Through a Naturist Lens

Nudity isn’t all about seriousness. I have been talking a lot about the spiritual aspects of being naked and somehow, I think that we mistake spiritual with seriousness. There is definitely an element of humour and goodwill in being a spiritual person, or in meeting with our personal spiritual aspect.

Nudism shares a sense of goodwill and acceptance of others whether they are naked or still shy of making themselves vulnerable to others through nudity. After all, we all know that in spite of beliefs of sin or shame or cultural codes – everyone is born naked and remains naked underneath their clothing. There are no real surprises when it comes to seeing each other without clothing.

Despite a wide range of sizes, colour, complexion, body type or any other physically defining trait, there is one thing we all share – we are humans, male and female [or some where in between because of accidents of nature], with the sexual organs of our gender which are primarily in place for the reproduction of the species as well as for the enjoyment of each other as sexual beings. All of this is common sense.

Something that seems to be missing from common sense though is some clear-headed thinking. When we see a new born child, nude; we say that the child is beautiful. When we see our children nude as they grow up during those normal moments in home life, we see them as beautiful. When we see our spouse, our significant other nude, we say that he or she is beautiful. For in our eyes, our children and our life mates are beautiful in spite of bumps, bruises or blemishes they may have. We see them as they truly are beneath the skin. When God saw the naked male and female of her/his creation, the same feeling of good was spoken and recorded as the Word of God. Yet, somehow, in spite of God’s proclamation and our personal knowledge as parents and mates, the nude human body has become something to be ashamed of, something almost evil.

Did God screw up? Do we humans somehow know better than God when it comes to nakedness? Think about it. Either God is a bungler or he/she is being misrepresented by those who have a vested interest in demonizing the human body, treating it only as something grossly pornographic. It seems most of our churches have weighed in on the matter and declared God to have erred in his/her statements in the Garden of Eden. Our church leaders have made the corrections and have in turn instructed us to ignore these words and listen to their version of the story, the true version according to the holy church leaders. What do you think? God doesn’t have a clue and our church leaders have all the answers?

Now, if one really things about it all, it is absurd, even humorous. I imagine our church leaders showing up at the pearly gates dressed to the max in order to impress God with their piety and holy prudery. Imagine God in heaven, in the Garden, clothed only in light, the model from which she/he created the human species, a species that was and is created with each new birth, naked. Thinking of this scene brings a smile to my heart. God obviously has a sense of humour as well, another one of the gifts passed on to the Children of God.

The Church has gone to a lot of trouble to convince us that the “good” nudity of the Garden of Eden becomes the punished state of being in Purgatory and Hell. Heaven, is a place to hide the human body.  Of course our bodies know better. As soon as we are naked in nature, the ecstasy and joy radiate and fill our inner self and then radiate to be a testament to the original state of being that we call Paradise.

I am returning to Pastor Ed Raby’s post, Naked Before God – Part 1, and talk about the fourth positive spiritual aspect, that of genuineness. This one gives me a bit more trouble than some of the other aspects because, in my opinion, being naked has no guarantee that one is being genuine. A few days ago one of my acquaintances posted a brief note about his being with a few friends, naturist friends. The guys in the group did their best to suck in their increasing girth that comes with age as an attempt to . . . and this is where the issue of genuineness comes into the story. The wife of one of these men asked “When you get naked, who is it for?” This lady asked a powerful question that didn’t need any voiced answers. It was enough just to be said and to get all thinking about being honest with themselves.

Simply being naked has nothing to do with being spiritual, approaching the spiritual, or about being honest with ourselves. It takes more than stripping off the clothes to be genuine. As soon as one becomes part of a group while nude, there are other factors that consciously and unconsciously come into play. There are issues that deal with relationship with others of the same gender and of the opposite gender; there are issues with how various ways of holding one’s body, or the choice of words, or the tone of voice all interact to evoke emotion within us, the increase of affective energy both positive and negative – bringing into play projections. 

There is a reason why Jesus counselled people to pray alone and in a private place [Matthew 6:6]. For it is when one is alone that all the environment and psychological distractions will allow for an opportunity for each of us to finally be genuine. Alone, we can then ask ourselves, “Who is this for? What is this all about?”

