Through a Naturist Lens

What is it about a “selfie” that has so many people taking them? I turned to Psychology Today to see what they had to say about the selfie phenomenon. Here is what the author, Mark Griffiths, had to say, “the selfie is much more than a way to show your friends and family what you’ve been up to, or your new haircut or a celebrity that you’ve met, and it’s also the most efficient form of self-expression.” Also found in another article written by Griffiths was the reference to selfitis, which was also referred to as me, myself-itis:

“… the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had classed “selfitis” as a new mental disorder. According to the author, the organization had defined selfitis as “the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy”.

Now, to be fair there are a number of positives posited which Griffiths points out:

• Self-confidence (e.g. taking selfies to feel more positive about oneself)
• Environmental enhancement (e.g. taking selfies in specific locations to feel good and show off to others)
• Social competition (e.g. taking selfies to get more “likes” on social media)
• Attention seeking (e.g. taking selfies to gain attention from others)
• Mood modification (e.g. taking selfies to feel better)
• Subjective conformity (e.g. taking selfies to fit in with one’s social group and peers)

What does that mean for those who take nude self-portraits or selfies, a distinction that I need to clarify before going on? A self-portrait is an image taken by a photographer with the intent to convey a message. Though selfies are usually taken with a smartphone, they can also be taken with a DSLR, so it is not about the camera. The image above was intentional for the purpose of this blog post. There is a message imbedded in the image. Yet, most would call the image a selfie because it was taken using a smartphone and a mirror. The lines between selfie and self-portrait become blurred.

I can see and understand that there is indeed, subjective conformity as suggested by Griffiths. I post images here [rarely anywhere else] knowing that I am in a community comprised of readers who are choosing to come to this site and read my blog posts. I am sharing links to these posts on Twitter as well. There is a naturist community on Twitter that doesn’t focus on the idea of nudity equating with sexual activity.

As for attention seeking and/or mood modification, that may or may not be part of the rationale for taking and posting a selfie. Not all photos taken are posted. Likely for most within this community, my guess would be that only a fraction of the photos taken ever get posted, especially by those who are legitimately called photographers. Social competition? The race to garner more likes? That is another hard question to answer. It all comes down to the intention. Is the intention to grow the community? To inspire others to adopt yoga into their lives in order to have a healthier life? The intention is important. As my readers soon learn, my intention is to go beneath the skin, to look at the human psyche.

And there is another reason that I find that merits consideration. Those taking these nude self-portraits are creating a record over the years. Photos tell a person a lot about themselves. There is an authenticity with the nude photos that can’t be matched when one hides behind clothing, styles, activities, and locations. The journey of self-discovery is not an easy journey.

With all of that said, why do you take and post selfies? Or, equally as important, why don’t you take and post selfies? What are your motivations? What role does fear play in either path taken? Is there an element of defiance or hint of excitement? The questions are many. It’s your turn to talk.

Most people see the world in glorious colours. Some see the world in shades of black, white and greys. It takes a special sort of mind to enter into a zone of altered consciousness that somehow fits between the normal scenes of life. Other times, it takes a quirk in a camera light sensor to find that flimsy veil that separates normal reality from the unusual.

The veil between realities is thin. What is trapped in the collective unconscious has an opportunity to journey into the world of the collective ego at this time. Nice people become less nice. And for the most part, they are unaware of the shades of darkness that have been awakened in them. Jekyll’s become Hydes – “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde“. Well meaning people become bullies. Mob hysteria becomes a common occurrence. Logic is nowhere to be found. Try to match the conundrum of “prolife” with “stand your ground.” It just doesn’t work. The idea of trying to control women’s vaginas while protesting laws that limit personal freedoms don’t fit together, yet they are held as though sacrosanct truths.

And then there is the other side to acknowledge. At the same time as there is darkness seeping into our collective consciousness, there is a increase in light for a growing number of people. Somehow, an awareness of self is allowing more people to discover the authenticity of themselves. That awareness of self serves to have them become immune to the growing darkness and to be beacons of light for others who are caught at the edges.

Naturism is part of the light. I use the word naturism with hesitancy because it has been co-opted by too many for darker purposes. Removing one’s clothing reveals a person who has otherwise been hidden. And not always is that a good thing. Removing clothing is only a beginning, one of many beginnings that feeds a person’s psyche to take yet another step to being authentic and self-aware.

Welcome to an alternate universe .

I am using a photo that was taken a year ago, March 21, 2020. I was in Ecuador which was in lockdown. The prospect of being able to make it home to Canada was bleak as our flights back to Canada had been cancelled by the airlines. No flights into or out of Ecuador were permitted by any airline. Even domestic passenger flights had been cancelled. A week later, the repatriation flights arrived and we were eventually able to return to our home.

