Tag: nude

Naked meditation – 3. Another technique

Hello, and welcome back to meditations.

I hope you did your best at meditating over the last days. If not, that’s fine. Meditation is not a must. It should become a ‘want’ once you discover how good it feels and finally it turns into a ‘need’.

Many of you may have found that the first few times this meditating thing went quite well. Some may still struggle. It’s normal for the first few times to go well and then suddenly the whole thing becomes a mess.

You count to 3 and then thoughts are flooding in as if your personal Hoover Dam just broke, and there’s no stopping the bloody thing. Yes, sounds familiar. It’s normal. What happens is that your mind, the thing that’s been taught to be active all the time, suddenly notices you’re not paying attention to the gazillion thing it tries to tell you so it becomes oppressive. It will do what it can to annoy you and yells

LISTEN, DAMN YOU!

But take heart. Meditation will take hold. It will teach your brain to listen to you. Whenever this kind of flooding happens, or when random thoughts pop up, just tell your brain, your mind that it’s okay and that you’ll deal with that later. “but first we meditate.”

This can take a long time (I’m talking months, up to a half year) but as you go on and progress you will find that the practice gets better and easier.

As I promised, here is:

another form of meditation.

Again this is done sitting down. For this exercise you need an object, preferably a simple object like a cup, a mug or a simple vase.

vaseTake a few minutes to look at the object as it stands in front of you. Just look and see how it is shaped. Don’t turn it to see the other side, just picture the thing.

Then close your eyes and repaint that object, let’s stick with the vase, in your mind. Recreate the vase. The shape, the colour, the reflections on its surface (oh yes, there are reflections of light). You will notice that your mind starts yapping at you again, begging for attention.
Remember to tell yourself, “Sure, mind, you’ll get your attention. When we’re done here.”

And you return to the image of the vase in your mind. Keep creating it, improving it, making it as real as you can.

Keep your eye on the time you spend on creating that vase. Do this for about 5 minutes. Then look at the vase and see if you missed some details. If you did, great. You’ll notice them next time. If you had it perfectly shaped, well done too.

Feel free to try this meditation. It may suit you better than the counting one.
There is no need to stick with that first cup or vase, you can take different objects for repainting them in your mind. Just don’t take things that are overly complex or difficult. Meditation is meant to be easy so take easy subjects.

It’s boring.

The idea behind these forms of meditation is to bore your active mind. Your mind is meant to keep you busy but in these modern times it’s taking over too much. You have to be up and at it 24/7, if possible even more. That is insane and not what a human is made for. Alas, the economy demands it. You can resort to the Fukitol pill and just run with the flow, or you can meditate

Teach your brain to be quiet a few times per day so your inner Self, your Soul, pick your name for it, has time to breathe and make itself known.

This is the way you can tap into your Self. Your Self is something else than your mind. Your mind picks up things from outside you and acts on those. Your Self has lots of things to tell you, for instance creativity and understanding and love of nature. Scraping off the layers of stress that you gathered with all your mind-thinking will open up the way to that inner part of yourself. I hope you will persist in the practice and find out wonderful things about yourself you never knew existed.

Happy meditating!

Naked meditation – 2. Meditating

Meditation.
Hello there. Ready to learn a bit more about meditation? You’re at the right place then. Do note that this series of posts is going to cover a few very simple and basic ways to meditate. Ways that anyone can do.

As I said before you need a good place to sit, with as few distractions as possible (none would be optimal) and some time. More about time later though, let’s first get at the real thing.

Posture.
During these meditations you will sit.

Sit up straight but comfortable. It’s best not to cross your legs and hands or fingers so your blood flow is not blocked. Note that this is merely advice. If you really need or want to cross fingers, legs, eyes or anything else worth crossing, do so. Also sit up with your head up straight. Don’t sit in a way that you can lean your head back. That will trigger falling asleep very easily.

Meditation doesn’t look like something active but it is. It’s an activity inside you and that’s an important place to take care of.

The first meditation.
Sit down and close your eyes. Breathe in and out a few times and relax. This is an important introduction to the meditation. Once this is a habit, your body and mind will respond to it quickly and the relaxation will kick in faster. Now you are ready to do the actual meditation.

With your eyes closed and your breathing calm, slowly count from 1 to 7 in your mind. That’s all. Well, of course that’s not really all. The trick is that you don’t force yourself to count. Just count. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 1… 2… 3… oh, I need to think of the laundry/groceries/anything… damn, I’m not counting.
Yes, you will encounter something like this. That’s okay. Really. The reason that this happens is that our minds are forced to be active and ‘on’ all the time. The moment you start this simple counting your mind gets bored (trust me, it won’t take long) and it will start pouring out all kinds of stuff. It’s normal. When you do notice that you’re not counting don’t get angry. Just breathe in, breathe out and 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 1… etc. More thoughts will come. An itch will come. At some point you’ll probably hear something. Don’t worry. Accept this things, acknowledge them and then go back to breathing and counting.

