Who are you & what are your thoughts on nudism?

Howdy folks, I'm new to Hip Forums and a relative internet virgin in general so bear with me please. Awesome place you have here. Also, ahead of time, sorry for ranting

Guess this is my introduction, but I thought I'd make the thread also for talking about who we are (occupation if you so choose) and your perspective and history with 'nudism' or 'naturism'.

I'm nineteen, have been barefooting ( not even so much as owning a pair of shoes, although I have made a few moccasins for winter wear) for almost five years, and occasionally but festively enjoying my bare self for about the same (apart from childhood showers in the rain, of course).

So my introduction and initiation into the philosophy and way of 'nudism' or 'naturism' (I prefer the latter but find the need for a label laughable, because after all, are we not born naked?) To start off with, I guess I shed and shattered my Babylon masks five years ago. I'm young, so I was was only fourteen then, but that's not to say I wasn't raised in an alternative way. I used to joke that I'm half hillbilly and half native, but now I just say I'm a Human Being. I was raised outside of Western medicine and by a lot of wise people who held a great deal of generational power. I was beginning to think for myself and pay attention to what I consumed when I stopped going to school in order to spend all of my time pursuing studies that I felt were more appropriate. I was sick of learning the tricks and trivia necessary to participate in a way of life that I disagreed with from the very start. I found (and still do, to be clear) it disturbing that most of our body, mind, and soul power is spent maintaining the paradigm of a coercive and exploitative society. My teachers since I left the normal scholarly road have been enlightening and many...my elders, the earth, spirit and synchronicity, and the many chiefly people of the past and present. A few topic-appropriate of them: Standing Bear, Thoreau, Tenskwatawa. I focused on expanding my consciousness and absorbing knowledge like botany and healing, and practiced 'primitive' and wilderness skills like flintknapping, fire making, tanning, and the hundreds of others that I grew up with as entertainment and wildcrafts and now, resolutely, viewed as a way of life.

I never really could watch television, but having grown up deep in the woods on a veritable homestead, I have always been most amused by pursuits of nature. I did and do cherish community and heartfelt sharing of spirit, of course. I was introduced, ironically, to the saga of St. Francis of Assisi a few months after I swore off money and wore out my last pair of shoes. Two long years I spent barefoot in the mountains around my home and modestly abroad learning and practicing how to live in harmony and with the Earth. I gradually started lightening my load and getting rid of gear until I was down to a single side-slung pouch and a single pair of clothes, which I could sustain with comfortably for three seasons of the year (if you're wondering, now all I tend to take is light-medium clothing with a small waist pouch and a blanket or large fur, and find I can make it comfortable or at least survivable in the throes of winter, if I also have my moccasins). Being me and so enchanted by nature and disenchanted by concrete, I was drawn to the thickest wild areas within an eighty mile radius or so and it was then that the clothes, too, began to come off. It's one of my favorite things about life: the wilderness, being able to be free and natural without the judgements or manipulations imposed on you by society. I spent a while being a general vagrant wildman, then came back to the homestead and introduced my brothers to a lot. Since then I've been creating music and laboring here, and now I itch to journey back out, which is why I've periodically found myself exploring the web like now.

My view on the human body is one of great respect and awe. All things, humans not excluded (although, sometimes...), are beautiful. In my opinion and heart, the things that are the most beautiful are those that are the least altered or controlled. I wasn't born with shoes or slacks. Around a social setting (like now, or really any time I think I might encounter someone other than my beloved) I wear shorts. They were an old pair of corduroy pants I cut off at mid-thigh. That's it, although sometimes I'll tie a rope of some sort around my waist for a belt. I find it affords me comfort and mobility, a good breeze, but also doesn't get the same gasps as one might receive in some settings naked. So I guess I'm not a true nudist, and I can't really evaluate my comfort level with strangers and nudity, but I have no qualms about it. Oh, and my feet certainly don't complain. I run a lot and put them through some heavy wear and I would be much more uncomfortable wearing shoes than not. The one problem I have around here is Hawthorns. They're the worst of the stickers and prickers I've encountered, since they always like to break up under the skin.

