I love being naked. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That’s very funny, I must remember to repeat it to my gran.

When I am naked I am like a child. I dance.

Some people think that it is sordid and disgusting to be naked. You have most likely been taught since you were but a toddler that it is Yuck! A child has no reason to regard clothelessness as remarkable until the parent tells the child it is Yuck! Only because those same parents were told as a child that it was Poofie! This perception is reinforced by terms like dirty jokes, dirty old men or filthy language. So this, to my mind irrational abhorrence of nudity is inculcated in people and holds them back from the naked experience. And Fear. A privacy is opened up that you have been taught to respond to with vulnerability.

If it is possible for you to approach the subject openly, without prejudice, then a truth might emerge, but reading it with the intention of finding smut to respond to with self-righteous indignation or for that matter, the gratification of some pubescent sexual need, will only taint your reading of it. You make it sordid with your search and corrupt an experience in which the absolute delight of being alive can be expressed.

Come. Come with me, Pilgrim, let’s go to the beach. Surf’s up! The weather is fine. Here, sit on this handy towel. Look around. This place is where the normal people wear the least in public. The beach is where it all comes off, save for the smallest scrap of material that fails admirably in covering the shame of being human. Bikinis and Speedos do not cover up the genitals and breasts, as much as they draw attention to them.

Study these people. I have very seldom seen anger expressed at a beach. I have seen folk enjoying their physical presence. Exploiting the space and lack of restrictions to run, kick, whack, dig, float, fly and flop. When I get home after a day on the beach the house is different. It feels like a remnant from another life. It is not the house’s fault, it is I who have changed, or been changed by the day outdoors. Do you often get that feeling? Of course you do. You don’t always recognise it. A day spent on the beach is an uplifting experience. It allows you to dress down to make yourself most receptive to the energies of nature and the sea.

There is a sensation that I’m trying to describe, but, like a sneeze, there is no way of understanding it unless you have actually sneezed yourself. But lets have a crack. On the first day that you go to the beach after a grim winter, you undress to your costume. Your body responds with a hyper awareness. Every sensation created by the air and the wind is magnified. Stop and explore and enjoy that sensation. Close your eyes and focus on the senses – all five. Try to put yourself in that space alone. Nothing else exists. You have no history and no concern for the future. Make it your first ever experience. That sensation is the joy of being alive.

Magnify that sensation by being completely naked.

Why should that make difference? Allow me my dignity, my respect. Why naked?

I hear you Pilgrim, I hear you.

Point One: Look by hanging on to the final patch of material, you are holding back. You are not giving yourself entirely to the experience. The fear you feel and negativity you will bring to the experience is making you hold back. Those emotions are to be resolved. Perhaps they are issues you have to work through. Its your body and being reluctant to let it out of its prison indicates that you have issues with it. You can only have the view from the mountain by getting to the top. Halfway up – Half the view.

The nudity is a necessary expression of the commitment you make to the experience.

Point Two: There are no distinctions amongst naked people. You cannot tell rich from poor, or educated from ignorant. You cannot hide yourself behind the materialism of society. (No pun intended) Often people identify themselves by their jobs – Hugh Fiasco, Lawyer – and they so proud of their material lifestyle – the Merc, the Watch, the holiday house in Hermanus – that they identify themselves through their possessions, especially their clothes. All the personalities you use as barriers against a tough world are discarded with the clothes. Nudity forces you to be yourself. If you are not comfortable with the person you are you will find it difficult to be naked.

The nudity is a necessary expression of humility.

Point Three: Your own intention shapes the experience. Everything we do in life is motivated by emotion and desire. We eat sleep drink walk play live because we have the desire to have a better next minute than the present one. Everybody, bar none, wants to be happy. Some of us go down some strange avenues to achieve this. Our education and experience guide us to be skilled at finding happiness. (Our spiritual education and experience tells us where it will be found, but we are not listening) Again, you will find it hard to join in on a naturist beach, if the intent behind your being there is not pure. That’s why the seedy folk are usually hiding in the bushes so that nobody can see their shame.

