in regard to "faithful nonmonogamy" maynard s clark asked:

>respectfully, what does such a posting
>have to do with raw foods OR vegetarianism?

aloha!
	maynard,
		my initial response: "read zephyr's book."  to provide
instant satisfaction, i'll provide a small part of that excellent tome
here.  plenty of raw foods, zero vegetarianism.

pleasurably,
	    bodhi

	**Tantric** relationships are at essence level, or intentionally
growing towards essence level.  **** Essence level can be easily
identified as the here-now focus shared by infants, animals, and plants.
****  To relate at this level we are each required to move through
imprinting, competition, fantasies, judgments, headtrips, and other fears
to experience myself and others as androgynous beings in the here-now.
This movement is directly supported by clearing channels through
communication.

	Tantra occurs in a state of surrender.  As it is happening, the
contracting walls between those in the experience melt down, creating
ecstatic feelings of unity and identification.  The more continuity,
sustainability, and diversity in the experience, the more feelings of
wholeness and completeness are felt by the beings involved.

	Sensual/sexual experiences, when done outside of an integrated
community context, often lead to neurotically creating my partner to be
my mommy, daddy, or guru.  Creating one lover to be "it," or one mother
to be the source, totally promotes codependent, unbalanced, and
unsustainable relationships.  These relationship systems attract
"dis-ease" to transform them to sutainable systems, e.g., divorce,
whining, resentment, nurturing scarcity, and perpetual therapy.  Relating
at essence we can experience our sensual experiences as just projections
to the experience, like, "You're the one."  "I love you (specially)."
"We've had many past live together."  Or, "This means (s)he loves me."
Yes, I might have those thoughts, but they're just my thoughts; they are
not necessarily true, and not necessarily false.  The knowable truths are
that I feel tingling in my thoughts and fantasies that I express (perhaps
charmingly and poetically) for what they are.

	Here's a metaphoric explanation for why monogamy is an
unsustainable form:

	Monogamy is equivalent to eating only one food for years -- say
Coconuts, my "lover" -- and only looking at or smelling other plants --
ornamentals, my "friends."  I only eat Coconuts for various reasons and
beliefs including, "Coco might get jealous if I foraged for other fruit."
"(S)he might think that (s)he's not satisfying me."  "There's a special
intimacy that's developed when I eat only one food for years and years
that I don't want to ruin."  "Coco fills all my food needs."  "Coco is my
soul food, the food I've searched for all my life."  "It's enough work
just having my relationship with Coconut.  I don't have energy to eat
other foods."

	One day though, I'm wandering around and I notice a ripe papaya
on a plant.  My mouth starts to water, and I want to pick it and eat it.
I refuse the temptation because of my monogamous contract/relationship
with Coco.  Later on the path I see a stalk of Bananas with a hand of
ripe ones on it.  Despite my hunger and curiosity, I suppress and move on
without eating, though I do stop and smell the ripe ones on it.  Despite
my hunger and curiosity, I suppress and move on without eating, though I
do stop and smell the ripe ones.  I get back home to the coconut grove
and tell Coco the story.  Coco feels threatened, "This means you don't
love me.  If you have an affair with either one of them we're through!"
I feel all guilty and swear my loyalty to Coco.  But every time I pass by
Banana or Papaya I get tempted.

	A few weeks later I break down and eat a Papaya.  Coconuts and I
"break up," in a rageful fight, and I move to the Papaya field -- the new
love of my life.  Coco, "my ex," fades, though sometimes I do kinda miss
the juice.  One day I say to Papaya, "Hey, can I just smell and admire
Coconuts once in awhile?  I promise not to eat them, we'll 'just be
friends.'"  Papaya, not wanting to appear as possessive as (s)he truly is
says, "O.K."  Tragically though, on my second visit my mouth starts to
water, and next thing ya know, I'm up in the crown swiggin' nuts until
Papaya, in a fit of jealousy, tells me to get down and threatens to cut
Coconut down if I ever climb again.

	Of course, I burn out on Papaya, go to a Banana patch, etc. ad
infinitum.  The incomplete nutrition I experience from eating only one
food for so long invariably causes me dissatisfaction.  This is a model
of "serial monogamy."  Not sustainable, kinda ridiculous, and accepted as
true, like water's wet and gravity is!

	In the sixties, the first experiments to break out of this
paradigm were called "free love."  This means I go from Coco grove, to
Papaya field, to Banana patch, etc., as my feelings and desires guide me.
This is fun for me, though I end up traveling a lot more than I prefer.
Also, I often overeat on one monoculture food patch because it's all
that's there, and I don't wanna walk.  Even so, I get more balanced
nutrition.  Unfortunately, it's a lot of work to maintain these many
seperate orchards.  Coco, Banana, and Papaya don't get to know each other
(except through my stories which gets them kinda jealous), and a lot goes
to compost.  Add a child into the story and forget it.