I have to admit that the winter we have just spent in our home on the Canadian prairies, the North American version of Siberia, has been much, much better than I would have hoped to have experienced. The one thing I did miss was the ability to be outdoors while nude with temperatures that were all about summer. Yet, I didn’t lack for nudity in the past twelve months here on the Canadian prairies. A new fireplace and enforced social isolation meant that I didn’t need to wear clothing for the majority of each day. And now, that is about to change.

With Covid19 vaccines now available, I get my first jab in less than two weeks, the need for social distancing will ease, and with that, more time with neighbours and family who are not part of my naturist life experiences. They all know, but are quick to tell me that this nudity stuff is not their thing. I will still have opportunities to be clothing free, just not as often. And that is okay. I will still have more opportunities to be nude on the prairies than I did in either Mexico or Ecuador, two countries which were my winter home for the past eight years. It is getting better.

Still, I wonder where and when I will once again find a tropical paradise to call my winter home, a place where nudity will not be too sorely restricted.

Today I want to talk about being a writer, a poet, a maker of alternate universes. And naturally, I will draw on my own understandings, not necessarily truths. First, what is it that drives a person to write? It can’t be the idea of making money, though that is what does inspire works that are more about following templates than allowing what is deep within a person to emerge as art. I say this without trying to demean pulp fiction. Those stories fill a need, a fantasy that steers one away from one’s own depths, something that is too painful for many would-be readers. I want to talk about myself as a reader and writer, more specifically as a writer.

I read while clothing-free. Reading is a solitary event unless one is reading to a young child, or someone who is disabled in some form or other. Why one reads is unique to each individual, and even different from time to time for an individual. It takes a certain frame of mind to read blogs such as mine, or what I will call serious books.

“One cannot compose a poem when one is too involved in life, for outer existence affords too much gratification: there is no need to do or say anything original. … Nevertheless, the experience of solitude is a vital factor -necessary if not sufficient- for artistic expression.”

These words were written by Aldo Carotenuto in his book, Eros and Pathos, in a chapter called Solitude and Creativity. The book is seen in the photo to the right. Solitude is not necessarily a state of being which demands the absence of others. Much of my poetry was written while I was busy with life as a father, husband and teacher. Despite their presence in my life, there were many, many hours when they were in bed when an inner solitude pulled me to plunge deeper into the depths and expose the rawness within. More recent poems, as found in my Naked Poetry series, found a different level of creativity.

Being in a relationship does get in the way of writing, as Carotenuto mentions above. When life is filled with the relationship -hiking, activity, socialising, shared moments- the head is pulled into the outer world. An example from my life would be the week I spent at my son’s home taking care of the two youngest grandchildren. Outer life was filled from morning to night. There was no pull to write. My reading switched to a SciFi fantasy that didn’t demand any thinking. And sleep, filled the rest of my time.

Now that I am at home, there are hours when solitude presents itself. There is space and time for solitude. And with solitude, the journey inward appears in bits and pieces. And, in turn, the story that I am writing takes a turn further inward and downward. I am now beginning chapter 9, where the main characters are preparing to enter into an alternate reality, the world of gods and goddesses. Their mission is to discover the source of soul, the life force that animates. Mother Earth and Father Sky, the eternal relationship that has the two parent the world. Masculine and feminine circle each other for eternity, constantly attempting to unite as one. Though we expend so much of our energy in pursuit of that submersion into “other” we can never escape our skin. We can never become other. The other can never become us. Now, with that said, here are the first few sentences of chapter nine.

The Underworld – “You’ll follow me,” Zuhre told Meghan and Bruce. As she took a step through the moon gate, Bruce saw the framed space begin to shimmer in the darkness. Meghan followed Zuhre while Bruce hesitated.

“Our individual development depends on realizing that others cannot understand our experience.” I chose this quote to begin this post as I have constantly throughout the decades tried my damndest to have others understand me, my thoughts-ideas, and my orientation to naturism. That is a problem with my typology which has me focus on others almost from the word “go!” In an attempt to have others as the focus, I lost sight of what I was trying to do and basically passed on my own, individual development. Now, at the age of 70+ I see that most of us are oriented to twisting ourselves like pretzels in order to accommodate others. This is a problem.

What do you want for yourself? What do you perceive that you need for yourself? How do you take care of yourself? How do you achieve a basic level of satisfaction for being alive and on this planet? If any of your answers include an “other” then you are diverting the focus from yourself to an “other.” An example of this can be found in the photo above. I took this photo for my journal this morning. I wanted to capture the Buddha image and the fireplace in operation with my normal dress code in the morning. No “other” was involved in the image, nor was an “other” considered as a rationale for the image. It was for me, plain and simple.