The nudity is a necessary expression of the purity of your intent

Point Four: This deals with a bit of biology. Your skin is the largest organ of the body and it’s a sense organ. What about the senses then? Clearly, taste and smell, though important, are not our primary senses. Sight and sound are contenders, but the deaf and blind can survive without them. And the last candidate is the skin. The sense there isn’t touch, but feeling. You feel with the skin. You can’t see when a thing is hot or not if its not glowing. You can’t hear it being scalding. You can’t taste that it’s a hot day. You feel that it is hot with your skin. Without touching it. Touch is expressing. You express love with a caress, empathy with a pat, anger with a punch (a brief but powerful touch experience). You communicate with your skin. Baffled from Bapsfontein and I are both completely agog that so vital an organ should have its entire existence negated by being buried and gagged under layers of clothing for its entire life. And why? All because Adam and Eve were ashamed that they broke a promise made to God and they expressed their shame by covering their bodies. (See discussion of not being able to go naked when you are feeling guilt) As protection against extreme weather clothing is indispensable but as guardian of our morals they don’t work. Pick any page in any newspaper to see the corruption and scandal surrounding predominantly well dressed people. In the meantime the skin is not getting the opportunity to sense the things around you. Stifled by this weird collective guilt, the skin remains almost dormant, unused. Give skin a chance. We also have a half collective memory – half cultural image of a sixth sense that nobody can identify properly. Could it be that there is a connection?? Did our covering up of the skin result in the loss of the sixth sense? I am not telling you, Pilgrim. Every person has his or her own experience and I would taint that by creating expectation through telling you of my experiences. I am telling you to do it. Go out into nature where its most remote and nobody wants to see you. Where you can all by yourself feel that wind caress, the sea-spray tickle and the teasing sting of windblown sand. And I will bet that it won’t be long before you are whooping and dancing, mentally perhaps if you are too staid for a frolic.

The nudity is a necessary expression of your existence.

So, Pilgrim, I see that we have made it so far. Well, isn’t that nice. Your history and my history culminating in this moment. We can discount the future because its speculative which means you live entirely in the present, right? Of course it is, even though you think its funny to answer rhetorical questions most of us think its tedious, just read on. So we meet again.

If you think about it, the next thing you may do this rainy afternoon, is to nip across the road for a cup of coffee and in the process get run over by a vehicle of your choice and killed, then what you are doing right now is the very pinnacle of your history.

WELCOME TO THE GREATEST MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE!!!

Of course I don’t believe that you are going to be killed by a – what was it? A stagecoach? – therefore it is safe to assume that you will move on to the next greatest moment of your life. And that fickle fiend the future has snuck in again. But wait. Don’t go. Just because the future holds the Next Greatest Moment of your Life doesn’t mean that it is going to be a Better Greatest Moment of Your Life. Oh No! For that to be true you would have to already have a naked person next to you. None of you have that. Really? OK, then, as it happens you do, well aren’t you the lucky one. OK. I know better. You go and enjoy. I’ll wait.

Meanwhile the rest of us can carry on.

I don’t know where you are sitting but I live in Cape Town near the city centre, and it has become an issue in South Africa that the old power grid can no longer cope and new power stations need to be built in a great hurry. In order to lighten the load on the system each area suffers ‘load-shedding’. In other words all electricity to an area is switched off for two to four hours to reduce the load on the system. This means that at pre-arranged times the area in which you live or work is dark. The times are annoyingly set at the times when the load shed is significant. A lot of money is being lost by businesses.

There are positives. During one of these power outages I saw the most beautiful night skies over the city. Not just your everyday, common-or-garden supermodel variety of beautiful, but awe-inspiring beautiful.

Still, everybody is grumbling.

