Coconut Raw Food Lifestyle
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A Coconut Raw Food Lifestyle Paradise Pristine Private Island The Tree of Life and Organic Raw Food Dedicated to my wonderful island coconut trees. I am often asked, “What encouraged you to follow your inner child guides to a pristine private island paradise to live the rest of your life surrounded by the gifts of the coconut?” Here is a small part of my interesting saga. |
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| At age 36, after traveling the globe extensively, I had a strong vision to settle down in my own pristine Shangri-la, my little nest with many coconut trees. I was then on a 16 year world sojourn, traveling together with my English partner Mark.
Our adventures had taken us to some of the world’s most pristine, rugged, serene, remote wilderness and animal reserves, plus canyons, rivers, lakes and paradise white sand beaches fringed with coconut. Though I was a shy and private person, uncomfortable with people since a little girl, I was totally relaxed in Mother Nature, particularly in the tropics near a cleansing sea and eating organic food from the wild. During my adventures, short-term travelers would often ask questions about my long unusual journeys. Amazed myself that many of my wild dreams came true, I would tell them I was blessed to have among others, Peter Pan and Tinker Bell as my mystical spiritual friends. |
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| I came to believe it and live by my pristine private island dream.My ‘vision to settle’ was not your typical ‘Buy a house in the country and settle down’! My dream was a pristine paradise somewhere in the tropics far away from people.
It was private and had a lush tropical jungle backdrop. I could see an island surrounded by blue crystal clear water, teaming with fish, a long white sand beach fringed with coconut and a nearby coral reef. Amazingly, I could still see mountain peaks, caves and grottos in the picture, too. I could see myself growing my organic garden, learning how to eat coconut in many varied ways, sprouting my seeds in my own kitchen, eating detox cleansing raw food and having pets (also eating raw) to nurture and love. I was still unsure if I would live on a pristine private island beside a tropical turquoise blue sea or on some mystical private mountain. |
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| Most people would say this was an irrational fairytale fantasy; to me it was real. I knew it was out there and I had to search. And with the help of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell as my mystical guides, find my pristine private island, I did.
Like a coconut washed to a far distant shore, I started from an organic coconut seed on my new private island soil, and then I grew my tropical island roots. Later I would grow my sturdy trunk, my huge green leaves and fruits to share. |
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Finding the Soil to Plant the Coconut Seed Mark had airline tickets back to Australia, suggesting we look for a place in tropical Cape Tribulation, Northern Queensland, and another paradise we both loved. However living in the West did not fit my mystical journey. I could feel my need of a paradise in the East, far away from what most call ‘normal’ civilization. Still Mark was my partner; we had traveled together for more than 14 years, sharing much love, joy and experience. He would often suggest I wake up to reality and I would struggle with questions like: Why did I at 36 years old still believe such a fantasy fairytale about an exotic paradise with coconut fringed beaches existed? Would I be searching my whole life for an unobtainable mystical private island dream? |
| Could there really be gods, goddesses, fairies and spiritual guides and a remote coconut fringed white sand beach I could live on?While traveling through Malaysia on our way back to Australia, I was sharing my far-fetched island dream with a Swiss couple while sitting at a small street-side restaurant in Penang. Immediately both said that my vision sounded like the pristine area they had just left, the spectacular bay, cliffs and coconut fringed beaches of El Nido, Palawan, Philippines.
Immediately I heard bells in my head and felt Peter Pan beside me again saying the words “what are we waiting for?” |
| Weeks later after trekking off the beaten track through rice paddies and waiting days in a crocodile infested riverside village for a weekly market boat, we found our way to the paradise of Bacuit Bay, home of 21 unforgettable pristine private islands, with coconut fringed white sand beaches and the main town of El Nido.
After just two weeks here, surprising even me, I was adamant that I would find my dream in one of these exotic gems. Mark had not the heart to share my dream, yet I heard myself tell him, “I will manage it alone from here and find my pristine paradise, I will make the nest I am now ready to make.” We said goodbye, he thinking I would come to my senses with time and experience. I knew I was here for life. |
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| Four months later, together with Peter Pan, I was shown the unforgettable shores of my destiny. As if my friendly spiritual guides had waved their magic wands, almost all of my wishes were in front of me on this tiny magical island – my Isla Del Nido (the nest) It was my exotic, mystical place here in Asia.It was a gem surrounded by other gems, a pearl in a pristine place.
