Mango's bananas

I'd been down-under for a year and a half, and I thought I'd found paradise...

I loved living where I was, camped under some wild old eucalyptus trees in the middle of a tropical fruit orchard. 500 banana trees to my right, and various other fruit trees to my left - akee, coconut, longans, black sapotee (the infamous chocolate pudding fruit, yes!), passion fruit, papaya to name but some.

.. And about 50 meters behind me, lie a giant field full of several hundred Mango trees.

50 meters in front of me was my very very dear Ozzy family, who I loved to pieces.

Disease evolves from bad eating habits... Disease dissolves from good eating habits

 Sue, Leif, Xylon and Elskar deg.. I felt like I was in love.. Maybe I was..

In love maybe, but enlightened I wasn't. (and still amn't, though I like to think I'm getting there.. Though.. maybe that's a hindrance.. Hmm.. - just feel like I'm wading through treacle!). Anyhow, with lack of enlightenment comes suffering. Unavoidable as the sunrise.

And my problem at the time, in a world so wonderful and abundant? .. Cooked food, and my inability to shake myself free of it's sticky snotty addictiveness.. Stodge city..

Every day, I'd awaken to the kookaburras laughter, and tell myself

Hack spitting is not a disgusting habit.. It is a very healthy, sain reaction to a disgusting habit - Eating cooked food!

 - "Today I'll eat no cooked food".. Every day I'd play with Xylon and Elskar deg, go down to the river, mess around in my little garden, and go and talk life, religion, illusion and local bush gossip with Sue and Leif.. Raid the jackfruit trees, and machetee open jelly coconuts we always had lying around in abundance... Every evening, we'd sit around to eat together..  Big colourful salads with all raw ingredients freshly picked from Leifs proliferous permaculture garden... and then I'd smell Sues delicious stodge meals cooked on the open camp fire.. and.. resolve weakening.. I'd fill up my trusty selfmade coconut bowl (I've still got it as a souvenir some place), and have just one last cooked supper..

  And then I'd feel heavy, and moody with myself, though inevitably, I'd do my best not to show it..

I'd wander back to my camp at dusk.. Normally not too late, as I had to contend with the feral pigs that were generally out and about at that time too,

Unripe fruit, and overripe fruit, is as dangerous for our bodies as cooked food.. Possibly more so.

 rooting around in my compost holes, just meters from my mattress.

Why oh why did I eat that again?

I should say, on arriving in Australia, I went 3 solid months eating nothing but fruit, which wasn't the first time I'd gone a reasonable stretch on fruit alone, but now I seemed to be stuck in a rut. Spiraling downwardly nowhere.

Anyhow.. Mango season was upon us, and the mango orchard looked like Eden on earth.. - With a catch..

It was a rotten year for mangoes.. and although there were an abundance on the trees, none of them were really ripe.. But neither was much else at the time.. and town was a good 2 hour journey away, and I had no real desire to head there anyway.. So I was basically just living on unripe mangoes all day, and a cooked stewey stodge in the evening

Outside of a dog, a book is a mans best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

 (prepared with a good deal of love I might add to give it credit).

So there I was, stuck in this rut of not really eating at all well, but focusing more on the stews than the unripe mangoes.

One night I got back to my camp after a 3rd helping, feeling particularly displeased with myself, and I looked up into the star filled sky, and asked God to help me out.. Give me a helping hand.. Do something, anything.. To give me the strength I needed in order to break myself free from this selfdestructive habit I had gotten in to.

I then curled up under my sarong on my mattress, and slept to the gentle snuffling of the feral pigs in my compost hole.

Now, as we all know.. the Lord works in mysterious ways.. And you don't always get the things you want, the way you want them..

Such was to be the case for me too..

Weeks went by, trickling passed one day at a time.. And quite unexpectedly, 6 weeks into the mango season, one evening while chewing on a mouthful of salad and tahini, a piece of one of my top front teeth flaked off.

It felt so bizarre.. Suey looked at my mouth, and my top front teeth seemed to all be translucent, almost see-through, like all the enamel was gone.

Within the next 3 weeks, I lost my 4 top front teeth, between the canines, and another 3 or 4 on the sides of my mouth..

There was no great discomfort as I lost them, apart from the surrealistic psychological side of things. The events unrolled in an almost dreamlike fashion. Once it had started, I doubt there is much I could have done to stop it, as it all happened so quickly..

I remember clearly, I woke up one morning with terrible head splitting toothache. My cheek was swollen, and I was in no humour at all for practising equanimity... I skipped breakfast,

The Lord works in mysterious ways..

 and by midday was feeling a little less grumpy. I had some fruit, maybe a Papaya had turned up from somewhere, and then later, stew again.. Shortly after, I was in pain again.

I don't know how I would have coped at the time, if someone had told me that this would pretty much be the norm for the next few months..

  I never visited a dentist, and my only pain relief came from Neem oil, clove oil and tea-tree oil; dripping any of these on the offending area would offer some pain relief, though naturally, nothing lasting.

I'd have days in between, where I'd either fast, or eat just fruits, and these days the pain would die down, or disappear..

Anyhow, some weeks later, we (myself and loved ones, Sue, Leif, Xylon and Elskar deg) had moved a 1000 kilometers south and were at a rainy cold Rainbow Gathering in New South Wales, inland from Byron Bay.

I love Rainbow Gatherings, but during this one, I was battling more with my mouth and consequent grumps, than I was with having a good time.. But one evening, I was around the cosely warm sacred fire, listening to the drums and people singing, and suddenly the words of one particular chant struck me ... Jah will provide .. (Jah being the Rasta word for God), and it all became so strikingly clear.

I had asked God to provide me with a solution, and although it was not quite as I'd have suspected, the solution was there..

A lot of people I've told this story too, cringe and think how horrible, but this is my life, and I am immensely glad of the lessons I have been given and learned from.

One day, I woke up, and said enough! I knew where it was coming from, the pain was just too much, and the cooked stodges were just not worth it.. Everytime I quit eating cooked food, the pain would die away and disappear.. eat cooked food again, and the fire would rekindle itself. It wasn't necessary to be a genius to work it out.

Since all those years ago, my remaining teeth have been fine, excepting one particular occasion where I was stuck in Medan, Sumatra, and feeling very sorry for myself. I started eating cooked food again, after a year and a half on 100% raw, and within 3 days, I had the worst toothache to date, I was delirious, and spent the next 2 days rolling around on the floor in my room in agony. I nursed myself back to health through drinking nothing but sugar cane juice for the next couple of days, and the pain subsided and vanished as suddenly as it had started.

The teeth I lost have had shards remaining in my mouth, that occasionally flake away slowly, but there is no further pain, and no other teeth have been lost since. I am able to chew fine, and have not sought after any dentistry or falsies.

I have a bit of a gapey smile, but this is me, I don't believe in plastic surgery.. Besides, I have belief that a 3rd set of teeth is a possibility, provided the mouth is not tampered with (this can happen any time after around 50 years.).

I am convinced that had I not eaten those unripe mangos, my teeth (barring other mishaps) would probably have still been fully seated. Though I may still have been addicted to cooked food. Who knows?.. Either way, I have learned that eating unripe fruit is as dangerous for us as cooked food. Beware!