ABOUT US
A REPRESENTATION OF RNA
AUTHOR
Melbourne suburbs were home to family and studies prior to world travel and a twenty-year career as a Consulting Engineer. Hepburn Springs in country Victoria beckoned in 1988 with the purchase of an old guesthouse called Continental House, providing a wonderful opportunity to interact with the broader community and to showcase the multiplicity of values and creative possibilities apparent within the vegetarian and vegan way.
Fellow travelers whole-heartedly embraced the facility, and I quickly realised I had entered a diverse caring community with a focus on health, wellbeing, healing and sustainable living. The beautiful environs and natural environment supported my conscious healthy vegan lifestyle, and close encounters with Permaculture during a seven year period of hosting PDC’s, provided a useful education in the ways to sustainable living, expanding my appreciation of traditional practices and universal values.
The Vegan Guide to Melbourne was self-published annually from 1994 to 2000, as a record of vegan activity, and to meet the rising interest in all things vegan. My housemates and I hosted a Vegan Gathering in 1996, followed by a ‘National’ Vegan Festival in 1997, and eventually the 9th International Vegan Festival (IVF9), which spanned a two week period during the 1998/99
holidays and attracted people from fourteen countries.
Certified studies in Shiatsu and Oriental Therapies, Nutrition and Yoga, and a sincere dedication to the principles and practices of Natural Hygiene and Nature Cure, were integrated into a wholistic lifestyle. Further renovation and development of the vegan sanctuary was supported by a name change to Hepburn Retreat Centre in 2008, resulting in a very busy schedule of workshops, yoga, meditation, vegan cooking classes, and health and healing retreats.
The vegaculture vision continued to expand with feedback from business activities complementing a vegan lifestyle that offered selective personal growth and responsibility, community building, environmental awareness, spiritual interaction, yoga, meditation, and much frivolity and enjoyment.
I relocated in 2014 to Kuranda, the village in the rainforest in FNQ, where I have developed a Raw Vegan Life Sanctuary known as Fairyland House, which functions to service guests who feel drawn to discover their own destiny in a peaceful tropical fruit garden paradise.
I continue to practice and watch with interest the unfolding and blossoming of vegaculture from the emergence of being.
PROLOGUE
Vegaculture keeps changing its spots! I coined the word in 1998 while immersed in a process of stabilising and refining my personal philosophy and vegaculture was envisaged as a term to describe the union of veganism and permaculture, as both these persuasions had been dominant in my daily experience and have many common objectives.
The initial emphasis related to vegan organic gardening, but the rapid growth and social networking of veganism exposed the potential for vegaculture to become a reservoir for a whole range of vegan related activity similar to the expansive nature of permaculture; and soon grew in imagination to be synonymous with changing patterns of social and community values, as well as becoming a personal philosophy and popular lifestyle choice.
The foundations for a valid commentary about the success of a vegan culture, especially the speed of community adoption due to it’s obvious appeal to youth in recent generations, is indicative of the trust and security that arises from positive personal experience when people discover their own truth; veganism and vegan culture have proved to be functional ‘design tools’ in the application of a lifestyle choice for the manifestation of compassionate and harmonious outcomes in both a personal and global context.
A small collection of recorded insights has grown into this conceptual narrative, which begins by identifying various paths that have lead to the concept of vegaculture, and then examines the evolution and developing relationships between people, animals, plants, and Gaia. An exploration of ways forward that incorporate the values inherent in a fair share exposes the emerging consciousness revolution
II a means to wholistic lifestyle outcomes, consistent with the aims of veganism, and movements for compassionate living and community harmony in the 21st century.
My personal interaction over two and half decades, saw the passage of thousands of guests, enthusiastic travelers, wwoofas, volunteers and helpers, through my vegan accommodation and retreat facility; the stream of people and interests was always fresh, and the local social and community life, rich and full and nourishing. Pursuant to their daily exposure to ‘alternative lifestyle practices’ and support for attempts at sustainable living in a totally vegan environment, many patrons became conversant with simply living their compassionate choices, which were eventually normalised in their diet and lifestyle.
I mention this anecdote as an example of how even a short exposure to another culture and lifestyle can have a profound life-changing impact. Travel of course frees one from their usual habitat, aiding and assisting individual insight, while the offering of a peaceful and supportive space conducive to personal growth reaps it’s own rewards; and I am reminded of the old wise saying, “helping just one person is enough”.
As the merging of science, spirituality, truth and true nature continue to unfold; the challenge of paradox fosters a deeper enquiry, which has resulted in the inclusion in the text of a variety of quotes and helpful observations by great teachers. We all make our contribution to a harmonious world and I trust this initial sketch of the general principals of vegaculture is accessible to a broad range of readers, and invokes further interest in the vegan way. Enjoy! In Peace, Zalan ,Fairyland House, Kuranda, May 2018
ARUNACHALA