Time. clock-20mins
There are 2 bits on time for meditation. One is: how long, and the other is when. To start this exercise you should plan about 5 minutes. That may sound short but this is new and you may get twitchy after a while. Remember: you are probably not used to sitting still this way so there is no need to overdo it from the start. Give it time. Once you feel it gets easier you can add time. Go for 7 minutes. 10 minutes. And suddenly you will find you can do this for 15 minutes. 15 to 20 minutes per session is good. Less is also good. At least you are meditating, and meditating means you’re scraping away at the layers of stress you’ve been accumulating over the years. Each scratch at that is a good thing. You are teaching yourself to be calm, silent, serene. You relax at a core level.

Note that you should not set an alarm for this. Alarms are clocks that force you to do things. You should not force the end of your meditation. Glance at a clock once in a while. If you meditate ‘too long’ that’s fine. It won’t hurt you.
Then the when: once a day is good, twice is better. A morning and an evening session is optimal. Of course you won’t always be able to do this but if you really want it and you start feeling the benefits of it, you’ll automatically want to reserve some time for meditating.

The end.
Once you end your meditation, sit still for another few minutes with your eyes closed. Feel how you feel inside. Stretch your arms and legs. Get the blood flow active again. Then open your eyes and start doing your usual things.
Congratulations. You’ve just meditated.

Next time (should be next week) I will tell a bit more on the background of meditation and introduce another form for if this one doesn’t work for you. In the meantime try to practise this form.

Naked meditation – 1. Preparation.

Yes. You probably all have heard of nude meditation. And you probably are all aware of the nude factor of it as that’s easy to achieve if you’re a regular on this site.

But what about the rest? This meditation thing that people mention? How do you do that?

Is it the stuff where you tie your (naked) body into knots, wrap your ankles around your neck and all that other painful-looking stuff?

Nope, none of all that is needed for meditation. Some people do it because they can. Some forms of meditation need it as it’s part of the practice. I want to help you in getting a peek into a simpler form of meditation, something you can do nearly anywhere.

What do you need for a simple form of meditation?

1. A place to sit comfortably. No need to hang from a stick or stand on a sacred rock on one leg. Find a place where you can sit without being disturbed. If you can find a place without distracting sounds/noises, even better. A backrest? No problem. Just make sure you can sit up straight, which is good for your spine.

2. A technique to meditate. Again, this is not going to be a difficult thing. I’ll outline a few easy ways to meditate for you as I write more about naked meditation. (Most of it can be done dressed too, but you know, clothes… meh…)

3. The desire to meditate. Meditation may sound cool and fun but you may find that after a few times it becomes difficult. I know, that sounds odd for something that’s supposed to relax you but the thing is that many people’s minds are not used to deep relaxation any more. The mind is kept active 24/7 these days by all the stimuli we get from TV, Internet, ads everywhere. Once you breach that hurdle though, you’ll start feeling the benefits.

Are you game?

Belfast photographer tells public to ‘wise up’ in wake of naked Cave Hill photo shoot | Irish News | IrishCentral

This is quoted from the Irishcentral.com site. Note that the underlined text is my doing – one of the fine moments of assumption happening again.

Belfast photographer tells public to ‘wise up’ in wake of naked Cave Hill photo shoot | Irish News | IrishCentral.

A glamor photographer has slammed the controversy surrounding the naked photo shoot of woman at a popular Belfast tourist attraction in broad daylight.
Ramblers were shocked when they came across a nude photo shoot at Cave Hill in Belfast a few weeks ago.
“She was posing on a rock and all sorts of poses, glamour sort of stuff,” one onlooker said. “I couldn’t see any detail from where I was but it was obvious it wasn’t anything tasteful.”

The offending evidence.

The blond model in front of the camera was later named as Hillsborough woman Nadine Poole. It is understood the mother-of-one has left Ireland until the controversy dies down.
Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland said he was “outraged” over the shoot, labelling it “totally inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour.”
The glamour model’s friend and photographer Stephen Duffin, who has snapped her on numerous occasions, told the Belfast Telegraph: “I think everyone needs to get a life.
“Everyone needs to wise up.
“There are very few other countries where this would even be a story.
“As for Nelson McCausland being outraged, I would like to think that he has more to occupy his time when there’s plenty in Northern Ireland that requires his attention.
“As we speak, there is no doubt a Belfast glamour shoot is happening somewhere outdoors — it really isn’t a big deal.”
Duffin has photographed Poole in revealing outfits at city landmarks including Victoria Square and Waterfront Hall.
“Nadine is a lovely girl and so unassuming and modest,” he said.
“When she’s not modeling she dresses really casually in tracksuits, jeans and flat shoes.
“Nadine has an amazing figure and she trains very hard to maintain that. If I was her I’d be very proud.”
He added: “There is a massive difference between a glamour or fine art photoshoot, and public indecency.
“I know what people are saying about Nadine’s Cave Hill shoot but from what I’ve heard it was a fine art shoot and I would love to see the images because I bet they are amazing.”