It struck me that if you look at it objectively an interesting thing occurs. Do you remember the exercises they did to try to get us to grasp the enormity of Time? Where you squash all the time since life graced the world into a single year? In that case humans appeared in November, the first civilisations appeared around Christmas and electricity was invented at 23h59.45 on December the thirty first (Approximately! Point is that it is an insanely short time). We have survived all the eons and epochs in that whole year without electricity – the lighthouse at Cape Aghulas was powered by the fat from the tails of Fat-Tail Sheep. Yet in the last few seconds we have become so reliant on electricity that without it our global civilisation will perish.

Now that made me think, Pilgrim. How stupid is that? For thousands of years the fabric of our society stayed firmly in place, yet in no time at all – comparatively speaking – we have put ourselves at risk of slicing a great rent into it because we are enslaved to electricity. So perhaps all the load-shedding is inadvertently training us for when we switch off finally. No, that’s not what I’m advocating. I see it as inevitable. Probably going to be a victim of global warming.

Just like when in the seventies, everyone was saying that pollution would kill the planet. Nobody really listened and now we have it return under the guise of Global Warming. It’s that nobody reacted to the warnings. “The smoke from the exhausts of cars is going to kill us all.” “ OK, that’s tragic, but we need to sell more cars every year to show growth. It’s my grandchildren’s problem, let them clean it up.”

That I suppose is a callous assessment of the situation but that doesn’t mean it can’t be accurate.

Hang in there, Pilgrim, I need to deviate from the subject to explain something else here. If you have heard of Gaia, then you will know what I’m writing about. It’s a concept that’s not so much a science as a new perception of our place in this world. And it is gaining respect in academic circles. In short the view is that all life on Earth creates one bigger organism. Exactly how that all connects together is, in my imagination, something like an intelligent swarm. Consider the humble cell, (WARNING: What follows is not really provably true to my knowledge, but used as a metaphor for me to understand the how of it, it works) The humble cell, unaware of anything, yet a fundamental unit of life, brainless. It knows nothing of the life led by the person he contributes to forming. It is truly beyond even a wish to grasp the consciousness that we are. So, too, every living thing contributes its energy to this single organism, called Gaia. Romantically associated with Mother Nature, The Goddess and all the feminine deities that represent the Earth.

Earth and nature behave like a single organism. Ok, consider this. It’s another metaphor. Mankind is a virus. Mankind is consuming all the planet’s resources away. I read what the estimates are somewhere on the Internet and it’s a gloomy forecast. Famines have been with us throughout history so it may be wise not to read too much into the starvation in the world today, but when I see the ice shelves breaking off and glaciers melting away, I’d say the Earth was running a temperature.

Ever see a satellite photograph of cities? (Oh, go to Google Earth) Doesn’t that spreading grey mass of urban structures look like mould on an old orange? The Earth responds by evolving diseases to combat the virus, us. A couple of years ago a new strain of incurable TB surfaced. It had evolved to become immune to our drugs. Which would be more or less the way our bodies would respond when infected. Our bodies develop antibodies to combat the diseases that infect us constantly. Now and then one takes hold and resists the body’s attempt at eliminating them and in the ensuing battle on that viral level, we get sick.

No, I don’t believe that the Earth is queasy, sweating lava and getting shivers.

However, Global Warming is very real. Some places already feel its effects. Ask New Orleans.

The urban lifestyle that we have adopted is out of harmony with nature. The population explosion (which we also warned folk about in the sixties) allied with an economic system that promotes consumerism, have had an impact on the Earth. Mankind have had the same effect on the earth as a parasite has on its victim.

Its an awful thought. We have such a horror for parasites that comparing us to them is a tasteless exercise and I must be a horrible person. As awful as it is, it is what every man-jack of us will have to confront and the sooner the better.

Still, that’s not the end of the world….

We are NOT parasites because we have the ability to be aware of ourselves and can see that it cannot go on and we must change our way of life.

