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In 16 days, my 22-month-old little one, her father, our cat, our rabbit and I will be on a one-way flight to Florida.
Looking up at my tropical fruit trees from my bed of synthetic materials.
The home we are leaving is a wood cabin at a nudist resort, 🌞 Lupin Lodge, in the Santa Cruz mountains near the Silicon Valley, where I am the only nudist resident who frequents the communal facilities.
Despite the vastness of this land and the moral support of its staff, I and other residents have been forbidden from gardening out on the land. Therefore, all the human residents & their pets are perpetually dependent on deliveries of food grown far away, in unknown conditions.
This 88 year old property, consisting of 112 acres of land, communal facilities, and private dwellings inhabited by ~60 people is being sold by the inheritor for $32.8m.
From this confinement, I have been slowly building a launch for BYTE: BackYard-to-Table Experiences, a decentralized local food movement that uses immediately available resources. However, I can only demonstrate this as much is immediately available to me.
As my baby deeply sleeps after breastfeeding, I slide out from under her and prepare myself a salad.
This salad comprises entirely of organic produce grown in of California, which I acquired almost entirely from a local farmers market.
Torn dino kale, from Castro Farms, is used to pick up noodles made of zucchini (zoodles), from Bounty of the Valley Farm, with Heirloom Organic tomatoes, Castro fennel, Country Rhodes lemon & avocado.
Interactive Salad Ingredient Map
I have many goodbyes to dispense at the Saturday Saratoga farmers market.
Techie communal home curated around Geoff Schmidt’s dream of it being a place where something great is started.
I dated several of its residents, which caused me to stay often enough to practically live there. I was a “member” who voluntarily managed its residency onboarding. Several members & residents and I found ourselves in the ire of Geoff and his gf.
We were all too emotionally congested to read the situation well and respond appropriately.
Highlights: Cuddle dungeon meetings, psychedelic parties, home concerts with Shevek’s huge soundboard, potlucks, costume closet & clothing swaps.
Article: The Polyamorous Nomad of the Bay
It was here where I met Alex, who facilitated the invention of Leela Maps.
By leela |
Modified on October 17th, 2023 at 11:37 am May 30, 2023 at 3:05 pm |
Hopping between SF Bay Area communal houses, I realized that practically all things could be visualized on a map.
Specifically, all the “sharing economy” culture could be broadcasted in the same platform, alongside events, proposals, etc, that can be filtered in myriad ways.
In the musty, tiled apartment of the family of Hindu devotees that hosted us, they offered us durian.
The family and my father proclaimed:
”It has such a strong smell! Like gasoline!”
“Will you like it? It’s okay not to like it.”
I don’t remember having much of an opinion, except that it was an expansive creamy texture that was heavier then I expected. It felt pretty incompatible with the other foods that we had been eating: typically rice, curry and puris with our hands.
My father, Swami Vittalananda Saraswati, had brought us along on his trip to lead services for a family of Malaysian devotees of Shree Maa.
By leela |
Modified on February 23rd, 2024 at 6:05 pm at 1:41 pm |
I was taken to John George Psychiatric Hospital for being naked in public.
👕
The patient uniform was a blue-green uniform with a loose top and elastic-banded pants. They provided grippy socks, but I maintained being barefoot despite occasional exasperation of staff.
I was not allowed to be naked, even in my room. I was only safe to disrobe in bed.
My roommate had been to John George a few times. She was a passionate young woman with a good heart.
The patients at John George were varied. Some would chronically cuss and would be soothed by listening to music on wireless headphones. Most were pretty normal and were caught up in difficult situations.
I made many friends among the patients. They were perceptive, clever, and funny people. They would periodically be medicated into drooling, dazed stupors.
I kept active, engaging in improvisational exercise, socializing and writing about my experiences. Many of the nurses and other patients lauded my enthusiasm, but it was referred to as mania in the psychiatric reports.
🥼
The nurses were as varied as the patients. Some genuinely believed in the institutional model, most saw it as just a job to pay the bills (and found themselves befriending patients), and some were trying to be a force of good in a sick system.
I had a designated psychiatrist who would periodically visit. I opened up about the absurdities of my life: being told I was the chosen one, feeling pressure to do something great, finding society to be oppressive, etc. In my desire to get genuine feedback, I overlooked the obvious cues that he was exhausted, pressed for time, and looking for any reason to prescribe medication. Everything I said was declared to be delusional; I was reported to be “bipolar,” “schizophrenic,” and, most plausibly, “hyperverbal.”