It was an island surrounded by blue crystal clear water, teaming with fish. If all of this was not enough, it had a carved small pool just on the shore that I could use as my wishing well for future diva dreams. I was ecstatic and in love. Finding my vision had taken all of three months. |
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| Now making it my tropical paradise home and becoming self sufficient on coconut and organic food was going to be the dedicated work of my life, a challenge like moving a mountain! It was September, over 25 years ago, when I was washed to these shores with Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, arriving with almost no savings left. Few westerners lived in our area, few locals had met a foreigner and fewer spoke English.
Even though I was well traveled, living among people from such a simple culture was like stepping back in time 50 years or more. I was ever-so green!! I had not even thought it through, how I would survive eating my beloved detox coconut diet, what I would do for funds. My family (though not close) believed like Mark did, that one day I would return to my senses and come back to Australia; there was no way I was going to ask them for any financial help. |
| In the early days life was about survival, with huge challenges. It was not a bed of roses that is for sure! Days and dramas were real and not for the weak minded. Living here can be like being in the Wild West and I had my hands full just trying to understand a culture that is so different from our world.
There were days I admit I hit some mighty bumps and did buckle and bend just like the coconut tree does – it happens to all of us! But these obstacles were heaven-sent to make me stronger. I believe one makes the most of what we have….I had what most people only dream of, it was a precious magical gift, how could I NOT put my heart and soul into it? |
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Growing my Delicate Coconut Roots Home for me was here, with these trees, there would never be another in this lifetime. I had made the forever commitment. I had to trust Peter Pan and Tinker Bell as well as my new island gods, goddesses and fairies to show me the way. There was nothing in my head saying “NO”; that it might not or would not work. I would mesh with the local islanders and balance this most important shift in my life. I would grow like the coconut tree and learn new skills to live closely with nature. I learnt to make young coconut jelly, coconut brittle, coconut biscuits, crunches, coconut oils, coconut cheeses, coconut champagne and coconut honey. |
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I would adapt to this tropical island lifestyle, as I believed the answers were here with the trees, and as long as I asked, all would be revealed.Looking back, I see this as my saving grace. My head was in the clouds…he..he.. Thinking rationally rarely allows someone to start a tropical island adventure such as I did! Yet in hindsight, I can not help but be surprised by just how irrational I was all those years ago! Like others starting their ‘Robinson Crusoe lifestyle’, I planted more coconut in my garden, grew my sprouts and explored the lush natural vegetation. |
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| Using local folklore tales Peter Pan and Tinker Bell would help me weave fantasies of the island shapes, acknowledging the fairy guides.
Inabuyatan Island in front of me, became The Princess who had cried herself to sleep hundreds of years ago, distressed with the world for allowing the Goddesses to by destroyed. Now with the help of her seven sisters, she had woken, aware that these strong women were on the scene again. A Mammoth Elephant leaning up against her as a symbol of Yin and Yang. Still after four years of trying to survive, I failed to earn enough for basic needs with my farming venture. In 1992, with almost no facilities, I opened my doors to regular tourism, offering stretcher beds on the beach and visitors had to help me prepare meals and hot drinks on a wood fire. |
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I had no towels, bed linens and knew nothing about bokashi composting toilet in those days. It was a rustic beginning with lots of coconut drinks and meals on my exotic menu and budget travelers loved it.
Offering a tiny haven for passing yachts, I sold coconuts, coconut oil, coconut champagne and veggies, fruits, green leaves and water, as well as offering refueling, laundry and garbage disposal services. This led to an article in the Hong Kong magazine called ‘Fragrant Harbor’ and during the months of March and April before the Hong Kong changeover of 1997, groups of eight or sometimes twelve yachts would anchor in my spectacular bay. Their owners would shout from their boats, “Is it OK to come ashore for dinner? We are 14 of us, have you got some raw organic food for us, we are tired of tinned junk.” “What about some coconut champagne too” |
| Slowly, with better income, I created more cottages under the coconut trees, adding facilities, increasing my rates, services and sharing the benefits of cleansing raw food.
