Barefoot in public

Few pics from http://barefoot.110mb.com

 

Looks quite staged to me... I prefer pictures of barefooters in their natural state of barefootness rather than a model walking barefoot just for a camera... YMMV, of course.

Wiggling photogenic toes,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Some phony web site. I prefer the real thing.

 

these better for y'all?

 

The second group -- definitely better. When I look at the pictures in the first group, I imagine the models saying to herself, "You mean this actually turns people on? God, people are stupid."

 

Well, the second group certainly looks more like the average barefoot people caught on the street... and less staged, certainly... Hmm, now I just have to guess in which city of my "Heimatland" these pics were taken (surely, they're all from Germany).

wiggling deutsch toes,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Dresden

 

The two big pictures posted by the OP are definitely Dutch. And I've been to Dresden in December, but I don't recognize anything. What makes you so sure, Pixy?

 

Hi,

de twee beelden in de eerste post komen van Nederland, zeker.
Maar de laatste twee fotos laten zien Dresden, ick ben zo goed als gewis.

 

Da war ich nicht so sicher, denn.... woops, sorry. I wasn't so sure about that, since there's also a "Reitbahnstrasse" in Chemnitz (another city in the eastern part of Germany) and one in Mönchengladbach (west of Duisburg)... however, I would have recognized the latter, since I have been to Mönchengladbach a few times...

At least there are some summer barefooters to be seen in the cities. The mom and kid picture in the second set (the barefoot kid is partly obstructed from view, but the mom carries the kid's shoes) reminds me of those "fountain barefooters" I often see in summer here... people and kids who dip their feet in the water of a fountain and then walk away barefoot rather than putting their wet feet into their sneakers, or whatever they wore at first.

I do that at times as well... but I don't wear shoes then to begin with.

Wiggling toes, yearning for warm Spring days,

~*Ganesha*~

 

I am sure, you have seen street painters before... quite many of those are barefoot while drawing as well.

There is a regular festival of street painters, held annually in the small town of Geldern in Germany (quite near the German-Dutch border). As seen in the photo section of http://www.hobby-barfuss.de there are often barefoot artists to be seen:





Wiggling artistic toes,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Same goes for me, I do that as well a lot... not only abroad (France, Germany) but also in my home town, even at warm nights when I'm walking the dog.

 

Very few male barefooters here, almost exclusevely girls/women....

 

Well, that is true of the most barefoot picture sites... The main interest of the viewers of these sites is barefoot girls and women - for obvious reasons, of course...

Here's a little male barefooting, too:

http://www.barefooters.org/gallery/
(The classic, of course... standard reference page for barefooting.)
Including the report of a barefoot pilgrimage (for those Christian-minded folks).

Wiggling happy bare toes, after returning from some grocery and small electric stuff shopping,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Great site, Ganesha. Thank you.

It's always seemed to me that hippie culture took off earlier and has hung on longer in Germany than in many other countries. I'm thinking specifically of Birkenstocks, environmentalism, Frei Korpor Kultur, VWs, guitar-backed church services (Luther himself held them), and of course, barefooting. Must be pretty cool.

 

Well, it has some roots in Germany, to be sure...
Skip will be happy to see that I refer to an article on another page of his, I'm sure.

http://www.hippy.com/php/article-243.html

Some of the things you mentioned are quoted there as well... and some more.
A good read, to be sure!

wiggling toes in a traditional naturist way,



~*Ganesha*~

 

Fantastic article! I'd never heard of Pester, ahbez or Sikiger. I did know about the Wandersvogeln, but for some reason I thought they were young tradesmen who wore Medieval-style costumes as they traveled in search of work. (The work part, fairly or unfairly, doesn't fit into the hippie stereotype.)

I must confess that I initially cringed every time I read the words Teutonic Pagan, since they made me think of people like Heinrich Himmler and Baldur von Schirach. But by the end of the article, I was able to consider Asatru with an open mind.

Some of my own ancestors belonged to the pacifistic, anti-materialistic Mennonite sect. But they came from Switzerland, not Germany, so I suppose they don't really count.

 

That initial cringe, which is the common reaction to reading about paganism in a German context, or even those Norse Gods followers, is understandable, considering the least appealing part of newer German history, since a lot of Nazi German mysticists took the Old Faith and bended it into something perversely fitting their ideology. Due to that fact, you still have two different kinds of worshippers, e.g. at Summer Solstice, gathering at primeval cult places like the Externsteine - the barefoot (and sometimes skyclad) hippie, neo-pagan, wiccan, whatever people, and the boots-wearing neo-nazis... It's a more than weird world...

Oh, well, I wouldn't say that they didn't count for coming from Switzerland... Ideas can easily transgress geographic borders... and, to be sure, the Mennonites did have quite some influence on people believing in a simpler and less materialist way of life... and they're often barefooters, too.

Now, to get back to the barefoot in public theme, something pictorial of a different theme (unhassled by a cop):



wiggling toes, happy to touch the Great Mother's skin with them,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Found one!



Just a literature side note:
What would Virginia Woolf think, if she knew that one of her main characters in a novel was now selling hot dogs????

Wiggling literate toes,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Participants of a Sikh New Year's procession in Rome (Italy):



Note the man in the background sweeping the road with his broom... he's part of the event, and barefoot as well.

Wiggling toes of a different Faith,

~*Ganesha*~