Any exposure any of us have to the Bobo Shanti mansion, reveals that there are quite a few taboos that have become part of the Livity through Prince Emmanuel. One of the biggest taboos that causes debate is not eating anything from the vine - not just grapes, but all other foods as well. When I was introduced to this ideal I stopped eating vine, but it was after my research into Scripture and Israelite tradition that I realized that not eating anything from the vine at all, was not an ideal based on Biblical reasoning - only the grapevine is tabooed for the Nazirite.
Not saying that everything RasTafari do and don't do has to be found in Scripture, but for me I started back eating fruits and veggies and ground provision from the vine because I missed eating such foods, and I realized that it was not something that I could be morally wrong about or punished for.
While I do apprecilove the reasons I was given by a particular house of Bobo for not doing so, I felt that for me, it just wasn't satisfactory to abandon so much nutritional food. Furthermore, I found out that potato and soya beans come from the vine - foods that Bobo still eat. So for me it became, "why not these foods too if no vine" and I felt like there was really no real foundation for not eating vine outside of grapes.
At the end of the day, I don't believe that eating vine foods outside of grapes is a sin against the law, vow of dreadlocks, ital or the Nazirite. And yet eating grapes does not mean that one is filled with sin either - it is the drinking of wine that causes the downfall into sin. I also believe it is not something that should divide I and I or be used against ones.
Sis Ila