In 1996 my island view was chosen as the gem of all the 7001 Philippine islands by the author of the Lonely Planet Guide Book. Our Beautiful ‘Princess’ (Inabuyatan Island) fringed with coconuts was on his front cover. Popularity brought more visitors and in those short-lived years, I was able to pay off many of the islanders who owned or claimed to own my part of the island. Often I would accommodate thirty or more guests staying in-house daily. The downside of more visitors was the difficult challenge of sharing my pristine environment with people who enjoyed things that I considered toxic and definitely not meant to be here in my mystical private island with Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. To keep my delicate spiritual balance, the first to go off my island services was meat, followed by cigarettes, then alcohol and coffee and sugar. Having acquired a deeper interest in the health benefits of coconut, making virgin oil as well as coconut flower honey and many other organic food, I would cringe at the amount of over-cooked food I served on my table, including breads, buns and tarts, with not a hope in paradise to incorporate the benefits of food combining or not drinking with meals, plus what I had learned about detox fasting. Like any business, one is obliged to serve what a customer wants or pay the price and lose business. In the face of much advice to the contrary, I chose the latter, adamantly believing money was not my driving force, and love of my island and quality of life was! and I had to find a way. Growing my Sturdy Tall Coconut Trunk When you are a child of nature, eating mostly detox cleansing raw food, you are content with the whisperings of wonderful elementals and divas. The many and varied sounds of the sea, the swishing of the fronds of my enormous trees above was, is and always will be my musical pleasure. These trees asked me to hug them, the heavens guided me to build sundecks to embrace the light; the sea beckoned me to swim in it daily. For me the wind offered fine vibrations within the coconut trees that I adored. I was and still am, content with simplicity and the song ‘All The Sounds Of The Earth Are Like Music’ is so true for me. Along the way I was blessed to have visitors share their Gentle Arts. I learnt to practice yoga, tai chi, sword dancing, and do tarot and angel card readings too. Sometime in mid 1997, an English couple, listening to me voice my current island dreams, suggested I was outlining a detox cleansing spa. All I knew then of Spas were hot water pools in Germany. Fortunate enough to be managing a detox fasting center in Puerto Rico, these two people had my full attention. Another important spiritual serendipity was in the making. A little later, a kind Austrian offered to create my first website for me; an Internet Cafe worker in Puerto Princesa agreed to check emails and send them up in printed state. I replied in longhand. So many rustic beginnings! Imagine notes traveling via a difficult local bus/truck ride over 400 kilometers of steep mountains up to El Nido, then waiting for a rare island boat trip. It was the same process to get the answer back down to Puerto Princesa. Some email replies would have been 10-15 days old before the sender would receive it! I can laugh at the journey, so different from now! Visitors often wonder at my patience with the continual computer challenges we have here day by day now, but I know its all relative and I take nothing for granted. Though my library was minimal then, one book called “Touch For Health”, written by John Thie, stood out prominently. I had carried this book on many of my travels, even to the base camp of Everest. Once here, I had placed it in a corner, forgetting it, having no partner to learn with or practice it. On a whim I wrote to John Thie’s Foundation, hoping the 20 year-old address might still exist and that my letter might reach them. My request to entice a ‘Touch For Health’ instructor to the island to teach me Kinesiology went off with a passing visitor. It was like sending a message in a bottle asking Tinker Bell to deliver it. I did not use the postal system and till now don’t. I quickly learnt about mud/clay bakes, coconut body scrubs, seaweed wraps and various detox massage treatments. A Reiki Master sailing in a yacht anchored in my bay and I managed to encourage her to stay longer, teaching me Reiki 1 and 2. I even belatedly learnt about the bokashi, composting toilet, something still on my list of things to create. My buds were expanding, spring was in the air and important detox groundwork was in progress. With the help of a few loyal visitors, I began building several rustic, comfy cottages with garden bathrooms, dreaming of my new ‘Adventure Wellness’ programs. In 1998, nature threw additional spice into my challenges. First global warming came, bringing ten months of drought with ancient tropical trees crashing down. Sea temperatures, generally only 26 -28 degrees centigrade rose to over 32, killing all the soft corals and much of our hard corals, all under my eyes with nothing I could do. It was a sad unforgettable time for our earth and to cap off the year of 1998, on December 12th, with most of the construction of my new cottages almost completed, one of the strongest typhoons in 60 years ripped into us head-on. It was called ‘Norming’ and we were in the ‘Eye’ and in its wake as it went first one way, then the other it destroyed one third of my retreat, burying my beautiful white sand beach under heaps of rubble, not to mention many small sea creatures. Almost all of my tall coconut trees were damaged, for one full year I would have no fruits. Where to continue, what to rebuild first…where were the funds to do it? I had $500 only in the bank, just enough to keep a US dollar account open. It had to go and more had to be found. Many visitors were booked to share my paradise between Xmas/New Year, and would be deeply disappointed otherwise. This was a huge challenge