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.