Barefoot in the hippie days

Yes, me too. I've got a thing for wanting to feel the air around my feet at all times. lol I dont know what that is, but as long as I feel that way, I'm gonna go for it.

Tho when hiking or somethig, its actually VERY important to wear good shoes, for climbing, for protection, etc. Maybe that is the difference. Wearing shoes in every day life vs. wearing shoes when hiking, camping, etc., possibly is different.

Namaste,
Lotus

 

It seemed like there were more people in the 60s and 70s in the U.S. that went barefoot out in public than today. It's rare to see young people today going barefoot. I noticed that most people at the beach wear shoes. I even see some people swimming with shoes on occasionally. Even 10 years ago, most would go barefoot at the beach. I'm not sure what has happened. Maybe people are afraid of picking up viruses like aids or anthrax.

I hike barefoot all the time now. I've never gone back to shoes. It's extremely comfortable once you are used to it and the soles thicken up. Bare feet are great for climbing up trees and banks of rivers. It makes one feel very close to the Earth and teaches one respect for the Earth. Besides, all the Earth's creatures go barefoot.

 

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare
feet and the wind longs to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran.

Hi all, newbie here from CT.
I remember the good ole going barefoot everywhere days. I never wore shoes and was proud of my feet that could walk on burning glass if need be. lol
I remember once when I wish I had worn some shoes though, when a few of us went to a concert in New Hampshire and I found out after they picked me up that we were hitch hiking there,, they were just using the parents car to pick me up.

It wasn't bad till the last day of the outdoor weekend concert when we woke up and it was raining. We didnt have a tent , just sopping wet sleeping bags, that we had to lug, hitch hiking home across a few states. We ended up in Boston in some restaurant getting lunch before heading on, and I remember being cold and wet and hiding my feet as best I could so I wouldnt be thrown out of the place for having no shoes. I must have looked like a wet rat. LOL

Now if I walk on bumpy pavement barefoot my feet are so sensitive! I am going to start going barefoot alot more often because I belive it's true that you are cut off from direct contact with earth, spirtitually wearing shoes. Being barefoot grounds you, and keeps you clearer than you normally would be of all the astral guk that there seems to be an abundance of in this crazy world. So, Off with those shoes more often!

I'll only wear sandals in the summer, mostly tevas.
In the winter I put on a pair of uggs and thats where they stay all winter! Only kidding , but it's close to the truth. They keep my feet warm and dry and snug while not pressing in on them, hurting my ingrown toenail that developed from wearing unnaturally shapes shoes.
Those uggs feel like heaven when I put them on first thing on a cold morning. Like boot slippers. The warmth and soft comfort are addicting. and I highly recommend then to anyone who lives in a cold climate.

 

Most Americans are in shoes from birth till death. There's a type of shoe for just about everything now. I'm surprised no company has come out with a shoe for sleeping in.

I noticed the past few years that they put the word 'barefoot' on shoes and socks. As if you need to buy the shoes and socks to get the comfort of bare feet.

One company even says 'go barefoot' while they show everyone in socks. I think they mean that people should buy their 'barefoot' brand of socks.

 

my parents never wore shoes when I was little, due to general changing of times though they both do now. We all used to traipse through Beckenham bare footed. It's summer now so I'm avoiding wearing shoes where possible, bare feet all the way

 

I am glad to hear other people got more tenderfooted as they got older. I thought it was just me.

My Birkies do me fine most of the time. I can't get my little one (Sage is four.) to wear shoes at all, though. When she was a baby we used to call her "IronFoot" because she would never wear shoes and nothing bothered her. I got her some little boots that look like alligators for when she is running around our land, so the poison ivy and the thistles don't get her. She wears those if we go out.

 

I too have become more tenderfooted with age....or maybe just from conforming to shoes so often over the years. Running across the gravel drive after a dog or small child just kills me now. All my children would gleefully scamper over gravel barefooted when they were young, but as they got older their feet have become more sensitive.

 

This is so true. When we first adopted Dakota all we ever heard was "when are you gonna buy that baby some shoes." He was 5 months old, what did he need shoes for? He had socks to keep his feet warm. That's all he needed. He started walking in the summer and we got it even heavier. "He's walking now, where are his shoes?" In the fall when it started to get cold we bought him shoes. He was walking outside in cold weather, he needed to keep his feet warm. We finally stopped hearing about shoes. Now all we hear is "When are you going to get that boy a haircut?" Our answer for that one is usually when he asks for one.

