World Naked Gardening Day

It happened again last Sunday. May 1st.

Too bad for many people that the weather in many places was too cold (northerly wind and a lack of sunshine) but on Twitter I saw lots of brave ones going outside and looking after plants, trees, gardens and what not.

Image from The French Village Diaries

What I found interesting this year was, that on Twitter there was an actual Dutch hashtag to follow. #naakttuinierendag.

Of course there were lots of folks tagging along just looking for images of naked people, making weird, dumb and nasty comments and displaying a general ignorance of what the day is actually about.

I don’t have a garden. I don’t do gardening, which is usually safer for anything resembling plant life. But I do admire the people who do that. Who seem to understand what it is that plants need, in whatever form or manner. Believe me, when I tend to weeds, they will wither and die. It’s probably the only thing I’m good at. 😉

Wil Kemp and Melanie Meaglia naked gardening
(From Yahoo Australia)

Power to all who did their best to make the world or their garden a bit nicer last Sunday. May they do it again and again. Perhaps, someday soon, on more days than just the one semi-official day in the year.

I worked so hard for this body

It is what I read in a tweet a while ago. A lady was very proud of her figure, and with reason. She looked fit and all that. The tweet, however, didn’t end there. The whole tweet was:

I worked so hard for this body that I am allowed to wrap it up nicely.

Yes. She was wearing clothes that she liked. Nothing wrong with that, I say, but…

Why do you feel the need to wrap it up?

Random internet image

Why hide your body from the world if you’re proud of it?

Okay, stop, hold your horses, we all know why. Because haters will hate, because the perverts will be perverts and the porn industry… argh.

But the question remains: when you are proud of something, why do you feel you should hide it beneath something nice?

People can be so weird, and the ‘modern world’, which I complained about so often before, is the reason for that. It’s that corrupted, twisted concept of freedom that reigns. Yes, you are free, you have all the freedom you want, as long as you move inside the constraints we impose on you. And those constraints shift and move closer all the time, I sometimes think.

Worst of all: most people don’t even notice it.

They don’t seem to see that this is happening, while we naturists, nudists, clothes-free-o-philes and what now are struggling to be who we want to be when we want to be.

It’s a strange place, this world, and it keeps getting stranger…

Equatorial Guinea body painting festival.

Body painting never fails to impress me. I’ve been at a festival where a few people were painted. It’s impressive to see how the human skin transforms into something amazing; a walking canvas, an animal or a part of nature.

You may know that “we” were not the first people to do that. Indigenous people from many parts of the world took to painting their skin long ago. A few days ago, on Twitter, I found some images from the equatorial Guinea body painting festival and I thought to share those with you.

Contrary to the old days, these people do ‘comply’ to the ‘laws of decency’ so they aren’t entirely naked.

In the old days, hunters would colour their body with natural dyes to camouflage themselves in the forest in order to hunt animals.

The hunting tradition has ended, but the body painting is continued as a festival of colours.

Seeing the colours that are used in the festival, it’s obvious that they are no longer related to hunting. The vibrant colours, like sported by the lady below, are certainly not for camouflage, but they depict more the joy of life and, clearly, the amazing possibilities of the human canvas!

We should have more possibilities and options to decorate ourselves this way when the weather allows for it. Textiles can dress in the most radiating colours. We naturists should be able to carry ourselves in a similar, colourful “fashion”. (Pun intended!)

That bodies thing

After seeing the umpteenth (absolutely well-meant) comment “Lovely bodies” on a picture with naked bodies, I suddenly thought: “Is naturism really about the bodies?”

Buddies with bodies

When I go to a naturist beach, resort, place, something somewhere, I like to meet people. Not too many, but real people. I know people have bodies – that bit becomes apparent to everyone somewhere in life.

The more bodies I’ve seen, the more I’ve become interested in the faces over those bodies. The people behind them, inside those bodies.

Perhaps I’m weird, because naturism is about being naked, right? Actually it’s only partly about that for me. It’s about being natural. Real. About the human being that someone is, not the person someone’s “supposed to be” according to the rules and regulations of fashion and “proper conduct”. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of those rules can be shoved to a place where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m leaving it up to your imagination where that might be, but a deep, dark cave would work in this case.

P.Z. Walker

Bodies are good things to have, I entirely agree. They make up a big and the visible part of who we are. They let us move around and we recognise each other because of them. Either through ‘facial recognition’ or by body shape.

Bodies often tell us about the things its wearer has been through, by way of scars and marks, but the real deal is still inside that body. I’m not just my body. There’s more to me, and I’m sure there’s more to you as well.

Be a good buddy for your body. Also be a good person. Someone that people can say “lovely person” about, instead of “lovely body”.

Longing for fairy land

Yes. I long for fairy land. Especially the area where a specific emperor lives.

Did you think of that one too?

I’d visit that emperor and convince him that this was the way to go. That everyone in his country should dress like this when it’s possible, weather-wise.

It’s a dream, I know, but I cherish it. Freedom for all, not having to cover up when you don’t want to. To be accepted the way you are, with the emperor in the lead. Literally, like in the above image.

Last evening I assembled a new desk. It’s a big, heavy thing from Ikea. Guess what I wore, doing that. Indeed. I wore the emperor’s clothes. If it’s fit for royalty, it’s fine for me as well.

Time and again I am so aware of how much easier it is to move around naked, to squat down and tighten a screw, to bend down and pick something up. No fabric that gets in the way, squeezes or is just plain old uncomfortable. Nothing like that. And nothing that held back the heat from my body – because putting together an Ikea desk is a warm job. The box said to do it with 2 people. This was where my split personality came in handy, by the way.

This, by the way, is the new desk.

Truly, that emperor should have stuck to his naked guns and he should have made going nude an official thing.

Simply because it’s the best thing.