Portrait of a Renaissance Man – Jeremy Safron

by Maesyn

Maui is a magnet for geniuses of all kinds.

The lush fertile valleys of Maui are the perfect backdrop to stir inspiration, and her wild jungles offer the freedom to create a reality outside the box. Counter culture black sheep have always been magnetized here.

One such pioneer is a Maui legend named Jeremy Safron.

He has lived in Maui for nearly 20 years, and in those years has played the role of inventor, farmer, author, restauranteur, kung fu and yoga teacher, architect, raw food educator, musician, bee keeper, mental evolutionarian, and all around Renaissance Man.

In a workshop titled “Mental Evolution,” Jeremy will be presenting his multi-pronged approach to living life to your full potential at this month’s upcoming Mystic Island Festival (January 26-31) at Camp Oluwalu in Lahaina. Check the website for exact date and time as the schedule is announced.

Jeremy has been an active pillar in the Maui community for years. He is well known for his many offerings of tools and resources for evolved living.

THE RESTAURANT
He first made an impact on Maui’s consciousness with his groundbreaking raw food restaurant “The Raw Experience,” which opened its doors in 1996 across the street from Mana Foods in Paia. By the tender age of 25, Jeremy had already gained a reputation for being ahead of the times with his organic, raw lifestyle and brilliant healthy food.

His business model was the epitome of do-it-yourself bohemian ideals. He and his employees picked fruit and coconuts off the trees all over Maui, and then served creative dishes using their “fresh catch” in simple, mouthwatering gourmet raw meals that had fans flooding in from around the island.

Inspired by his many teachers, including Ann Wigmore, with whom he lived and studied for years, Jeremy was an outspoken advocate for health and integrity. He started a company called “Loving Foods,” whose mission statement was to spread his passion for nutrition, living food, and evolution. You can check out his website.

THE BOOKS
With the success of his restaurant, (while spearheading the newly burgeoning raw food scene), Jeremy published one of the first raw food reference guides, “The Raw Truth” about the health benefits of living foods. A staple in thousands of libraries around the world, he included many of his famous recipes. The book was published by world famous publishing company, Random House.

Jeremy toured the country, sharing his charisma and infectious enthusiasm for evolutionary practices with a world that was just waking up to the fact that “you are what you eat”. He published another book about fasting and cleansing, called “The Fasting Handbook – Dining from an Empty Bowl,” which also became a huge success.

As enthusiasts around the world began to hop on the health food bandwagon (a veritable cash cow), Jeremy withdrew from the limelight, as more aggressive self-marketers took over the scene. Preferring to live his principles in private, and share knowledge with true seekers, he began to take on a series of interns and apprentices who studied raw foods and nutrition with him, and went on to disseminate the information.

DRAGON YOGA
Having established a daily practice of yoga, as well as the mastery of several disciplines of kung fu, Jeremy believes that exercising the mind and body are just as important as cleansing the body through diet.

From a young age Jeremy had practiced acrobatics, and was drawn as a teenager into the Eastern paths of body consciousness. While walking his own path of discovery, he developed an integrative system of yoga and kung fu that he called Dragon Yoga. He released an instructional video on DVD, and began to teach Dragon Yoga at Paia Yoga.

“Dragon Yoga is a fusion of Chinese martial arts, various forms of yoga and chi kung (chinese internal arts). It is excellent for loosening and strengthening the joints. I call it “the yoga for martial artists and the martial art for yogis”. It is also excellent for building internal power and focus,” he said.

INVENTIONS – THE ATTACK SACK
While he was teaching this multi faceted martial art form, Jeremy invented a kung fu training tool to make it fun for his students to apply their newly honed techniques in the format of Play.

Jeremy explained, “Attack Sack is the most elusive toy ever made. It consists of a ball that hangs suspended in the air from an elastic string. The players attempt to tag each other with the ball while avoiding getting hit themselves.”

To watch the game be played is to watch ordinary people become like characters from the Matrix. Backbends and slow motion moves take place at lightning fast speeds as the ball whizzes through the air and is met with kung fu moves reminiscent of Jet Li.

An average Joe becomes a jedi. A hand becomes a snake head or a tiger’s claw, as the student whips the ball with agility towards their opponent.

Jeremy’s philosophy has always been “making learning fun.”

THE WISDOM
With a library that would make any life adventurer envious, Jeremy leans back in his chair, puts his feet on his desk and gestures to the walls lined with books organized by subject.

“The only freedoms we have are the ones we choose for ourselves,” he says, smiling knowingly.

With books on everything from philosophy to religion, to yoga, to sex, to tantra, to magic, to farming, to goats, to indigenous edible plant life, his collection draws many admirers. His office can often be found strewn with curious visitors with their heads stuck in his books.

Meanwhile, outside the structure that he built by hand, his herd of 13 goats graze peacefully nearby, and his 4 horses stroll up the path.

The lifestyle he embodies is the lifestyle he teaches. One of sustainable, eco-conscious, off-the-grid living. His farm is solar powered, and uses a water catchment system to filter rainwater and pump up water from the river nearby.

People call and visit from all over the world for consultations on lifestyle changes. There is no more widely versed expert in the field, and he walks his talk.

Jeremy’s photographic memory makes it so that he is a human interactive reference encyclopedia on many a fascinating, cross referential subject.

One of his heros is Buckminster Fuller, (inventor of the geodesic dome), a fellow inventor, Renaissance Man, and visionary thinker.

MENTAL EVOLUTION
It was while studying the life and contributions of Fuller that Jeremy began to formulate a vision for his own contributions to the world.

Raised by a mother who was one of the founding advocates of the Gifted and Talented Program, Jeremy has been practicing games and techniques to hone his mental acuity since he was a child. He has integrated many of those methods into his own system to help people take control of their brains and strengthen them.

Initially called “Corticle Tissue Maintenance,” the system is now called “Mental Evolution.”

Jeremy explained, “It’s a training program involving exercises that hone the different areas of the brain such as memory skills, language skills, logic and reasoning. It generally improves mental clarity and helps people increase their intelligence and gain better use of their brain and body and lives through that.”

The course uses different puzzles and games that help expand certain areas of the brain and balance the left and right hemispheres, maximizing an individual’s ability to function efficiently in the world.

It is this system, integrated with aspects of all of Jeremy’s acheivments and passions, that will be presented at Mystic Island Festival.

Though this brief glimpse of the reclusive genius is much anticipated, never fear. Jeremy will be offering more extensive workshops and presentations to the community in upcoming months.

THE CLAY
As a gift to the people from the land, Jeremy has also created a company called “Hawaiian Living Clay,” which he distributes throughout the US.

It is harvested from his land, sun dried, and hand ground using a mortar and pestle, then jarred and sent around the world.

“Our clay is made of an ancient volcanic phosphoric ash deposit that’s been purified by a spring for thousands of years. It is at the very edge of an ancient forest. The benefits of clay used externally are that it pulls out impurities, toxins and poisons through skin. It is excellent for bug bites, stings, burns, excema, and acne.”

In his spare time, Jeremy is also a bee keeper, and a musician.

He has released several albums, and is most known for his single, “Things that Money Can’t Buy”.

With such a broad spectrum of offerings, one cannot help but be awed by the multi-facted contributions of Maui’s beloved world community pillar.

His website, www.jeremysafron.com, a central hub encompassing all of these spokes, will be active soon.

In the meantime, come check out his workshop at Mystic Island Festival, or contact him for a private consultation on your lifestyle and potential evolution at [email protected]