Naturism is a therapy, nature’s therapy for the soul. There is no better way to simply experience the fullness of being alive in the world than to make oneself fully vulnerable to that world. It doesn’t take long for a person to “fit” within the natural world, the world of nature, when one chooses to be intimately present.
When one risks being fully and authentically present in nature, it is a process called rewilding. Tossed away are more than one’s clothing. One is stripped of persona and becomes the primal human, the original man or woman before the artifice of social constructs.
Daring to be a primal man, I have found that I am able to get much closer to animals, to be seen as less of a threat when I put myself in their environment without need of camouflage, of clothing. When there is a need to hide, there is an aura of danger that then emanates from one’s body and psyche, an aura that permeates the natural world which then becomes wary of something unnatural in the shadows. Animals quickly disappear. Not only animals, but that vulnerable inner-self returns to the shadows to hide.
Yes, making oneself vulnerable is risky, very risky in our modern western world which understands that the norm is to be hidden in the shadows, to be cloaked in camouflage and disguised behind a grab-bag of roles. Strangely, the more we hide our essence as a human, the more we are trusted, the more we suffer. We find ourselves aching for something that has been lost somewhere along the way. Yet, we too often cling to the camouflage as though a child holding some sort of security blanket.
When we dare look within ourselves, beneath the layer of clothing and persona, we find a hero or heroine, a primal being that if given a voice and presence, teaches us that we are whole and healthy if only we dare to be whole and healthy.