Now, this is not a criticism of social nudity, for there is much that is positive that comes from being with others, being in a like-minded community. The way we act with each other can be genuine as much as it is possible to be genuine; however, that is so much different than the approach to the spiritual centre within each of us. For so many of us, it is easier to be genuine with others than it is to be brutally honest with one’s self. The presence of our inner shadow gives us pause, a pause that is based on fear and when it is sensed, even a bit of shame. This shame has nothing to do with being nude, physically; rather it is about being naked psychologically where all that is within us is exposed. The fear of this exposure causes us to bury these dark shadows that are faces of ourselves, so deep that we forget that they are even there. This psychological nakedness is often too much for us to handle, so we rush back to our safe places, our carefully constructed versions of self that exclude the shadows. We then begin to believe that our physical nakedness presents the genuine self, and that should be enough.

Now really, for whom are you naked?

Intimacy is about relationship, a significant relationship in which one discloses the fullness of oneself, more than what one knows consciously about the self. Nudity tells our significant other that we trust her or him enough to make ourselves vulnerable. We open ourselves to everything that comes with intimate relationship; not just sex, but everything. Part of that intimacy with other is as much about cultivating an intimacy with oneself as it is with the other. When my significant other sees me, naked, she sees more than skin. She sees things about me that I am unaware of, things that I am blind to – perhaps she isn’t even consciously aware of what she sees and senses in me, but it is all there because of the gift of vulnerability and openness. Sharing these two gifts with each other, we experience something deeper, an intimacy of soul as well as body.

I understand this and accept this as the way it needs to be for cultivating a relationship. I am one of the lucky ones and have been rewarded with forty-six years with my significant other, my wife. That said, I have not been so lucky when it comes to having a positive, relationship with myself: my body, my psyche and my soul. I have not given myself the gift of openness or vulnerability in order to enter into an intimate relationship with the whole of who I am. And needless to say as a result, the same can be said for my relationship with God in whatever name or form I choose to acknowledge her/him.

For many, many years, I have done the work, the psychological work to develop a healthy relationship with my psyche. Yet for all that work, so much remains clouded and wrapped in shadows. I have never been able to find the clarity that I craved about who I was. No sooner had I achieved a breakthrough and begun to believe that the work was done, when a new crisis would present itself casting me deeper into the shadow world, into darkness. I began to turn to more spiritual avenues with the adoption of Buddhist practices and philosophy while trying to enlarge my psychological field of self reference. I travelled much of the world to stop in at as many places of worship as I could, hoping that somehow one of these places would provide the key. But, the key wasn’t to be found in India, IndoChina or anywhere else in Asia and Europe.

Discouraged, I returned to my home and watched things fall apart, taking refuge in my meditation. For whatever reason, I meditated while nude. It somehow felt right. I found myself going again and again to meditation for release from the grips of darkness. I admit that I am a slow learner as it took quite a while for me to realise that it was more that meditation that was giving me release. When I was able to meditate outdoors in Latin America, the feelings of health increased dramatically. I fell in love with the sun as it warmed my body, as it gave light to guide me from the shadows. It wasn’t long before I dared more than nude meditation, I risked sun-bathing and was rewarded with a sense of wellness that had been missing for so long. The we returned home to Canada and a withdrawal from nudity with the exception of my daily meditation. And I crashed.

It was my wife who noted what had happened. I listened to what she had to tell me and then I thought on it for some time, wondering just what it was with nakedness that made a difference. Nakedness didn’t mean more sex or better sex with my wife; nakedness wasn’t about getting thrills and attention from strangers. Somehow, nakedness was about giving myself the gifts of vulnerability and openness. And somehow, in the process, within myself I found a path back to my soul. In moments of nakedness, the intimacy of mind and soul naturally led me back to the original source of all life that dwelt within me as it does within each of us. Nudity allowed me to participate in an intimate relationship with holiness.

I am returning to Pastor Edward Raby’s post, Naked Before God Part 1, as there is more there that I have been mulling over these past few days. In a previous post I had a few words in response to vulnerability, the first of six positive spiritual aspects of nudity. As a counsellor I am well aware of how vulnerability is vital in working with someone who comes for help because of the wounds suffered in living.

A good listen regarding vulnerability is available as a T.E.D. presentation by Brené Brown for those who want to have a deeper psychological understanding of vulnerability. Being vulnerable doesn’t mean that one becomes a victim or powerless. What it does mean is that we open ourselves to the truth of who we are, and usually in doing so, discover our strengths as well as our weaknesses.

In this post I want to focus on the second positive spiritual aspect of nudity, that of openness. Openness is not simply being clothes-less. It is a state of mind that has barriers removed so that one allows the self to be seen as well as allowing the self to see without filters, without preconceived notions. The image to the right shows a woman who is open to the universe in front of her, partially immersed  while reaching up to the heavens. As I look at the image, I get the sense of vulnerable while being open as she would be experiencing it at a deeper than surface level, at a psychological and spiritual level.