🍽️
There were regular meals with limited catering to dietary preferences. “Vegan” was consistent, but not “gluten-free.”
Fortunately, they had oranges, apples, and nectarines available during every snack time, which was frequently declared throughout the day. Most patients coveted the sandwiches and plastic wrapped cookies & crackers. I opted for the fruit, of which the nurses gladly gave me extra.
🌿
There was an herb & flower garden we could visit during midday activity sessions. I picked edible flowers and herbs to add to meals, which I carried around with me for a couple days until the lunch where I offered them to others: an especially nervous-controlling nurse declared they were unsafe for consumption and banned me and everyone else from picking herbs from the garden. She said they sprayed they herbs with pesticides, but the nurses who tended the garden said they did not.
👚
One of the nurses who was very supportive of my active lifestyle brought me a pair of yoga pants and a purple form-fitting shirt, so that I would be seen as an equal with the staff.
🩸
I had a blood test taken. An irritated psychiatrist delivered the result that I had a perfect panel.
💉
It was an open secret that no one is allowed to leave John George without being medicated first.
I never consented to be medicated, so over a prolonged process of defending my rights in trials-by-phone, they declared I did not have rights to reject medication.
I was given two options: take the drugs orally or they would inject them intravenously.
I said, “I do not consent to taking drugs. I am a sober person.”
They begged me to just take the drugs orally, as they didn’t want to force drugs into me.
I said, “It is your choice to obey.”
Three nurses grabbed me and I went limp, so they dragged me into the room and injected antipsychotics into my butt.
I felt violated. My limbs moved slower. After processing my feelings with my mom on the phone, I relaxed and the effects of the drug lifted after a few hours.
The following night, a nurse made a pass at me in my bedroom, asking for me to take my clothes off. I declined firmly. I then reported it to the lead nurse, who reassigned him. It appeared unlikely that there would be any reprimand or effect on his employment status.
🧫
During this time, COVID-19 was causing staffing shortages. Some staff openly discussed the possibility of the facility shutting down; most patients present to these conversations were too medicated to listen or comprehend.
🚶🏼♀️
Before I was to leave, the psychiatrist insisted I promise to never go naked in public again.
I was 17 when when we were staying at the hotel at Fanime Con with the DVC Anime Club. He had a spot on the floor of the girl’s room.
When everyone else was out, I leaned off the bed and we kissed for the first time.
By leela | April 9, 2023 at 9:51 pm |
anime club, community college, memoir, where I met my ex-husband
“The Stanford of community colleges”
…is still just a community college, with a special arrangement with UC Berkeley to ensure transfers.
I entered classes at 16, starting with ASL, Algebra, Astronomy, and Psychology. I enjoyed practically all the topics and had positive interactions with nearly all of my instructors.
Outstanding classes:
I elected to take many psychology courses, and found it to be an interesting major despite being overly structured. However, I did not pursue an AA and instead focused on transferable units.
I joined Anime Club and developed a crush on a quiet dude, Chris. I followed him on campus a couple times, keeping a distance and observing his interactions with his friend. I befriended his older brother, who also was part of Anime Club, and he introduced us.
-More on that to come-
After reviewing colleges that served both our interests, we decided upon Humboldt State University.
In 2002, here sat my friends and I during lunch. The crew came from the middle school group: Kat, Kim, Brian, Lila, and Stephanie, and Matt. (Jacqueline went to a different high school.)
Staff of the school, in an attempt to tidy the campus, cut down the tree that we sat under. There was a remaining log🪵. To bring visibility to the issue, I carried the log to class for a few days. Having noticed that people were more engaged about the oddity of someone carrying a log rather than the issue of the cut tree, I stopped.
I was enrolled in the “Art Academy,” that had alternative project-oriented classes. I learned how to use Photoshop and gained experience in communicating artistic vision to varying audiences.
I participated in Anime Club and watched a lot of Naruto with my fellow “geeks.”
If I recall correctly (IIRC), in sophomore year a new member of the group, Stacy, was very inclusive and drew in a refined anime art style. I felt displaced, so in the beginning of junior year I started touring the social groups around campus. A favorite was A Hall, which included Art Academy friend, Brian D, and mega-crush, Jack.