When I typically add one of my images here, I consider “others.” That means I crop judiciously, or place the watermark in such a position to reduce potential tension in others. In doing so, the watermark becomes something different. Now, all of this is going on in my head. For the most part, no one cares one way or the other about the images I post here. What does have meaning, are the words used in the posts which the images act as visual illustrations. The posts that have something that connects with others receive likes and comments that have nothing to do with the images. Interesting.

So, here I am exposing myself to the world [well, the tiniest fraction of the world one can imagine] visually and ideologically. The screen stares back at me in silence, unmoved and disinterested. I intellectually know that once I hit the publish button, someone will read the words and see the image. Despite that intellectual knowledge, in exposing myself so intimately, I have removed myself from the collective, the norm. In effect, I am left with a feeling of heavy separateness – the focus on self equates with a real loss of others.

Naturists/Nudists – whatever the hell we want to call ourselves, know that in daring to be an individual – transparent, authentic, flawed, scarred, different, unique – we suffer the loss of others. Our social world contracts drastically. And so, we find ourselves putting on clothing even when weather and environmental conditions don’t require clothing, just so that we can be less alone.

Do any of these words resonate with you? I am listening.

I’m back home following an eight-day assignment of grandparenting so that my daughter-in-law could have time to work on her master’s level counselling degree program. Needless to say, I am exhausted. The two-year-old and a four-year-old were so time consuming and needy in comparison to their eleven-year-old brother. It was non-stop child care for the duration. It had been six months since we were last able to see the little ones during that time between first wave and second wave of Covid19.And, I wouldn’t have traded that for the world. If anyone ever wants to discover the ultimate meaning of life, it surely can be found in the hearts of children.

The six-hour drive was done in sunshine with not much wind. Once home, I was able to get a photo in celebration. Nudity is my natural state when at home. Now, back at home, I can once again hear silence. I woke up to a glowing fireplace that was ready for my presence. Coffee was ready and I became like some sort of cave-dwelling hermit meditating in front of a fire. And my meditations turned to what I would say here and the story that I am writing. You, my readers, are not forgotten.

On a different note, the Covid19 vaccine is coming to a town near me in the relatively new future. Before the spring is over, I expect that I will have had both my first and second doses of the vaccine since I am in my seventies, one of the endangered species among the human population [it is a calendar age thing, not a physical reality]. I have to admit that I am looking forward to the idea of being more “social.”

Since my neighbours are also in the same age bracket, once we have the jabs, we will be able to once again host each other for meals. It has been more than a year since I gave these neighbour friends a hug and received one in return. But, it has been worth it. Not one of us would have done well should we have broken the rules only to cause one or more of us the misery of becoming Covid19 statistics.

Morning hoar frost. I got up in the pre-dawn darkness, as usual. I love this time of day. It is almost as if I have entered an alternate universe. I own this alternate universe and everything is possible. No wonder dreams come at night time. And what appears to be a paradox, it is as though a light has been turned on to reveal things about oneself that are hidden during the light of day. There is no analysing of what appears. It simply appears and that is good enough. The sights, the hints, the textures, the shadows, the presences. Though often cloaked, they are there and one knows it.

As night becomes day, a different sense of self emerges, one that is in sharp contrast to the blurry possibilities of night time. Unknown to the ego, the night has shifted the self ever so slightly to have one’s conscious self to stretch the boundaries of the known outer world. But, this shift is temporary. It’s as if the door to a revised present has a time switch where one enters at their own risk, risking change.

Should one hesitate at the portal that appears, it fades and is replaced by the “same old, same old” scenes that are less fearsome. Like a hamster on its wheel, we spin through the rest of the day with repeated scripts that keep the unknown at a distance. The night waits for yet another opportunity to have the soul enlarge its cage. And for those, so wrapped in repetitive mantras and habits, those opportunities are often called nightmares.

It’s Saturday afternoon and I am at my son’s home. The littlest is down for his nap and number two is playing quietly. The eldest of the three has gone out for an afternoon of snowboarding on a local hill. It has been five months since I have been here. Just twenty-four hours after arriving, and I am almost exhausted by the non-stop activity with them. This is my first bit of quiet time since arriving. Do to a number of reasons, I am here to help out with childcare, a valid reason during this time of the Covid19 Pandemic. I imagine I will be here for a good week before I return to my little house on the prairies.