Openness as Raby proposes, is an admission and a realisation that there is nothing to hide, that God sees through us whether we hide behind several layers of clothing or behind positions of power, behind whatever persona we adopt including that of being a victim. One has to admit that there is no place to hide. There is no doubt in my mind, that the fact that we don’t, perhaps can’t, live lives of perfection, without sin leads us to hide. Psychologically, we begin by hiding from ourselves. We hide those faces of ourselves that we don’t want anyone else to see; we hide them so well we even forget that they ever existed. They fall into our personal shadow. We also hide behind lies, big lies and little lies, in order to protect ourselves, to avoid being so vulnerable. We hide behind our roles in life, sometimes so much so that we begin to think that the sum total of who we are is found in those roles. We also hide behind denial, addictions and distractions. The last thing we want to do is to be present with ourselves. However, openness demands being present, fully present.

Nudity forces us to confront the reality of at least our bodies. Curiously, it also opens the doorway to more as we begin to accept the fact of our bodies, the fact of our vulnerable nakedness. When one dares, then, to consciously reach toward whatever it is that we hold as our spiritual centre – God, Allah, Yahweh, etc. – it is as though a doorway opens between self and the One. There is no place to hide from God, whether it is in the mind, or in the body, or in the spirit. For as was written:

 “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)

There is no hiding when God is to be found in your body, in your mind, in your heart and in your soul as well as in nature, in the works of man, and the places we would feel would be the last place on Earth where she/he would be found.

As I try to understand more about nudity psychologically and spiritually, I keep finding myself being presented with conflicting  information – nudity and pornography versus nudity and spirituality. Somehow the conflict makes sense from a perspective of depth psychology, but I wrestle with it as a spiritual person. Everything about the human psyche has a duality which is captured in the image and the idea of yin and yang. We actually get to feel this duality within ourselves as we cycle from good feelings to dark feelings. The words hate and love are words that get a good work out in our daily speech. And in our world, the response to seeing a human without clothing evokes responses that range from intense goodness to intense darkness.

If I shift perspectives for a moment, I can begin to grasp an elementary idea of what might actually be an answer. I am a parent. I took part in a creative act with my incredible wife which led to the birth of three children. I saw each of my three children as they emerged from the womb into the world. They were perfect; they were unclothed; they could do nothing that was wrong in them, no possibility to commit any conceivable sin. And, as far as I could tell, in the beginning of each of their lives, they were Eve and Adam in their turn. Their presence in my life evoked a sense of awe. All doubts were cast aside. I believed.

Yes, it’s hard to accept that his creation of darkness, the face of darkness, was part of his plan. Yet, we can’t ever fathom that any God could or would make mistakes. God made humans naked and called it good. The original human response to being naked was without shame. Clothing didn’t exist, the need for clothing didn’t exist. Questioning anything including their nudity didn’t exist. But [there is always a “but”] the truth of our own lives tells us a different story – a story that also must be good and true if there is such a being as God, and if we are to believe in her/his Word also known as the Bible.

So, how can I understand the apparent contradictions of human responses to nudity? What is the message, or the messages that are being given? I have to assume that none of this is by accident. I can’t accept that God bungled the whole mess and it has spiralled out of his/her control and into the hands of his arch enemy, Satan who then would become more powerful than God. I needed to dig a bit deeper.

So where did it all go wrong? Before I answer that, I want to step back to look again at the scene in the Garden of Eden. What is present? God is there of course, as are the two humans, an assortment of flora and fauna, and everything else that had been conceived in the grand plan of this God – everything else. Adam and Eve didn’t question anything as there was no need for questions – everything was perfect. Even the idea of questions was absent in their minds. They were engaged in living a live of perfection, a sort of participation mystique with their creator. Yet hidden in this garden are two other elements, the tree of knowledge, and another being of sorts, the face of darkness. If one truly believes that God created everything, every sentient being; we have to accept that this tree of knowledge and this face of darkness were also his/her creations. God knew that his creation was perfect and said so.

We all have bodies; we all are born naked. There is no dispute about these two facts but that is where agreement seems to end. For a significant portion of the modern western world there is a belief in Christianity where God made these human bodies naked and called it a good thing. Adam and Eve, the creation of the first man and first woman, lived naked in a place called Paradise, or The Garden of Eden. The place was a place where there was no darkness, no sin, no awareness of anything that wasn’t good.