When we can admit to our status we can change it. We can change our behaviour. In fact it will happen without effort. If each one of us can admit to the fact that the whole of us is behaving like a parasite, then it will bother us so, that we will make changes gladly and unconsciously.

Here is the thought to take with you: If you want a beautiful life you can achieve it by living life beautifully.

Try it, Pilgrim, only you can make your life beautiful.

I have always wanted to share my thoughts or, more accurately, I have always known that I would. As I’m not one to waste a good prophecy, here I am to prove it true. I’m not trying to win a literary prize or such. I am just going to ramble on and digress as the whim takes me. Nothing will be planned, I’m just going to sit down and let my imagination guide me.

I don’t have a ‘message’ as such, just a different way of seeing things. As far as I know I was always short sighted, but I only got my first look through glasses at age 9. My first nine years were lived in a hazy, blurred world. I knew no different and thought that was how everybody saw. I didn’t know that I could have complained. Nonetheless, I found my way around with greater ease than kids who could see where they were going. Today, if I were to go without glasses I wouldn’t last ten minutes. Yet as a child I had to interpret these blurs into sensible things. Isn’t that what everyone did? So by default I taught myself a way of seeing things that I didn’t lose when I got my first glasses. (I was awed by the clarity of everything!) Now that I am older I realise the significance of that handicap. What I was doing every waking moment was exercising my intuition.

Here’s what I know about intuition and that includes a few assumptions along the way. (So if you want your facts scientifically sanitised don’t read the rest if that is going to offend you, however, if you believe you are strong enough to disagree with me on some opinions, but accept that its interesting, then lets talk. I don’t mind if we were to disagree on a few things, and that some of my ideas may even offend you, but I would hate to bore you.)

I remember the relief I felt when a teacher in an early grade made an innocuous remark about how we kids were so alike, but that each of us was unique. I took that as a license to be different and that it was fine to be who I was. This was important to my 6-year old life. I was a bright red headed boy and I must stress that bright; it was glowing red. That, I felt, made me special. I was blessed with the name, Julian, which nobody I knew had ever heard of. My surname is Polish and pretty unique in Poland so it was doubly exotic in South Africa. I already felt like the odd one out because up to that time we had lived in an Afrikaans community. I knew no English, or English games. Then my wise mother decided to place me in Grade one in an English only school. That would single one out. A Dutch/Afrikaans boy in a Rooinek class. (Rooinek is a colloquial Afrikaans term for English person. It literally means redneck because of the pattern of their tan) So when that teacher made her pronouncement on our uniqueness I was liberated. In hindsight that was one of the most valuable lessons I learnt. I set out to grow and make myself proud to be the who that I was. So now, some &*^%$ years later, I am different from most people. I have a different perspective, a unique response to the world I am in. And No, I am not a New Age dude going on about conspiracies and demons and frightening the children. Although I hasten to add, I love the New Age movement, though some members are a shade intense.

I was just too young to be a true hippy, but I took all of their positive outlook and philosophies on board. A Sagittarian (that’s me) is supposed to need freedom like camel trains need oases. That is certainly true in my case. I revelled in the freedom of the Sixties and Seventies. For me the liberal mindset of the hippy era was miraculously well-timed. Yes. I had my hair long. My hair looked like a still from Mount St Helen’s exploding. Bell bottom jeans and cheesecloth shirts.

Nothing in my life stopped me from exploring it and seeing it my way. Let’s start with what should be the most important aspect of everyone’s lives but seldom is. God. I have every respect and admiration for people’s faith, but have reservations over their religion. I separate them. God is a personal God. Of prime importance to any individual, (that’s you, Pilgrim) is his/her relationship with God. It has been shaped by the Church and one of the weapons it uses is fear. Of Hell. To make you conform and toe the line. It is a weak image they create of God, if He has to demand conformity when He gave us free will. And weaker yet when His Earthly representatives resort to instilling fear to attain that uniformity. I do not understand this desire for uniformity when God, who is arguably wiser than most of the priests whose sermons I was subjected to, created all life differently.