You can’t do that!

Earlier today I was picking dry clothes from the drying rack, because even nudists wear clothes at times, which requires washing and drying them. As usual I did that in the nude, because the rack is in a room in my own house, there are gauze curtains for the window, I’m fine. Until this morning, sort of.

I noticed someone standing on the gallery outside the window (I live on the 4th floor), doing his best to look inside. I recognised one of my neighbours, face pressed against the glass, hands around his eyes so he could see what was going on. The window is always tilted open, so I clearly heard him call out: “You’re not wearing clothes!” I replied that I knew that. He didn’t leave; instead he called out: “You can’t do that!” Only then he left. I thought.

Nude household
I tend to do all household things in the nude…

A moment later, the doorbell rang. I knew it was the neighbour, as the window he had been peeping through is very close to the front door, so I walked to the door and opened it. Yes, naked. That seemed to give him a shock, even though he’d already seen I wore nothing. He stared at me (all over, which made me feel like he was severely invading my privacy) until I asked him what he wanted. (“My face is up here” were my exact words.) He told me that I can’t walk around naked.
Oh, in my house I can. I know this for a fact. As long as no one can immediately see me from the outside, I’m all in the clear.
He: “But I saw you.”
Yes. You were doing your curious utmost to see what was happening, almost pressing your head through the double glazing, so indeed you saw me. This is not accidentally seeing something, this is curiosity and acting like a peeping tom, invading the privacy of my home. (By that time another neighbour passed by. She glanced at me, smiled with a nod and a wink and walked on.)
“Still I think you are not allowed to do that.” His that was accompanied by a finger pointing at my privates.
Well, I’m not sorry but I think you are not allowed to do that unless I give you permission.

The discussion, with me standing naked in the open door, went on for a while until I offered to call the police and ask if they could come and explain things to him. He dared me, and only as I took the phone he walked off.

I am not going to put on clothes when I’m right. Period.

Being nude and the connection to nature

(Spiritual nudism from a pagan point of view.)

Yes. I’m a pagan. I tend to lean towards the Druid path, but that’s not so important here.
Pagans want to connect with nature, want to live in harmony with nature. That is important to them. Often pagans come together to perform rituals, and at times these rituals are done ‘skyclad‘. This is what it says: you only wear the sky, the air around you. In other words: we’re nude:

Skyclad

Spirituality is important to me, as it is for most pagans. It has nothing to do with religion, even when the connection between the two is easily made. Each can exist without the other, although many will not agree with that statement.

Spirituality, for me, is the touching of spirits. The spirit(s) of nature touching the spirit in me. For that I like to be in nature. You don’t go in the cellar to look for something you know is in the attic. The feeling of ‘nature’ at large is something that keeps amazing me. All that variety, all that power in things small and large, it’s fabulous. It is all there, you just have to open your eyes to it.

It becomes even more so when I experience that natural spirit in the most natural state: naked. It makes a difference. Feeling the ground beneath my feet restores my connection to the earth. Feeling the wind on my skin connects me in the most direct way to air. When the sun shines and warms me, that is where fire comes into play, and when I swim or when it rains on me, the element of water is there.

Of course, you can go into nature fully clothed and experience the spirits that way. Over time though, I have learnt that this would be the same as touching the skin of a loved one with gloves on; making love fully dressed; watching the eyes of a beloved through a reflection in a dirty mirror. That makes it all second hand, indirect, circumstantial.

“But in the wind you get cold. In the rain it’s even worse, you get wet and cold.”

True, those things can happen. Those things need to happen, they are also things that go around in nature. Not everything is pretty and the way we want, animals don’t stay cute and young – they grow and die. Flowers don’t remain in full bloom – they wither and waste away. So feeling some cold… well, depending on the season (this is where common sense comes in) won’t kill you. Feeling some rain won’t kill you.

This is what make naturism important to me; the direct contact with everything in nature. Feeling the bark of a tree against your bare back when you lean against it is so different from when you wear a shirt. Sitting in the grass with your naked behind: the same thing.

Being naked in nature also shows you your place, whether you like it or not. With your shoes and your gear you can trample through all kinds of rough terrain, disregard nettles and thorns. Naked, you will watch twice where you go because nettles and thorns will sting. You start to be much more considerate of everything there is. And once you’ve reached that awareness, you can reach the spirit of nature much easier than when you go in with your textile suit of armour.

Maybe you don’t like the idea of feeling that weak when you’re in nature. Man, after all, has ‘conquered’ nature, is the ‘master of things’. That is where so much modern thinking goes wrong. Man, master of things, can’t do a thing against an earthquake or a hurricane or a tsunami. Those are the large scale matters that show us our place.

Isn’t it better to start on the small scale, among the nettles and the thorns, to learn where we belong, so we don’t abuse the spirit of the place? So that we understand the spirit of the world, of the universe, as it connects to our own?