Though these two humans, a man and a woman were naked, able to see each other completely, there was no shame in their nakedness. Their bodies were simply their bodies. Penis, pubic hair, vagina, breasts, skin, arousal, movement – all of this was as it should be, all of this was good – at least that is what the Word of God tells us. Now, if you can’t believe the Creator, who can you believe? Yet, we cringe as a society with the thought of Adam and Eve being fully nude and rush to cover them up, even before the fall.

Time passed in my home and these incredible little beings that my wife and I had brought into this world began to be aware of us as parents and of themselves. I watched in fascination as they became more and more conscious of life. Life began to be difficult for them. In place of a oneness with their universe, consciousness brought separation. Consciousness brought an end to their life in paradise. And when I think back on the story of creation, it was consciousness that caused Adam and Eve to become aware of their separateness from God and the Garden. A little bit of knowledge does more harm than good as they quickly found out. With consciousness came suffering for my children as well as for Adam and Eve. God sent them out of the Garden; and in time, I sent out my children into their own adult lives.

I have to assume that God has more love within her/him than I do; and with that being the case, the door to come back home will remain open and that the return to the Garden will be a return to perfection. The difference will be that the return will be a return to Paradise as fully conscious beings; beings that have eaten of the fruit of life to its fullest. The return as fully conscious beings to the Garden where clothing will not be an option, for shame will no longer exist. There will no longer be a motive for hiding the perfection of creation.

I’ve been reading a series called Naked Before God, written by a Congregational Church pastor called Edward W. Raby Sr., and it has me thinking, re-thinking just what it is about nudity that has jumped up to capture more and more of my attention. Nudity isn’t a stranger in my life. On reflection, nudity became a part of my conscious life during my last two years of high school. I had wondered why it came into my life then and have since credited its appearance as a way for me to handle the psychological wounds that grew out of years of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. It “fit” and that was good enough. But now, I wonder if there was more than that at work, something at a deeper level. Yes, the psychological benefits were and are undeniable. Perhaps, the escapes into private and isolated naturism were all that stood between the darkness and depression and my self-inflicted death.

I was a soulful child and I firmly believed in Jesus, in heaven and in hell. It was assumed by my extended family that I would become a priest. It was normal for one child in a large French-Canadian family to be dedicated to the Church. It seems that my way of being in the world was such that I self-selected to be that person. I loved going to church, the magic and mystery of the mass; the smells and the costumes; the soaring ceilings that reached to heaven itself. I attended Catholic schools for a number of years and learned my Catechism lessons well.

The first molestation by a priest got buried under guilt. I assumed that it was because I was a sinner. There was not even a thought that the priest had done wrong, only the belief that I was bad. I tried harder and harder to please the priest, the nuns at school and my parents at home. I desperately didn’t want to let them find out about the devil that was hiding in me. As a child and youth, others defined who I was and defined the value of my body. My mind was tucked away, somewhat safely, in a distant corner when the blows came – the blows from the anger of my father, the blows to identity from my mother who sought my father in me, the blows from priests and a grandfather who thought my physical body was to serve their sexual need.

My body got separated from my psyche in order for my psyche to survive. And when I took to hiding in a natural setting and stripping off my clothing, I now understand that I was acting to reclaim, reunite my body and my mind. That should have been enough of a reason, but somehow something else continued to bubble beneath the level of consciousness within me. Before I can speak of that bubbling, I need to go a bit further back into the past to see what else was missing, what else got lost along the way, what else got hidden into a box that was buried deep within the inner dark regions of my psyche.

I reading Raby’s article, a light came on. My journeys into the fields where I would remove my clothing and soak in the sunshine while reading poetry, was a spiritual act. Unconsciously, my psyche was trying to reconnect not only body with mind, it was seeking to make me a whole person again. After the second molestation by a priest when I was nine years old and trying to learn my lessons to become an altar boy, the magic for me in the church disappeared. And with that magic, my soul seemed to disappear. I was abandoned by Jesus, perhaps found to be not worthy of being one of his soldiers that I had pledged to be when I took the sacrament of Confirmation.

Raby highlights six things about nudity that resonated with me: vulnerability, openness, intimacy, genuineness, wholeness, and equality. At home, at school, at work or anywhere else, I did my best to make sure I was protected, building barriers that eventually even I couldn’t get over or around. The last thing I wanted was to be vulnerable as it hurt too much. When I was vulnerable, others exploited that vulnerability. If I hid, psychologically hid, only my body was vulnerable. But in hiding from the world, I also hid from my soul. Those first experiences of naturism was as much about soul recovery as it was about my body.

