Published in Funky Raw Magazine 2007

Creating Your Island of Paradise

Dr. Rima Morrell

If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of a glorious haven.
Dante

‘Restoring paradise consciousness’, the wonderful subtitle of this wonderful magazine, shows the quality our world most needs. For paradise is not just about our diet, as important as that is. It is about our consciousness. Something the Polynesians, the denizens of those green islands of the Pacific have known for a long, long time. Through increasing industrialization humans lost our connection to primal magic, we even lost our feelings. Now, in a world whirling on the wrong course, what can we learn from those hot, bright islands?

Raw foodists are amazing people, for by ‘uncooking’ we allow the original crystalline vibration of the food to shine. Then we ingest it. By this act, which on first glance, represents a simple act, we are attempting a return, return to the world we once knew. The word ‘paradise’ comes from the Persian word paradeisa meaning ‘an enclosed garden’, almost like a garden on an island in the greater sea. That garden is our original consciousness of growth, fertility and lack of limitation. That garden is the garden of our origins. Nothing is more important than returning to the land of light.

The islands of Polynesia, such as Hawaii and Tahiti, with bulging fruit hanging from the trees and lying on the beaches, represent that departed land. The belief that there was a “paradise lost” somewhere a long time ago, a fertile land where desire could flourish, made people of ‘the enlightenment’ want to see if they could discover it in societies separated from us by space. When the sailors left following their ‘guiding star’ they discovered islands of lushness were the word for work was unknown, of beautiful inhabitants with amazing ceremonies, islands of free love and great sex.

Sadly for us, we no longer know the hula uliuli performed under the flaring light of the kukui nut torches, on the nights of the full moon, to the invitation of the dancers’ magic wands. We have lost the lights in the night that were the torches thrown over the Na Pali cliffs in Kaua’i to your waiting lover in the Pacific ocean far below, from the cliff called makana or gift. We have lost some “guiding lights” and stories of the stars in helping us sail our canoes across the ocean. The web of stories and poetry and meaning has been altered, the world has been flattened, things that were previously connected in an invisible web tugging on family, friends and consciousness are now squashed and separated out. Many live their lives in terms of their job, or computers, or DVD’s. Separate islands in a deeper sea, there is still a voice deep inside, that tells us things used to be different once. And we can see how in Polynesia.

Life there was integrated in a wave of bliss. People ‘worked’ together for about four hours a day or less, gathering food, using freely available materials to make simple huts, which couples shared. There was no idea of land ownership, merely sovereignty. Sovereignty, ‘ea, is a fascinating concept which Leonardo Da Vinci in our society said best by saying: ‘man has no greater or lesser dominion than the dominion over himself’. It is everyone’s responsibility to the best he or she can be, and there was plenty of time for doing it through fun, games, gathering and family life. The spirits, ‘aumakua were part of daily life, and called upon at will. Everything was sacred, whether it is the breeze that blows, the light on the ocean (which is a sign that Laomaomao, the god of the surf is playing there) or the hummingbird darting among the leaves. People talked to nature and the creatures around, who are our guides (the mythology of each one and how it helps take us home is described in The Hawaiian Oracle). We were all part of a greater golden world. Couples slept together ‘on the same tapa mat’, which design represented the design of the Higher Self. The Higher Self is the greater part of ourselves, which knows and understands all things. Huna, the ancient wisdom of Hawaii, teaches how to access it. Polynesians say the world of bliss goes back aeons, to a world before the flood (of which they also have legends), to Lemuria, the land of light.

But, even in Polynesia, the world changed as the earth became denser. People and other creatures no longer lived on ether, light, although they still lived on a fresh, raw, vegan diet, effortlessly and communually gathered. The idea of eating meat, fish, humans or insects was unthinkable, because it was cannibalism. We were all the same. Then, about eight hundred years ago, Polynesian oral traditions record an invasion occurred. This chief from Samoa took over most of the islands, and instituted rites such as the eating of meat and fish – and even human sacrifice where the victim was known as a ‘long fish’. Temples to the cult of blood were built, abbatoirs in the West are a reflection of this cult. That’s when the western world came in, and still today anthropologists wrongly understand Polynesia in terms of it. Yet there was still enough brightness left for the islands to be the best thing these sailors had ever seen. As a young boy perched on top of a mast said in the film Polynesian Odyssey asked a crusty old sailor as the white man’s ship arrived and the canoes were sent out from the gleaming island:

“Is that what it’s always like?”
“Aye lad, welcome to paradise. Paradise will change forever.”
“Change, sir?”
‘Yes lad, maybe for good, maybe for evil, it will never be the same. May God judge us kindly.”
The changes, as we have seen, did occur and the bright islands became dimmer.

Yet even today the islands still shine more vividly than anywhere else. The colours are brighter – witness Hawaiian shirts – and the coral reefs still skirt the islands. Surveys show islands such as Hawaii and Tahiti represent paradise to most people. People go on holiday there to try and return to that paradise, even if only for a short window of time. When I was in Raiatea I met a rather weathered yachtie called Philip, originally from Chalk Farm in London. He’d won the Lottery and was sailing the South Pacific in his own yacht. He admitted he was in Tahiti to find a wife, yet he felt used by the Tahitian women, and said candidly he was lonely and: “it’s not like in the films.” They do not yet realize the vibration we need is within. “Almost all the world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everyone you talk to ... only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement.” That is where raw fooders win. For the vibration inherent in the unaltered food sets off our ancestral memories and catapults us into the world of light. And the food does not even have to be kukui nuts, which traditionally stand for enlightenment in Hawaii, to take us home.

In this sacred journey, never doubt you are a hero. For you must firstly think for yourself, then have the courage to follow this by your action and leave the seas of the majority. You then make the effort to gather and eat raw food, open up to your insights and intuition, increase your level of being and then integrate the vibration in your life. Inevitably this involves letting go of certain beliefs and people. Yet others will notice your increased vitality and radiance and want to know what you’re doing. That’s when you share the knowledge. You are following the hero’s journey, as defined by mythologist Joseph Campbell. To quote him: “the standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is magnification of the formula represented in rites of passage: separation-initiation-return. That is exactly what every raw fooder is doing, separating himself or herself from the values of society, undergoing the raw food initiation and vibratory change, then returning to share your knowledge. What an amazing force you are!

Through your sacred journey you help change the world. You green your own island, the Hawaiian represent it as Kane Huna Moku, the hidden island of paradise, which I describe in my books and teachings. This isle of the inner garden ultimately exists inside you. Through nourishing it, through your diet and consciousness, you are helping to restore paradise consciousness to the world. Then, as the poet Rupert Brooke said 'new stars burn into the ancient skies’. Those stars will always guide you as you return to your true home.