Inspired by my sister who dropped out of high school to pursue college education early, I enrolled in community college and dropped out of high school in the middle of my junior year. On my last day of class there was a quiz in Mr Hagerstrand’s English class; I sat at my desk and ate the first page while my peers were working on it.
However, for the following few months I continued visiting the school during school hours to continue friendships and slowly ween off of the public school system.
Ugh, middle school.
I went to Pine Hollow Middle School way out in Concord because it was “nicer” than the middle school in Bay Point.
As I was wanting more independence, teachers wanted more engagement.
I nearly failed 6th Grade, but made it up when my dad forced me to finish several months of incomplete assignments over a weekend.
7th grade, Paulina and I stopped hanging out, so I sat alone. I did better in class. I developed a devastating crush on Jack, a brilliant and sociable student who would take lunch with the kids who passed around Magic: The Gathering cards.
After a few months of sitting alone at lunch, I was joined by Jacqueline, a shy girl who I stuck up for.
In 8th grade, I got straight-As and achieved the highest grade on a math placement test. At lunch, Jacqueline and I were joined by Kat, Kim, Brian, Lila, and Stephanie, who were already hanging out.
I had my own website that was a fan site dedicated to an anime called Slayers.
My mom would drive my sister and I into Concord for Middle and High School, which took us on Bailey Road that winds through the hills and down past navy bunkers.
I had many dreams about the hills, usually hiking on a path by the road and getting lost.
Sometimes we would see a sea of fog settled over Concord, so for a couple weeks we brought our camcorder (this was before smartphones) to see if we could capture it again (we never did).
We were on Bailey Rd, running late for school on 9/11/2001, when we tuned into the radio to hear about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Mom urgently requested we listen to what was being said as I gazed at the field of bunkers.
I went to Bel Air Elementary for grades K-5.
My peers were diverse, though mostly living at or close to poverty level.
Most of my teachers were very supportive people, shout outs to:
The kids would occasionally bully based on gender expression (I wish I stuck up for you, Larry), contents of lunchboxes, and pass stories of gang violence.
However, on the whole we were alright.
In 1st grade, I met Paulina who became my best friend. It started a few days after she transferred when I asked if she would be my friend. It turned out that she lived close to me, so we would frequently visit and have sleepovers.
In 4th grade, I entered Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program, meaning that occasionally I would do separate worksheets and join a small group that visited a kid’s science activity space where we learned about animals, weather, chemistry, etc. Paulina also joined.
By leela |
Modified on April 16th, 2023 at 10:56 pm March 24, 2023 at 9:55 pm |
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.
I also apologize to the person whose shoulder I injured substantially. I cannot fathom how that has affected your life. I am grateful that the surgery went well.
This is where I began my journey to raw veganism.
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:
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).
It started with working on my own mind.
I had phases of eating mostly mushrooms, as well as“medicinal” “organic” “superfoods.” 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 (“One.”) and the glisten of the oil dimmed and seemed less eerie. I then continued to take more bites (“Two, three, four…”) 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 others’ 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 it’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 “bleh” 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.
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:
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)
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:
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, 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
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.)
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.
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”
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
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!
This is where I grew up with my parents and my older sister.
Recent photo with many trees cut down; find on Zillow
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:
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?)
By leela |
Modified on May 11th, 2023 at 7:15 pm April 11, 2022 at 11:12 pm |
I was arrested here on July 8,2020.
I had half a joint and decided to nakedly finish the Indigenous Amazonian terra preta soil recipe that I had started earlier that day.
By leela |
Modified on December 20th, 2023 at 9:06 am March 6, 2022 at 5:53 pm |
I began experimenting with fruitarianism in October 2020, as I began to discover freely forageable fruiting plants of Oakland and Berkeley.
My diet largely consisted of feijoas, oranges, apples, passionfruits, dogwood fruits, persimmons, pomegranates, unedos, silverberries, ginkgoes, and Oregon grapes.
I found myself drawn to the sun and wore a loin cloth bikini to comply with the legal requirement to wear clothes.
My skin, hair, nails, teeth, and overall physique felt strong. It was disquieting to not experience new sensations in my teeth given how substantially different my diet was from the cooked vegan foods I had been eating.
However, I felt a change of mindset that made the complexity and bleakness of urban living to be overwhelming.