This is a vital piece of information for me to have as it reaffirms in me the idea that being naked is not being sinful. Sin is about intention. Being nude can be about participation in acts of darkness, acts of sin; or, it can be about honouring both the creator and his creation. I can see that I have a lot to think about and a lot to write about as I journey to the healing of body, mind and spirit to become a whole person, perhaps even a holy person.

More often than not, when I begin to reflect on something I have read from my Buddhist studies, I do so from a deeply personal point of view. Yet, to be truly transparent and authentic, I must allow my self to be exposed here rather than remain hidden behind the words I write here.

So why is this important? My wife is always asking me why I find it necessary to tell the whole world I’m a nudist rather than keep it private. I guess the best answer that I can give, is the answer I give her, that in keeping it all private, there is an oppressive sense that I am hiding in a closet in order to stay safe, something that I physically had to do as a young child. I hid in boxes, closets and elsewhere hoping to be safe.

In the past as I got older, though still a youth, I learned to hide within myself, build barriers so that I would not be seen and thus not hurt, as much. As an adult, the barriers were thick, so thick that I lost track of what had been hidden in efforts to protect my self along with all the garbage, the history and the shame. I was a successful, very successful teacher, coach and therapist. Even though I am an introvert, I was able to be active enough in the community to be respected. It all worked until the barriers began crumbling.

I am somewhat of a slow learner when it comes to dealing with change. I spent years trying to patch up the cracks with no success. When it finally became evident that I couldn’t stop the collapse of the dam holding back all that I had denied about myself, denied to myself, to my wife, to my family and to the world, I ran – literally. And when running everyday through blizzards and all sorts of weather failed to give me the release, failed to slow down the flood of contents spilling out into my life, I began to run in a different way. I found myself becoming a principal in a new school every year until the last school where it seemed there was no where else left to run, a school in which I was the principal for three years before retiring. Still, the running continued as I hurried from country to country with camera in hand, hoping that the distractions would be enough.

In spite of the running, in spite of a return to meditation and becoming a Buddhist, in spite of a return to naturalism and of taking the opportunity to relax in retirement, I found that I continued to deny myself. I continue to look to others for permission – no permission, then I would attempt to bury the need and the desire and hope it stayed buried so that I could be accepted as a somewhat normal person. Of course, there is no such thing as a normal person, but there is a range of normality within which I still don’t feel I fit in and belong.

That leaves me with one final option – to hell with it all and just be my self, warts and all. Good answer? Who knows, it is my answer.

I have taken to going for night walks that take me to the ocean where I walk for more than two kilometres in the darkness without the need for a bathing suit. And yes, there were other people on the beach as it wasn’t late at night, just late enough for the beach eateries to be closed. We pass each other on the beach with no issue as there are no lights along the sea. It’s a risk, especially when I am in a foreign country. It makes me wonder about my processing. I call it nude psychology.

In this discussion about nude psychology, I want to state that the discussion is not about Christianity or religion; nor, is it a critique of religions. The discussion is about the human psyche and the human body. As I work through the material, I am hoping that I am able to find threads that will allow me, and you my readers, to become more conscious of just who we are as individuals and as humans beneath our ego, our collective cultures and our clothing. Since I live in the modern western world, the Christian myths have played an important role in my formation. These same Christian myths have served to keep us, as a collective and as individuals, in the dark about our own nature, having us focus on darkness and the pursuit of escaping the darkness through ritual and death that will reward us with heaven. Now, with that said, I continue on with the search.

Genesis 2:25 “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

And so began the story of man and woman, the story of the creation of humanity. The Christian God had created man and woman without clothing. As God saw it, this was all good. Yet, somehow, the modern western world which is founded upon the belief in the Christian religion, has adopted a different belief about being naked. If we bother to check back into the story of Genesis, one finds that it is Satan who introduces the idea of shame in being naked. How is it that all of our desert religions that have this founding story of creation (Christianity, Hebrew, Moslem), have embraced the shadow rather than the light? And in these desert religions, women are relegated to the powers of darkness and are thus feared, fettered and persecuted.

Luke 12:22 “Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes”

Since these are the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, the Christian addition to the Old testament shared with the other desert religions, one sees and understands that being without clothing is not something to worry about, not something that will harm the spirit and soul of a human. This idea of the natural state of the human body being something not to be ashamed of was echoed by Pope John Paul II in his book, Love and Responsibility.

