Dao Earl

I was very happy to leave school at 16, without any significant qualifications to speak of, but my sense of creative freedom in tact.

I travelled through Asia for many years, but my travels were eventually to became a search for a home and a people. 

8 years later, I got to Taiwan, and made unsuccessful attempts to fall in love with Chinese medicine, but it did get me to think about how we are affected by what we eat, think, and do. My explorations into self-administered colonics, fasting, raw foods, etc., ultimately all sprang from this time, and slowly my knowledge started to attract the attention of others. I was still living in Asia, but suddenly I was no longer affected by skin infections, etc. - it seemed my immune system was changing in ways I had never heard any medicinal school talk about, and that was the inspiration start my own learning - empirically.

In Australia is successfully fell in love with Permaculture - understanding it through the lens of a beautifully modern application of everything I learned about Taoism in Taiwan. As a method of architecture, social development, and agriculture, it is basically humankind's greatest hope in the face of such dire forecasts - simply because it follows nature’s most efficient examples of forces and flow. Genius !

My search for a home and a people helped to manifest and fund the Eco Forest Charity; a profound project in Southern Spain incorporating conscious community, low-impact living techniques, Permaculture and raw foods.

But I was destined to move on from that too, the world was about to bless us with a daughter, and we decided that the low-impact life was not one to raise children in - so exposed to the elements as we were. 

After years of taking friends through Jensen-style fasts and colonics, Shoshana & I started up Home Colonics in February 2002, and we have been growing ever since. We renamed ourselves Karuna Retreats (meaning "compassion" in Sanskrit) when we got to UK, as it better reflected our empathetic approach.

It was during these years running groups that I refined and evolved my reasons for running these retreats. I now know that it is not in the colonics, or in the fast itself, but in the talks, that my passion comes alive. And it is through these talks that I make a difference to people lives.

In 2007, I began Sura Detox with Amida, complimented by the skills of Benita & Kate - all of whom I had met at the Sufi camps that Amida started in the 80's. We had had a big impact on each other over the years, as we swapped skills, philosophies and techniques, so these were the obvious choice of colleagues for this new venture. In time Nikki joined our ranks, and then in 2013, Amida stepped aside to let Daniel take over.

But the real love of my life to date, which motivates me from dawn to dusk, and shines through in the talks, is a lived sense that our lives are not about work, wealth, status, TV and sense-pleasure, but that our very existence itself is profound in its nature. This is fuelled and fed by all the practices I have encountered: The psychological effects of moving meditations, the neurological influence of diet, and the therapeutic use of psychotropics on relieving trauma and establishing a more authentic expression in life.

I no longer remember at which point I stopped blaming the world for my choices, and became grateful for my massive privileges in this world, but it has touched every aspect of what I do.

All of these have massively informed my felt-understanding that we are indeed here for such a short time, so what are the most important, most satisfying, and most nourishing ways for me to live my day - for me, and for all those I affect.