There is only one way, they say, to worship God. Our way!

The Nature of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross has puzzled me. And puzzles me still. One interpretation I have come up with is that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice so that we may live “Free of Sin” He died so that our sins may be forgiven.

Past, present and future sins?

There’s a lot of consequences that hang on the answer of that one.

If the answer is any of the above individually then its bad news. If it was past at the time of Jesus’ death then we are stuffed. If it is present then our children are stuffed and if it is future then we are stuffed again. If the answer is all three then I would see it as being granted the free will to do as we like <good or bad> as nothing we can do will be regarded as sin because forgiveness is guaranteed. That, in turn means that Jesus’ death was an act of Faith that humanity could overcome their dark side and deserve to live free of every restriction. How great is God’s dismay to see us indulging our dark side like gluttons. Our lives revolve around commerce and we devote so much of our energy to the accumulation of wealth that the activity has taken the place of Spirituality in the priority list of our lives. In doing so, we are indulging all the seven deadly sins. “I’m no glutton!,” says the man who eats three meals a day. “Oh yes, you are!” says the boy who has that many in a month. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. We are not lustful. Not? Here, click on this link…… Banning pornography is not the point – it will be happy underground. Always was. – people must avoid it because they want to. That is healing. We are not greedy! No? The continuing disposal of our pollutants into the atmosphere and environment is going to kill us. People should never invest in the oil industry, it’s going to go down. You see, if they don’t stop producing oil the emissions caused by using it will kill us all off, leaving nobody behind to buy it. The cynical rape of resources by big business is greed. Commerce is ultimately responsible for sucking the planet dry. Mankind supports that and cannot do otherwise.

Can you see how we resemble parasites? Killing off our host? The Earth is sick. It’s running a temperature. That refers to global warming, for those who need the nail whacked squarely. We are the direct cause of that thus we are the virus. Is our dark side showing yet? Mankind, by power of force, has wiped out whole nations of people, and often in the name of God, who is Love. Mankind has put in place a social infrastructure that requires the continued oppression of people, racially, economically and culturally in order to provide a cheap labour force to enrich the few. Dark enough already? Paedophilia and the rape of children. It doesn’t get darker than that. We are in trouble. But what was that? Its our saviour who showed us a way out. He gave his trust to mankind. He knew that we can overcome our dark side and banish that forever. All we have to do is live that truth.

Each religion insists that it has the only truth, that its God(s) is the True God. That there is no other God. The fault in that argument is that as soon as we say “their god” we allow for another God to exist. Our God is the True God, your God is not. Read that sentence again… I count two Gods. The term ‘True God’ doesn’t count because it is a descriptive that will be applied to either of the two Gods but not to both. But why not? Answer me that.

Again, it is about perspective. Look at man and mankind from God’s point of view. There are many people and they are spread all over the world. All of them are aware of God’s presence. They each have their own culture and worship God accordingly.

God is Love. Would that love not be extended to every culture? Universal spirituality will not be achieved by insisting only one way is right. It can only be done by embracing every believer.

When my daughter laughs I am the happiest man in the world. I believe God laughs when we laugh. What joy can there be in having mankind strive to strive? No I am sure He approves when we strive towards happiness. And I don’t mean materialistic happiness. There is no happiness in the capitalist system; it is simply the lure to keep you striving. Happiness is found through freedom. It scares one to consider freedom because it means one has to sacrifice everything that restricts you. The bad ones, like prejudice and hate, would be easy to give up, but seemingly good ones too must go, like a moral code. That is what freedom is; the blessing to do as you like, even ‘bad’ things and we have to trust that others won’t do bad things to us. We cannot trust each other and thus need laws to keep others in check. But we have to trust. And turn the other cheek.