In early 2021, I began incorporating cooked food and wore more clothing. My face started breaking out with acne and red splotches on my cheeks, my nails started chipping, my teeth had little niggling feelings.
I still consumed a lot of fruit, going in and out of stints of fruitarianism, especially when becoming pregnant in March 2021, and returned to full fruitarianism in February 2022 while breastfeeding my first child, Tao.
In 16 days, my 22-month-old little one, her father, our cat, our rabbit and I will be on a one-way flight to Florida.
Looking up at my tropical fruit trees from my bed of synthetic materials.
The home we are leaving is a wood cabin at a nudist resort, 🌞 Lupin Lodge, in the Santa Cruz mountains near the Silicon Valley, where I am the only nudist resident who frequents the communal facilities.
Despite the vastness of this land and the moral support of its staff, I and other residents have been forbidden from gardening out on the land. Therefore, all the human residents & their pets are perpetually dependent on deliveries of food grown far away, in unknown conditions.
This 88 year old property, consisting of 112 acres of land, communal facilities, and private dwellings inhabited by ~60 people is being sold by the inheritor for $32.8m.
From this confinement, I have been slowly building a launch for BYTE: BackYard-to-Table Experiences, a decentralized local food movement that uses immediately available resources. However, I can only demonstrate this as much is immediately available to me.
As my baby deeply sleeps after breastfeeding, I slide out from under her and prepare myself a salad.
This salad comprises entirely of organic produce grown in of California, which I acquired almost entirely from a local farmers market.
Torn dino kale, from Castro Farms, is used to pick up noodles made of zucchini (zoodles), from Bounty of the Valley Farm, with Heirloom Organic tomatoes, Castro fennel, Country Rhodes lemon & avocado.
Interactive Salad Ingredient Map
I have many goodbyes to dispense at the Saturday Saratoga farmers market.
Techie communal home curated around Geoff Schmidt’s dream of it being a place where something great is started.
I dated several of its residents, which caused me to stay often enough to practically live there. I was a “member” who voluntarily managed its residency onboarding. Several members & residents and I found ourselves in the ire of Geoff and his gf.
We were all too emotionally congested to read the situation well and respond appropriately.
Highlights: Cuddle dungeon meetings, psychedelic parties, home concerts with Shevek’s huge soundboard, potlucks, costume closet & clothing swaps.
Article: The Polyamorous Nomad of the Bay
It was here where I met Alex, who facilitated the invention of Leela Maps.
Hopping between SF Bay Area communal houses, I realized that practically all things could be visualized on a map.
Specifically, all the “sharing economy” culture could be broadcasted in the same platform, alongside events, proposals, etc, that can be filtered in myriad ways.
In the musty, tiled apartment of the family of Hindu devotees that hosted us, they offered us durian.
The family and my father proclaimed:
”It has such a strong smell! Like gasoline!”
“Will you like it? It’s okay not to like it.”
I don’t remember having much of an opinion, except that it was an expansive creamy texture that was heavier then I expected. It felt pretty incompatible with the other foods that we had been eating: typically rice, curry and puris with our hands.
My father, Swami Vittalananda Saraswati, had brought us along on his trip to lead services for a family of Malaysian devotees of Shree Maa.
I was taken to John George Psychiatric Hospital for being naked in public.
👕
The patient uniform was a blue-green uniform with a loose top and elastic-banded pants. They provided grippy socks, but I maintained being barefoot despite occasional exasperation of staff.
I was not allowed to be naked, even in my room. I was only safe to disrobe in bed.
My roommate had been to John George a few times. She was a passionate young woman with a good heart.
The patients at John George were varied. Some would chronically cuss and would be soothed by listening to music on wireless headphones. Most were pretty normal and were caught up in difficult situations.
I made many friends among the patients. They were perceptive, clever, and funny people. They would periodically be medicated into drooling, dazed stupors.
I kept active, engaging in improvisational exercise, socializing and writing about my experiences. Many of the nurses and other patients lauded my enthusiasm, but it was referred to as mania in the psychiatric reports.
🥼
The nurses were as varied as the patients. Some genuinely believed in the institutional model, most saw it as just a job to pay the bills (and found themselves befriending patients), and some were trying to be a force of good in a sick system.
