
Allen Manglona
Tina & Chippy “FitShortie”
Sebastian Baum
Lexi Tavares
Eli Martyr
Nikolaos Mourtogias
Jules “Juicing Jules”
Gillian Berry
Jeannette Donofrio “Ms.FitVegan”
Ways to support my raw journey:
Post forage guides (🗺️) 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 Reading…
My Map Memoir
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 “noodle night,” Friday “pizza night,” 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 mother’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.
I was born 10lbs 15oz with my umbilical cord around my neck, giving me a blue face, auspiciously on the birthday of Krishna, to a Hindu-practicing family consisting of my parents, Amy and Jeff, and my older sister Maya.
The holy woman, Shree Maa, of the temple they were part of, the Devi Mandir, had a premonition that I would be capable of great things that change the course of society, if I so chose to.
(couldn’t that be said of anyone?)