on its own. However on the heels of this, I had to ride out the aftermath of two political dramas during 1999 and 2000. These issues stopped tourism in its tracks for several years. My Adventure Wellness dreams went on the back burner. I had to survive with my detox coconuts lifestyle…but how and for how long! My wonderful island spirits again heard my prayers and I managed to turn every difficult corner as I came to it. Stretching my Limbs and Dancing my Huge Coconut Leaves In 2002 a connection was made with the owner of Dharma Healing, Hillary Hitt. She graciously shared much information on detox fasting, cleansing and self-healing. I linked my web pages with those of Hillary’s, but nothing moved. I clearly saw detox fasting programs as my future and prayed to know where and how to begin, but though 52 years old, I had never actually had only the vaguest idea what detox fasting programs meant and what to expect. True to the rhythms of my mystical life, less than ten months later, a full of life 73 year old Norwegian man, Frank Jenson arrived, loved my coconut fringed white sand paradise and wanted to stay for 2 months or more. I asked what he did for a living. You might call this luck; I called it as usual my destiny. Like so much in life, our paths are mapped out. Learning Kinesiology was fun, but what I appreciated the most was Frank sitting beside me in my office for a two full months, (mostly nude!), rebuilding his detox fasting website. I was his willing pupil. I learnt about detox fasting programs and life-changing journeys. We were using detox fasting products Frank had brought from Portugal and without even looking into where or how I’d get similar items, I started my detox fasting retreat, adding more coconut products to them, converting my website totally to detox and transformation and my life simultaneously too. It was a huge financial risk to convert from simple tourism to offering detox, fasting, cleansing programs in those early days as few knew what the word detox really meant. Slowly with the help of Tinker Bell and her magic wand, everything came together. I was and still am, blessed to have had the opportunity with my guides, to find and then create one of the most beautiful paradises on earth for detox, fasting and self healing. I could think of no better way to support myself in this lifetime than to share my paradise with caring visitors, mostly women, seeking a quiet sanctuary like mine for their own cleansing self healing work and to find their own inner child. Plus the thrill that people could be sharing their holistic alternative health knowledge with families and loved ones, and contributing just that little bit more to the healing of our world is an added bonus. Like many of us that move into the alternative health care detox field, I too came with my own personal baggage of health challenges. Up until that time, I’d buried many of these in the spirit of ‘just get on with it!’ Peter Pan had told me to be strong, to even play a very masculine role in order to set the groundwork. Now was my own time for spiritual growth and healing, to explore my feminine energy; to nurture and transform ME. To share with love and ever growing understanding, I had to first listen to my deepest inner child awareness. Appreciating and Sharing My Flowers and Fruits After years of personal study, practical experience and commitment in the field of alternative natural health detox and fasting, I earned my Diploma in Naturopathy and forged ahead on my tiny coconut island. Offering colon cleansing services long before many people in my part of the world had ever heard of it, added to my growing legend. ‘The Detox Coconut Lady of a Private Remote Island When I began my detox fasting, programs visitors from all walks of life in those times came and from all corners of the globe, desiring to giving themselves a ‘life-changing gift for their future, have blessed my unique island home with their presence. They came to my paradise island for guided full body deep detox parasite cleansing, colonics, organic raw food, coconut ology teacher training, and alternative health information. Sadly, many of those that come to my island only decide to open to detox cleansing after they have become burnt out from stress and an unhealthy diet. Many know what to do, but forget to listen to their bodies. Too many get seriously sick and take toxic medications, especially for depression, or seriously ill with cancer. Many have had no luck with regular doctors and don’t know what to do. Almost all have parasites and bacteria issues, many have sticky blood and acid pH, its is a steep uphill challenge for those not reach for deep change in their diet and thought patterns. Part of the process of becoming healthy is learning to love ourselves and listen to our spiritual inner child and our hearts; to learn to see our body as our temple. I feel so blessed to have my coconut trees and magical divas here with me every day to be reminded often. Ideally we should detox regularly and eat colorful living vibrant unadulterated organic raw food with lots of coconut, be mindful when and where we eat; spend time in nature and talk to the trees, love as many people around us as we can and enjoy and share the flowers and fruits of our labor. This is my gift now to the universe, to share my pristine private island experience and my coconut fringed white sand beach hopefully though books that one day I will write when time opens for this, with people seeking to love themselves more, to change, transform and to self heal, to find a way back to balance from a very toxic world through mother nature. Year 2011 is upon us and I have now officially retired. I am now seriously sending out signals for a younger person or a team to consider managing my wonderful island home in a win-win way, so I can concentrate on my planned writings. All is changing, all is evolving and life and the giving of service is in balance, just as mother nature intended. |