I had a designated psychiatrist who would periodically visit. I opened up about the absurdities of my life: being told I was the chosen one, feeling pressure to do something great, finding society to be oppressive, etc. In my desire to get genuine feedback, I overlooked the obvious cues that he was exhausted, pressed for time, and looking for any reason to prescribe medication. Everything I said was declared to be delusional; I was reported to be “bipolar,” “schizophrenic,” and, most plausibly, “hyperverbal.”
🍽️
There were regular meals with limited catering to dietary preferences. “Vegan” was consistent, but not “gluten-free.”
Fortunately, they had oranges, apples, and nectarines available during every snack time, which was frequently declared throughout the day. Most patients coveted the sandwiches and plastic wrapped cookies & crackers. I opted for the fruit, of which the nurses gladly gave me extra.
🌿
There was an herb & flower garden we could visit during midday activity sessions. I picked edible flowers and herbs to add to meals, which I carried around with me for a couple days until the lunch where I offered them to others: an especially nervous-controlling nurse declared they were unsafe for consumption and banned me and everyone else from picking herbs from the garden. She said they sprayed they herbs with pesticides, but the nurses who tended the garden said they did not.
👚
One of the nurses who was very supportive of my active lifestyle brought me a pair of yoga pants and a purple form-fitting shirt, so that I would be seen as an equal with the staff.
🩸
I had a blood test taken. An irritated psychiatrist delivered the result that I had a perfect panel.
💉
It was an open secret that no one is allowed to leave John George without being medicated first.
I never consented to be medicated, so over a prolonged process of defending my rights in trials-by-phone, they declared I did not have rights to reject medication.
I was given two options: take the drugs orally or they would inject them intravenously.
I said, “I do not consent to taking drugs. I am a sober person.”
They begged me to just take the drugs orally, as they didn’t want to force drugs into me.
I said, “It is your choice to obey.”
Three nurses grabbed me and I went limp, so they dragged me into the room and injected antipsychotics into my butt.
I felt violated. My limbs moved slower. After processing my feelings with my mom on the phone, I relaxed and the effects of the drug lifted after a few hours.
The following night, a nurse made a pass at me in my bedroom, asking for me to take my clothes off. I declined firmly. I then reported it to the lead nurse, who reassigned him. It appeared unlikely that there would be any reprimand or effect on his employment status.
🧫
During this time, COVID-19 was causing staffing shortages. Some staff openly discussed the possibility of the facility shutting down; most patients present to these conversations were too medicated to listen or comprehend.
🚶🏼♀️
Before I was to leave, the psychiatrist insisted I promise to never go naked in public again.
I was 17 when when we were staying at the hotel at Fanime Con with the DVC Anime Club. He had a spot on the floor of the girl’s room.
When everyone else was out, I leaned off the bed and we kissed for the first time.
“The Stanford of community colleges”
…is still just a community college, with a special arrangement with UC Berkeley to ensure transfers.
I entered classes at 16, starting with ASL, Algebra, Astronomy, and Psychology. I enjoyed practically all the topics and had positive interactions with nearly all of my instructors.
Outstanding classes:
I elected to take many psychology courses, and found it to be an interesting major despite being overly structured. However, I did not pursue an AA and instead focused on transferable units.
I joined Anime Club and developed a crush on a quiet dude, Chris. I followed him on campus a couple times, keeping a distance and observing his interactions with his friend. I befriended his older brother, who also was part of Anime Club, and he introduced us.
-More on that to come-
After reviewing colleges that served both our interests, we decided upon Humboldt State University.
In 2002, here sat my friends and I during lunch. The crew came from the middle school group: Kat, Kim, Brian, Lila, and Stephanie, and Matt. (Jacqueline went to a different high school.)
Staff of the school, in an attempt to tidy the campus, cut down the tree that we sat under. There was a remaining log🪵. To bring visibility to the issue, I carried the log to class for a few days. Having noticed that people were more engaged about the oddity of someone carrying a log rather than the issue of the cut tree, I stopped.
I was enrolled in the “Art Academy,” that had alternative project-oriented classes. I learned how to use Photoshop and gained experience in communicating artistic vision to varying audiences.
I participated in Anime Club and watched a lot of Naruto with my fellow “geeks.”