Before I left, I took a photo in anticipation that I wouldn’t be taking one for a number of days while away from home. Does it have a purpose for this post? Not really. It simply captured a moment in time while the sun was shining and the temperature drew me to go outside au naturel. It was an impulse, or perhaps an inspiration. Moments after taking the photo, I returned to continue writing my latest work-in-progress, a story that has a working title called Bruce and the Black Irish Woman.

I had originally started this story late last spring. However, after about three thousand words, I abandoned the story as I got caught up in a novella about the pandemic. I had barely finished that novella when it was time to take part in NaNoWriMo last December. That was followed by my eldest grandson asking when I would finish writing “his” story with him as the protagonist. Near the end of February, the first draft of that novel was completed. I then sent out that story to a few beta readers for comments before I turn to doing the first round of editing. Finally, I found myself returning to the story of Bruce.

The story has Bruce as a Jungian psychotherapist. The idea was to create a realistic male who works in the field of mental-health therapy. I had zero intention of turning it into speculative fiction. However, good intentions didn’t matter. The story was progressing fine with just the right amount of psychological depth. I was hoping to talk about a man’s inner anima, the source of libido and life force. Then, a few days ago, three figures from Turkish mythology were mentioned though not necessarily as two gods and a goddess. No sooner had I written the scene when Twitter announced that I had a new follower. I went to check out who it was [I often cull unwanted followers who are looking for porn] and saw that I had a poet knocking at the door. The poet was from Turkey. It was a synchronous moment.

I have put the first chapter on Wattpad as a free read. I will be posting a number of chapters from the book up at Wattpad. I invite all of you to read the story as it grows and offer comments of encouragement on the site. If you like the story, please click on the star [Vote] to let me and others know that the story is worth reading. Of course, this story is in its unedited form. Hopefully, enough people will like it, thus encouraging me to make the effort to turn it into a full book. The book isn’t Naturist Fiction. However, the human psyche or soul is completely bared. I am currently writing Chapter Seven, and I am intrigued with what is appearing. This is definitely something different.

It’s sunny out and -1 Celsius. I just came back from a morning walk of just over four kilometres and plan on another walk of about six kilometres later this afternoon, the second walk being out into the countryside. I have to wear ice cleats on my boots while walking around town, but not when I venture into the countryside. At my age, the last thing I need to do is to fall on the ice and break something. The next ten days promises more of this warm weather.

Changing topics, I have returned to a book I started about six months ago. I have some time while a few beta readers peruse the story about aliens involving themselves in the political landscape of Canada. My new/old story is about a psychotherapist [original? not!] named Bruce. The story is going to be a Jungian Romance. Somehow or other, the story has begun to weave in elements of Turkish mythology. Why? Well, I have to blame it on a series I have been watching called The Gift, which is set in Turkey and has a mythological framework for a modern world tale.

A number of days ago, when I began to weave in the references to Turkish gods and goddesses, I received a notice that a Turkish poet from Istanbul had followed me. Sounds like synchronicity to me. Now, a bit more about the new/old novel. It is about the psychological idea of anima – eros and libido. Earlier today, I found the quote that I will use to introduce the story on the copyright page:

“Anima … is the great illusionist, the seductress, who draws him into life … she is his greatest danger, she demands from a man his greatest, and if he has it in him, she will receive it.”Carl Jung, Collected Works, volume 9ii

Now, just imagine how that will play out for the main character. It will be a messy affair indeed.

It’s a sunny day and it is somewhat warm at -6 Celsius. It was a perfect time to go for a walk in the countryside before the roads turn muddy. Naturally, I wore light winter wear for the hike. Walking through the edges of town to a point just three kilometres distant on a somewhat busy country road is not a naturist activity. Should I have dared such a feat, it would have been purely exhibitionist. And that isn’t something that I am interested in trying out. I prefer to save my naturist hiking for the countryside where there is very, very little chance of being seen. Today, I saved my outdoor nude time for my backyard once I was done.

One of my readers, Ken Sunwalker recently wrote to me:

“I’ve freehiked for nearly 20 years and love it! I help lead a freehiking group in Arizona with my wife. Recently I started a blog about freehiking to share my thoughts, videos, and photos, and those of others, at: https://hikingfree139095748.wordpress.com.”

I have been aware of Ken’s blog site for a number of years and personally know two naturists who have taken part in some of these free-hiking adventures with Ken. For Canadians [well most Canadians] heading to the USA to do some free-hiking is more of a dreaming activity during this time of a Covid19 pandemic that has closed the border between our two countries. Regardless, where there is a will and a disregard for regulations, there will be a way to make it to Ken’s place and join him and his crew.

However, for me, it is all about waiting for warm weather, sunny skies, and the peaceful prairie hills not too distant from my home. Happy hiking regardless of your state of dress.