Nude is a Spiritual state
Around the beginning of the Common Era, discussions about nudity would have been considered something moot if, indeed, they would have taken place at all. Most humans then were either naked or not, depending more on their mood and occupation than anything else, and the availability of clothing whenever a desire to don them arose. A naked human, but for a small few, was considered with the indifference shown to any other animal in public places. The act of donning even the tiniest item of clothing changes that. Women learned to announce their availability with decorative coverings and trinkets, a practice still prevalent among us. A woman's lack of availability also was announced by covering portions of herself, which led to later admonitions about the poisoning of food and water by women experiencing their menstrual cycles. Practices developed from old wives tales still have their effect on us today, especially in the backwater places. Covering the body parts that define the sexes arouses more interest than it stifles and, done in ways that enhance the sexual image presented by the available person, serves to inspire erotic interest. That fact is used today to build personal fortunes from populations starving for a natural interface to modern societies that have been perverted by all kinds of artificialities. When the covering of one's body for reasons of shame gained prevalence along about the third century of the Common Era, so, too, did the element of curiosity toward not only members of the opposite sex, but also toward one's own. The sense of one's own possibility of imperfection and inadequacy gained predominance for simple lack of information. That inadequacy became heightened by lack of knowledge about features of the other sex and the commonness of those which might seem like oddities to the inexperienced person. The shame of our bodies gets introduced to us now while in our infancy, beginning with the enforced wearing of diapers, and continued by parents bent on keeping their own children covered, protected from the elements and predators, and safe from the over-watchful eyes of all those bent on keeping the sanctity of the neighborhood at the highest possible level. We live with that shame all our lives, learn at an early age to regard it as normal, and pass it on to our kids as though they deserve such thoughtlessness from us. I can look down my own lineage to the distance now occupied by my great-grandchildren, see the effects of my own failure, and realize the hundreds of years of precedence that led to it. That entire group of my progeny will most likely go through life experiencing occasional nudity as nothing more than an embarrassing necessity required for the cleansing of their bodies or donning fresh clothing. They will never know the joy of dancing to their own inner music bathed in the glow of a bright full moon on a warm summer night. They will never feel the caress of ferns or blades of grass on their bare hides during a trek across a meadow or on a woodlot trail. The breezes will never whisper to their skin and tell them stories of how the weather is going to change. Dust will never settle upon them, only to be rinsed away by rain in the afternoon. Swimming in a pool with no soggy cloth wrapped around them will evade their senses. Untrained to think things through and discover their own possibilities, they are doomed to a life of escapism and drudgery. Although anyone is apt to gain a sense of the freedom inspired by associating with others in the nude, the spiritual elements of going bare still escapes most of us at a naturist resort. The environment in most has been designed to facilitate the pleasure of nudity in a place that feels safe because of the prevalence of like-minded others. Spawned by a need to maintain the appearance of propriety, the experience carries with it a portion of society's artificiality. Those concerns, the influence of the surrounding culture within the resort, work to limit the potential of the natural influences of nudity upon the human body and mind. That does not eliminate or diminish their value in the role they play to introduce people to the nude experience, but does explain why people already familiar with it in an acceptive culture will seldom pay to retain membership in a nudist club or organization, as the German organizations are now discovering. People carry their cultures into any social setting in which they become involved. When those cultures are the ones guilty of subduing the natural instincts and needs all humans share, a large percentage of members will lose interest and go on to find Nature on their own. Anything natural will appear perverse to members of a society constructed of artifice. Our legislatures miss the boat because, even as members of that society, we still feel called by Nature and need to respond to that. We are spiritual beings. As such, we are open to inspiration from artificial contrivances designed to pander to our emotions. As natural beings, we have been caught up in the ages-old competition between the 1sensual pandering of various highly-developed religions and sexual pandering from various highly developed commercial enterprises, including pornography and drugs. Our legislators do miss the boat when they fail to realize a third option exists, which has been lumped together (by the religious panderers) with the sexual panderers, who would as soon barf all over any vestiges of it in their midst. The third option, the practices and beliefs of Naturism, caters only to our need for freedom from all of the above. I beseech you: Go to a nudist resort. Find one you can afford. If you are of a religious bend, locate one that supports your beliefs. Get the full range of the experience of nudity amongst your fellow human beings. Learn how to deal with things as they arise (?), and how to cope with mosquitoes, gnats, and sand spurs. Enjoy the water, the food, the camaraderie. Make it a point to be there often, work in the events, play the games, make acquaintances, make friends. Learn the rules, and don't forget to carry your towel or a personal cushion to use as a covering wherever you choose to sit. Go until the day arrives that you realize something is missing from the experience (which may never happen for you. Don't regret that. NEVER force it!). By this time, pornography may have greatly diminished its 2(negative or positive) appeal to you, especially if you have bothered to make a connection between it and the true causes for its existence. An increase in apathy concerning it will not make it go away, but may be replaced by new awareness of a cultural need for correcting the circumstances that give rise to it. True spirituality arises from such kinds of heightened awareness. You begin to sense your place in the natural realm, and to perceive all the ways it has been diminished. It is as though you have awakened and discovered your soul has been starving, that you have been struggling all along to feed it, and have only now discovered the source of its food. Whether you believe that God or Nature made you naked, this is the time to seek how to spend most of your time that way. I had the pleasure of country living for several years as an adult, and for most of my teenage years. I discovered Nature does not seem at all the same naked as while dressed. A sharpness of sensations indulges the bare body with variations and nuances unavailable to the skin that's even partially covered by cloth. One's clothing makes a comfortable berth upon which to lie beneath a favorite old tree and watch the clouds float overhead. If interrupted by a shower, pick up your soggy garments and take the low road back to the house, or down to a pool in the creek to enjoy a swim while it rains. Beware of lightning. Avoid being anywhere near the tallest thing around at such times. Be aware that lightning can also strike you on a cloudless day, even though it feels so grand to be naked perched on a mountain's peak Find things such as that to do, alone or with very close friends. Only firsthand experience can make you aware of a kind of spirituality that needs no conjuring up by priests your fellow humans have appointed to guide them into nirvana. Mother Nature can do it all for you, once you have opened up your heart to experience the freedom of Her ways, and have opened your mind enough to realize the falsity inherent to the programmed, artificial lives we have inherited from those who spawned us and now attempt to control us. I beseech all legislators to experience what I have told you here before you try to control our natural impulses with laws that accomplish the opposite of your good intentions. You don't have to believe a word I have written here. Try it, try to prove them wrong with your own firsthand experience. Try it out the way I wrote it, and I know that you'll soon be writing other than your words of condemnation. Once you have found the diversity inherent to truth, you will shun the conformity inherent to lies. True freedom does not arise from conformity in deed or dress. I said that because, as a Naturist, I know how much it is true.
______________________________________ |1: Recent experimental data supports as fact that spirtituality results from definite states that can be induced in the brain by our emotional responses to a variety of stimuli appealing to our various sense organs and by ingestion of drugs. Is this exactly what we wanted to know? It does show evidence, however, that spiritual states may also be induced by the sheer glory of one's own simple nudity enhanced by feedback from others undergoing similar experiences, without the involvement or intentions of sexual content. (Back) |2: All emotions exhibit the characteristics of attraction or revulsion (Back)
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