I have been away for a while vising family. I left last Thursday so I have missed most of the commotion here on Jason's Network about nudity. It sounds as if Jason has a been given a hard time and this makes me sad. He has given us the vote, this is our network and we're all in it together.
I am glad we are voting and talking about this. Discussion is a good and healthy thing. And well, as I've been telling Seth, my new thing is....I have to be real, and say what I feel. (It's amazing how absolutely freeing that is. Everyone should try it.) I repeat it to myself every day as a reminder.
Well, this is what I feel. I just came back from spending time with my little nephew, Jeremiah who is two, during this visit. He is an absolute joy and he knows how to live in joy. Something I wish we could all hold onto. He loves to take baths, and run about the house naked after a diaper change. He loves to count with his fingers....2,3...2,3...he says. When asked where the gingerbread mans buttons went he opened his mouth wide pointed inside and said "in dere" and when I ask him if his tummy is hungry he pulls up his shirt proudly to show me.
This little boy is beautiful, his body is beautiful, and I dare anyone to say otherwise.
When do we stop taking joy in our bodies?
I teach belly dance and I can't tell you how many women have come through our doors with damaged body image, and low self esteem. It is one of my greatest joys to be able to give some of that back to them through dance. Belly dance is a celebration of the belly. It was never originally danced for men. In it's truest form it is joy and celebration.
When you hear words such as nudity, naked, bare, etc. what do you think of next? What do you associate with those words? Why?
Does another persons nudity make you uncomfortable? Why?
Does your own?
What do you feel when you stand in front of the mirror naked? Or do you? When was the last time you did that?
So let me tell use another example. My grandfather who was a double amputee, lived in a nursing home. I can remember visiting him, how thin his skin was, so thin you could see his veins and arteries, each prominent bone, the scars from his stubs, his balding head, the age spots on his face, his toothy grin. Each line in his face, his laugh lines, his stubbly chin. Sometimes we saw more of him then we might have, had he not needed help getting into and out of his clothes. He too was beautiful.
I remember my grandmother on my mothers side, who died when I was nine. I remember coming into her room once as she was dressing and she was nearly nude. She had also had a double mastectomy long before breast reconstructions were done. I remember how different she looked from any woman I have ever seen since. She too was beautiful.
Please do not use family as a shield to hide behind with your definitions of what is and isn't okay when it comes to nudity. Each of these three are my family and I love them dearly. None of these instances of nudity have a thing to do with sex. Please stop making nudity a dirty and bad thing. Bare skin is merely the covering of the temple in which we each reside.
Why can't we see people in their bare skins as the beautiful creatures they/we are? Why does everything always come back to sex?
And why are we fixated on sex?
Well, I have voted to allow nudity on this network, because I believe the human body is a beautiful thing to behold and I have no problem looking at it. Some of the most beautiful statues and paintings I have seen in our art museums and overseas were nude and I have marveled at the beauty in those lines.
I have to ask this as well. Do you trust your fellow members of this network? Do you feel the need to police them and if so, why?
If you believe we experience what we expect, if you believe we are creating our environment, if you believe we are expanding our minds and hearts in new ways.......where is your trust.....where is your faith in your fellow travelers?
Well, this is what I feel.
Namaste
Debra
Tags: Nudity