	Da kine?  Interplant Papaya, Banana, Coco, et. al. all on one
land.  Let many people forage off all of them, have many people manage
the orchard, watch everyone eat what they most want, and grow enough so
there's abundance.  This integrates everyone, removes the need for
excessive and controlling jealousy, competition, ownership of particular
plants, and malnutrition.

	In human terms, everyone is free to be sexual/intimate/playful
with anyone living on the land who they're attracted to and is attracted
to them.  The land -- our tribe -- is the safe and expanding environment
for this free foraging of our wondrous energies.  Everyone is caring for
everything, with different folks having different overlapping foci.  Love
and source is present everywhere, not just in one tree or fruit that's
mine, mine, and only mine.

	And since we know that a healthy Coconut tree that's well
mulched, in healthy soil, with ample sunlight, doesn't lose center if
someone who drinks Coconuts also eats Bananas and Papayas, we support the
identification and healing of imprinted jealousy, scarcity, attachment,
abandonment, possessiveness, homophobia, etc.; we mulch each other, and
show each other how to nurture all the different beautiful, delectable,
and aromatic plants in the Permaculture.

	In summary, I consider a community, on the social level, **** a
group of three or many more people who 1) have no ownership between them
on any plane, 2) communicate fully and openly-and-honestly, with no
contraction, 3) are non-violent, and 4) practice tantra; and are open to
expanding their group to include others who also choose to live within
this liberating social form. ****  (These are a restatement of the four
covenants of the Shivalila community.)

	With each of our relationships *integrated* into a molecule, we
can have enough people to be *tantric* with to de-imprint our
codependent, contracted, neurotic ego relating, and to re-imprint fluid,
expansive, communal, essence relating.  With our relationships
*free-flowing* we can have *integrated* relationships with many people
simultaneously with ease and grace.  When we are *integrated* and
*free-flowing*, no one or two egos are in control; our decisions come
from a unified voice.  As we practice *open-and-honest*
*mutually-nurturing* *communications* we *free-flow*; and through
consciously communicating, our relationships evolve, strengthen, and
*integrate*.  Living in a *Permaculture* we can be *integrated*, in
complete abundance, for long enough periods of time (say years and years,
or generations) so that we have the time, space, and energy to create
these relationships.  And *eating* *instinctively* out of our
*Permaculture* gives us karma-free energy, and allows each of us to be an
open and powerful enough channel to more easily unite *in* *tantra* with
all the beings in the community.  Being this conscious in all of these
meditations we can experience a community that is sustainable, ecstatic,
creating, and evolving, for all beings on earth.

	Obviously, these are ideals.  Coalescing a creation based on
these ideals is far different than merely following or not following the
ideals.  And, experiencing the unity of this vision is more than merely
piling a bunch of folks together in this social form who claim they are,
or would like to be, open and unified.  I offer this articulation as an
outline and guide to show all of us that there are powerful meditations
to create true freedom for ourselves; and to acknowledge how profoundly
contracted most of us were imprinted and continue to live.

	Like any other creation, it simply requires intention to
manifest.  And it requires the courage to acknowledge the profound
seperation we live in -- raw food diets and new age raps aside.

	It is a great challenge to imprint an identity in a fear-based,
contracted civilization, and to be in total identification with it as
absolute reality.  **** Most of us haven't yet discovered a sustainable
reality beyond our imprint, **** though many of us touch it through sex,
drugs, rock and roll, meditation, yoga, and being in wilderness.

	Some of us wake up to a greater reality, choose to detach from
that mutant imprint, and create an expanded self and a compassionate
culture to live in.  This is the challenge before me and many others.

	I feel blessed to have all the knowledge I got in my first twenty
years on Gaia, yet not be constantly possessed by that knowledge or the
identity that harbored it.  I feel that I am much more expansive in my
ability to be than if I had simply been born into an aboriginal/tribal
society and never left it -- irony for sure.

	I/We are now creating a new culture/context to live in.  I am
taking on this grand endeavor because I am unable to be supported in the
lifestyle and awarness I desire by the culture I imprinted.  Instinctive
eating has led me to a more expansive meditation!

typed by bodhi from
		    	
_instinctive_eating:_the_lost_knowledge_of_optimum_nutrion_

						by zephyr
								 (c) 1996

		whoever believes an idea can be copyrighted
		     has already forgotten its source.