Kathi

 

man i grew up on a gravel road and i did the same thing!!! people thought i was crazy but what good are shoes when you've got two perfectly good feet and some good ground that needs to be treaded on?

 

That's a great answer! When he asks for one!

 

I always go barefoot unless i go to the beach and the sand is extremely hot then i wear sandals which is the most amount of shoe i wear. I hate it at school they make u wear shoes i dont see why shoes are nessecary but they kinda strict about it i wish i could just go barefoot everywhere and have no body bother me about it

 

How does one start a new thread? Oh well. I am like a wild horse, nobody broke my spirit. I was always allowed to be me. I find this hard in todays society. I am not one to kiss butt or pretend to be anything that I am not. I got out of school many years ago yet I still find the people pointing fingers and calling me off the wall.
To be a free spirit is hard and the judging of my chatacter is getting hard for me to take anymore. I am off the wall they say. Well I guess so. How do we old hippies at heart souls live in a world of greed, self centered people? People who are fake? I am not fake and am judged quite harshly by this.
Any tips for an Old Mountain Lady?

 

I'm barefootin' it right now..my daddy use to comment on my barefootness all the time.. he must have been a tenderfoot'..I on the other hand.. am shoeless till this day..not only am I a barefoot contessa.. I walk on my tippie toes if I'm in a hurry.. the only thing I see as a barefooting drawback.. is the cracks in you heals..I have to use furring file to sloth off the ridges.. to be barefoot is grounding and keeps you centerd..your pull up energy from Mother Earth through your feet..I do wear boots when I need to and flip flops when I have to go to the store..I prolly should wear shoes I suppose.. but my feets just crawl out of them before I realize it..I don't carry a purse..cuz when I did I'd always be leavin' it somewhere and end up whinin' ' mercy mercy I lost my pursey".. I had a leather medecine bag thingy tied on my beltloop I kept my treasures in.. like my crystals and gems and bits of roots and barks.. a buckeye for luck, my pipe and a guitar pick.. I wore daisy mae cut offs and see threw peasent blouses and of course I was braless..I wore no makeup and my hair was long and straight...I'd sometimes wear a cowboy hat n boots..(well I am a texan ya know, it's our native dress ;-))

 

Mountain Lady.. fuck 'em.. who cares what they think.. they're negative minded people and unhappy in the world they create for them selves.. they are blind to the beauty that surrounds them, their pettiness vails them from CREATORS love..smile inside yourself and thank the GODDESS your not like them.. Blessed Be sista and welcome

 

You know, people often don't know what to do with an honest person. They are so use to everyone putting on masks, and being fake that they don't believe you when you are who you are. They think you are playing....just like they are.

I've always tried to take people at face value....and I've been burned a lot, so I got wise over the years. I don't want to be jaded, so I try to just be me and let others be them. It certianlly isn't always that easy. I find they want to believe I'm someone I'm not....either to idealize me, or catogorize me, or deamonize me. Oh well.....what can a girl do?

Up north here I don't go barefoot outside much.....but as soon as I get home (or sometimes just to the car) off come the shoes! I wear clogs most of the winter so my feet dont' get too claustrophobic.

 

I'm barefoot right now, don't know any different. I have been like that all my life and not about to change. We lived in Hawaii for seven years and it's not proper to go into anyones house with your shoes on, so therefore, we alway go barefoot, it's just the right way to live.

 

funny thread! i like it.
i walked into registration for school to start taking my elementary ed classes to become a teacher - barefoot, pregnant (unmarried!), and in a peasant dress. they refused to let me register for the el. ed. classes!! i could have fought it, i'm sure, but i didn't have time - i just wanted back in school then, so i signed up for a bunch of art classes - now *that* they let me do! guess they figured i wasn't goin to corrupt a bunch of artists, eh?
i remember walking around nyc barefoot and in central park (stoopid!) - other places wasn't so idiotic.
i still hate shoes. it's birks or boots for me. and no shoes when i can.