If I recall correctly (IIRC), in sophomore year a new member of the group, Stacy, was very inclusive and drew in a refined anime art style. I felt displaced, so in the beginning of junior year I started touring the social groups around campus. A favorite was A Hall, which included Art Academy friend, Brian D, and mega-crush, Jack.
Inspired by my sister who dropped out of high school to pursue college education early, I enrolled in community college and dropped out of high school in the middle of my junior year. On my last day of class there was a quiz in Mr Hagerstrand’s English class; I sat at my desk and ate the first page while my peers were working on it.
However, for the following few months I continued visiting the school during school hours to continue friendships and slowly ween off of the public school system.
Ugh, middle school.
I went to Pine Hollow Middle School way out in Concord because it was “nicer” than the middle school in Bay Point.
As I was wanting more independence, teachers wanted more engagement.
I nearly failed 6th Grade, but made it up when my dad forced me to finish several months of incomplete assignments over a weekend.
7th grade, Paulina and I stopped hanging out, so I sat alone. I did better in class. I developed a devastating crush on Jack, a brilliant and sociable student who would take lunch with the kids who passed around Magic: The Gathering cards.
After a few months of sitting alone at lunch, I was joined by Jacqueline, a shy girl who I stuck up for.
In 8th grade, I got straight-As and achieved the highest grade on a math placement test. At lunch, Jacqueline and I were joined by Kat, Kim, Brian, Lila, and Stephanie, who were already hanging out.
I had my own website that was a fan site dedicated to an anime called Slayers.
My mom would drive my sister and I into Concord for Middle and High School, which took us on Bailey Road that winds through the hills and down past navy bunkers.
I had many dreams about the hills, usually hiking on a path by the road and getting lost.
Sometimes we would see a sea of fog settled over Concord, so for a couple weeks we brought our camcorder (this was before smartphones) to see if we could capture it again (we never did).
We were on Bailey Rd, running late for school on 9/11/2001, when we tuned into the radio to hear about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Mom urgently requested we listen to what was being said as I gazed at the field of bunkers.
I went to Bel Air Elementary for grades K-5.
My peers were diverse, though mostly living at or close to poverty level.
Most of my teachers were very supportive people, shout outs to:
The kids would occasionally bully based on gender expression (I wish I stuck up for you, Larry), contents of lunchboxes, and pass stories of gang violence.
However, on the whole we were alright.
In 1st grade, I met Paulina who became my best friend. It started a few days after she transferred when I asked if she would be my friend. It turned out that she lived close to me, so we would frequently visit and have sleepovers.
In 4th grade, I entered Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program, meaning that occasionally I would do separate worksheets and join a small group that visited a kid’s science activity space where we learned about animals, weather, chemistry, etc. Paulina also joined.
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.
I also apologize to the person whose shoulder I injured substantially. I cannot fathom how that has affected your life. I am grateful that the surgery went well.
This is where I began my journey to raw veganism.
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:
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).
It started with working on my own mind.
I had phases of eating mostly mushrooms, as well as“medicinal” “organic” “superfoods.” 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 (“One.”) and the glisten of the oil dimmed and seemed less eerie. I then continued to take more bites (“Two, three, four…”) 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 others’ 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 it’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 “bleh” 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.
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:
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)
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:
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, 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
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.)
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.
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”
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
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!
This is where I grew up with my parents and my older sister.
Recent photo with many trees cut down; find on Zillow
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:
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?)
I began experimenting with fruitarianism in October 2020, as I began to discover freely forageable fruiting plants of Oakland and Berkeley.
My diet largely consisted of feijoas, oranges, apples, passionfruits, dogwood fruits, persimmons, pomegranates, unedos, silverberries, ginkgoes, and Oregon grapes.
I found myself drawn to the sun and wore a loin cloth bikini to comply with the legal requirement to wear clothes.
My skin, hair, nails, teeth, and overall physique felt strong. It was disquieting to not experience new sensations in my teeth given how substantially different my diet was from the cooked vegan foods I had been eating.
However, I felt a change of mindset that made the complexity and bleakness of urban living to be overwhelming.
In early 2021, I began incorporating cooked food and wore more clothing. My face started breaking out with acne and red splotches on my cheeks, my nails started chipping, my teeth had little niggling feelings.
I still consumed a lot of fruit, going in and out of stints of fruitarianism, especially when becoming pregnant in March 2021, and returned to full fruitarianism in February 2022 while breastfeeding my first child, Tao.
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