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“The human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve intact its splendour and its beauty… Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness… Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person…The human body is not in itself shameful… Shamelessness (just like shame and modesty) is a function of the interior of a person.”

And this, is at the core of trying to bring home the idea of the naked psyche, a transparency that allows one to become more conscious of the shadow which seeks to keep us in the dark, keep us in fear and submission.

If we are to understand our modern day response to the naked body, our fear of the naked body, we need to understand the truth of our history and the manner in which that truth was bend in order to achieve power and control of the collective, a collective that shies away from those individuals that would have them become conscious of themselves and their bodies. That same negative response is given to the work of peeling away the layers of personal unconsciousness to reveal the human psyche as it is beneath the disguised and camouflaged ego.

Today is starting off as an introspective day. After my morning meditation along the sea where I could feel the breezes and see the sun rising to bless this body with its first rays. Back at the casa, I continued to sit relatively still on the balcony with only a few stirrings. My mind was still and that was a blessing. Stripped of all of the normal chatter in my brain, it was as though my mind decided to embrace naturism as well, to dare being bare of all of those illusory thoughts that preoccupy the mind.

For the hours from rising until the start of writing this post, I would say that I was a Buddhist Mental Nudist, a term coined by Domo Geshe Rinpoche, an American woman who is not really what she claims to be, a Rinpoche in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Be that as it may, I saw the expression “mental nudist” and knew that the term fits the experience of this morning. It is also a term that accords with what I would call skyclad depth psychology.

With this discovery of Buddhism and Nudism, I continued my search on how the two do become one. I know that as an organisation, Buddhism is not supportive of naturism or nudism based on the early teachings of Siddharhta Gautama (Buddha). Today, Buddhists are wrapped in robes and those robes serve a purpose of defining roles so that all will know who is a lay person, who is a monastic, who is a dharma teacher, who is a Lama, who is a Rinpoche. 

Buddhism is invested in the world, a world that doesn’t have much value for naturism and nudism. Yet, when I say that, I am talking about the container of Buddhism, not the stripped bare heart of Buddhism. At the heart of Buddhist philosophy, not Buddhism as a religion, everything is stripped bare leaving one fully exposed, leaving one without illusions.

It comes down to some basic facts. One is a human. One has a body. One has a mind. One has a soul. And perhaps most importantly, one is connected at all levels with the universe which is One. There is no shame in the body each human is gifted with at birth regardless of what the collective decides is beautiful or ugly or sinful – the body is the purest physical expression of who we are, an honest physical portrait, a temple for the mind, spirit and soul.

“The gods made our bodies as well as our souls, is it not so? They give us voices, so we might worship them with song. They give us hands, so we might build them temples. And they give us desire, so that we might mate and worship them in that way.” [Martin, The Clash of Kings, p. 210]

I think we have entered the rainy season. The forecast for most of February is for overcast skies and periodic rain showers on an almost daily basis. I had been aware of this possibility, but the reality is different than my expectations.  It isn’t cold outside with the temperatures slowly moving from 22 to 26 degrees Celsius each day. It’s a good thing that the casa is large. With two storeys, there is a lot of space so that we don’t get on each other’s nerves too much.

As long as I don’t do anything foolish such as making my nudity a public event, and I restrict my nudity to the upper balcony, away from the railing that overlooks the main yard which we share with two condos, all is well. Of course, I don’t exactly do as I am told as the photo proves. If anyone from either condo looked out their windows, I would have easily been seen. So why do I take these needless risks? It’s a question that at present doesn’t have an answer. It’s a situation many naturists who have a partner who isn’t a naturist has to deal with on a constant basis. But that isn’t the reason for today’s post.

For me, when the weather gets like this, I slip into a deeper level of reflection, one that looks to possible futures. Where do I see myself in the future? Just the simple fact that I will be returning to Canada in another six weeks has me questioning how that will work out in terms of my penchant for being out of my clothing. I mean, it will still be winter on the prairies. Realising the futility in heading down this trail of thinking, I turn again to the re-write of my third book in the “Broken Road” series.

The book is now into chapter six with slightly more than 14,000 words captured. I already know that the new version is light years better than the original book which was more of a clinical document than a story. The characters from book two reappear and it is beginning to sound and feel like a novel that has depth, without being a book filled with quotations and footnotes. This weather is the best gift I could be given at this time as it encourages me to stay on task.