Now, I'll close with another, appropriate love I hold for life: running and dancing naked in the rain. Thank the stars for that!

 

Didn't mean to scare ya'll away!

 

lol. I don't think many people like to read haha. That's really interesting. I wihs I could make more time to learn, "wildcrafts." When I was a kid I used to like widdling sticks into things. Nothing exciting. It was just nice to sit out in nature for hours on end. There were these sand dunes by one of the places I used to live and I'd make little fires and meditate. I was always a bit of a loner. I was just posting on a different thread that Ive recently been interested in nudism. I feel it would be so freeing. I've been outside naked before. I'm in love with the wind. My boyfriend would disapprove, however. As I wrote in the other thread, "Damn Society!!!" hahaha... Welcome to Hip Forums!

 

"Welcome to Hip Forums!"
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Thank you!

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"...Ive recently been interested in nudism. I feel it would be so freeing. I've been outside naked before. I'm in love with the wind. My boyfriend would disapprove, however. As I wrote in the other thread, "Damn Society!!!" hahaha..."

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I'm in a similar boat: seeing that nobody around me would share my love for being naked and free, I tend to enjoy private occasions of it. I don't often get to see my girlfriend, and only when we happen to find ourselves alone deep in the forest can I share such an experience with anyone. Because of this, my curiosity for the lifestyle cannot be satisfied, since I haven't yet experienced the freedom and nakedness of mind that I imagine accompanies the physical freedom when one sheds their clothes. I don't know what my girlfriend would think, honestly, as she still perceives it as a very sexual thing. But I was just thinking the other day, as I journeyed to a faraway, wild waterfall and swimming hole, the gross absurdity of our age's nudity taboo. I'm already a bizarre novelty to folks that happen to see me, shirtless, in pretty short frayed cordouroy shorts, and barefoot. Being naked would make the sky fall down in these people's worlds! And yet, when I really think about it, I see nothing sinful or shameful or even necessarily sexual about taking a nude dip in a cold mountain stream with someone, or seeing a naked body -male or female- walk by. It seems natural and 'normal' to me (though I hesitate to ever use that word). In the same sense I imagine some closer and more personal encounters of nude life. Just as it would be somewhat strange and awkward, but not necessarily perverted or unfathomably rude, to gaze upon the anatomy of another, so too would it be to 'take a gander' in the nude. Of course, it would be extreme to say 'Can I touch your hair?' is equivalent to 'Can I touch your penis?', but the point is that sexuality is an inherent and primordial aspect of our minds and selves, and that by denying it or keeping it in the dark of our lives we've distorted it. I don't need to have children with a stranger, or a woman who happens to be a beautiful example of a healthy human being, or -heck- even the woman that stares or gestures towards my penis. My body might respond so, but this is natural. Then again, I might be unlike most people, as I live by and look for spirit in most everything I do (aka, love). So yes, I would send up a few hurrahs for "Damn Society!", if I didn't think society damned itself from its conception (I'm quite the misanthrope and always have been).

To feel close and connected to the earth and the elements, be it the wind, rain, soil, or sun, is a powerful feeling. I've always cherished knowing this and being able to experience it, and do in every way that I can, in things like barefooting and ultrarunning. I spent the sunny half of the day earlier running nearby fields, barefoot, for a few hours. It was nice and breezy, clear sky. Before long my body was electrified and resonating, in a state similar to the ecstasy of making love. I was intensely aware of my energy and its circulation. Here's Luther Standing Bear expression this awareness and exchange of energy:
"It was good for the skin to touch the earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth...This is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its live-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him."

I've met and learned from many desert-dwelling folk, but have yet to journey so far West. I know the energy and earth in those regions is special, and it often calls to me in my dreams.


Oh, and yeah. I'm known for having a lot of words and things to say. Thanks for reading!

 

Im Dev n i love wigglin them free toes love the feelin of the wind on my skin and after a life on the road i have a totally open mind.

 

@Bewilderness:

You are a better communicator than 95 percent of our government educated folk. Maybe we need some wilderness schools.

 

Welcome aboard BeWilderness! Just be yourself. Nudist or not. Love life. Naked or not.

 

Well put. For me it's about comfort, especially swimming and saunas.