TNT 2020 (Thüringische Naturisten Tagen)
August 25, 2020 in Naktiv
From 14 to 23 August I took part in the TNT (Thüringische Naturisten Tagen) in Thuringia (which once belonged to the GDR), 900 km from home. Every day an excursion of 15/19 km that ended with a convivial dinner in a restaurant. The day ended at the bungalow-village, with beer, snacks and long, pleasant chats. We were naked for almost the whole time, except during the transfers to reach the beginning of the paths, during the dinner and for the return. The program was distributed towards the end of January (before corona). It was not obligatory to participate in all the excursions: the attendance was higher during the two weekends. The participants were almost all German; I was the only Italian. We also had rainy days. The landscape is beautiful: we went from the dense forest of oaks and firs to water reservoirs, barley and cornfields and meadows with hay. One afternoon we spent it at the spa: there EVERYONE was naked (both us and normal customers): in the saunas, in the whirlpools, in the salt pools. We had many meetings with other people, never a single problem. No problem even with the corona-virus.
The willows gate
August 11, 2020 in Philosophy
The willows gate
I’ve been through these willows a thousand times. It was when I saw the picture on the monitor that the title emerged. It is only a symbolic fact: it concerns only me who gave a name to this passage along the path. And now, I feel that there is a before and an after as if I were crossing a border. Sometimes I must come back and cross it again, so as not to stay abroad all the time. It’s just a mental construction, but it can end up seriously conditioning me. And nature has nothing to do with it.
Reading a poem at a waterfall
August 7, 2020 in Environmental, Lifestyle, Philosophy
To hear the timbre of the voice, the words of the poem one must be present. The camera captured and drew with light: in front of nature, we are excessive, we are too much; overexposure cancels us out. And it is good that way; it invites us to look around us: man is not the best of the creation.
Tantra massage
July 26, 2020 in Lifestyle, Naktiv
Last Thursday, July 23rd at 10:45 p.m. the German television channel WDR broadcast a report of about 40 min. on the tantric massage.
It can be of possible interest to many of us. At least for two reasons:
1) there is a way to the body, ours or others’, far from the “social distancing” that we experienced all too well in the last months
2) we can awaken attention to our body seeing other people. Social nudity is more an opening than a showing; an awareness of oneself, more than giving a hint; more a wonder than a surprise.
https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/menschen-hautnah/video-unter-nackten-tantra-und-die-suche-nach-veraenderung–100.html
Refreshing waters
July 24, 2020 in Environmental, Lifestyle
This is a representative picture of yesterday’s beautiful hike along the Re torrent in the Inzino Valley (N45°43’12”,E10°10’38”), not far from home. The path runs along the stream: about every 500 m there is a small waterfall and a tiny lake. The water is crystal clear, refreshes, washes the sweat, restores tone to the muscles. It feels like I was far from the world, but suddenly I realised that this is the real world.
Lythrum_salicaria
July 10, 2020 in Environmental
Walking along the meadow, I was attracted by the colour of these flowers. On the one hand the flowers, beautifully numerous in full bloom, on the other hand, I didn’t even know their name. But I have books to look for and, in the end, I found that is called Salcerella (Lythrum salicaria, or purple loosestrife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lythrum_salicaria).
Encyclopedic scruples do not drive me, but knowing at least how to call the flowers that have aroused my attention is more than just knowledge.
Place mimesis
June 30, 2020 in Environmental
If it is true that we are permeable to the places where we live or pass or look, that there is something we can name place-mimesis. Seeing this photograph it can only be true. And I remember how I felt. And everything happens even unconsciously. In the same way, as you absorb the birdsong (as many as there are) when you go out for a walk just before dawn. Exactly as you notice the thousands of green blurs on the leaves of the grass, the reeds, the meadows. And then, the light, the vividness of the contours, as if a scalpel were cutting out objects. And you also know that everything is alive, that the peat bog behind you gives origin to a stream, the same stream where – down in the valley – as a child, you learned to swim. They’re like my own; they’re all in my mind. It is an offer that nature offers to me, recalling times gone by. No nostalgia, everything present and vital, vivid and sharpened in the light of noon. What I see is so sharp that it enters me like a laser. And it finds sensors that understand everything, that summon up everything and keep in themselves. I’m there with my body, with all of myself: an image of me, the snapshot that portrays me not distinct from the whole, without perhaps an outside smile, but intimately happy.
Seven Little Crosses Pass
June 24, 2020 in Environmental
Yesterday I made a long hike on the mountains of the left side of Valle Camonica up to Passo delle Sette Crocette (N 45°50’50” E 10°19’14”). Great weather! The refuges are all closed due to the pandemic. I haven’t met anyone—few some hikers at the pass, but coming from other directions. So I was able to walk almost entirely without shorts: the natural thermal adjustment worked great. I kept the sun on my skin and felt like I was burning all night long like I had a fever. The legend says that in 1666 7 brothers from the neighbouring Val Trompia had come to steal the body of Saint Glisente (a knight of Charlemagne who had retreated to these mountains in hermitage). On their return, they were all miraculously killed in this place. Nature is beautiful everywhere, and it is nice to discover it in the places we know well. Walking naked gives a sense of familiarity, of confidence, of relationship, and it is this feeling that pays off a thousand times over.
State of grace
June 20, 2020 in Environmental, Philosophy
Back home, I was looking at myself in this picture; but immediately distracted by the bright, backlit green of the horsetail. We probably also have a kind of chlorophyll that transforms light into energy and health. I can only adore this wonder: I feel in me an intimate sense of belonging, of continuity with nature. And from this also springs a sense of happiness, of measure, of coordinates that collimate. Time is only a mode of being. Existence in the fist: our life. The energy that becomes new thought: things never thought before. Listening, meditation, a journey to our inner self. Things that we perceive when we abandon the daily categories that condition us. When nudity is a state of physical and mental grace…
Prohibited fruit
June 6, 2020 in Philosophy, Political
The use of the mask, consciously or unconsciously, is changing the way we see, our reactions and the very image we have of other people and the world. The face has become a forbidden fruit, accessible if you have the password to unlock the barcode. Now that we no longer have the chance to see people’s faces, something has changed, something profound. Under the pretext of a health measure, the face (i.e. people’s identity and recognition) is hidden behind a mask. But precisely this concealment increases the desire to know other people. But there is also an implication: and we nudists know it well. If you keep something hidden, you wonder why. There are two answers: 1) increase of desire 2) shame: and you may ask why those parts are hidden from sight. The situation is perfect for all those who don’t like their faces, who think they are ugly. But what about the majority? The desire to see a person’s face is the same as the desire to see a crucial lack of information. The shame for one’s face is to drive people who have a weak character into a corner, instead of including them in society. The parallel with “anonymous navigation” is evident. Moving in society without being recognized by other people has undoubted advantages; thermoscanners identify us: knowing, recognizing each other as persons, as friends is a secondary matter. Most probably, there is also a sexual component involved, that is, that attention, curiosity, desire is turned to that very something hidden more recently – an now we see: it’s so full of identity information.
I am convinced – and this serves me as an antidote – that we must defend ourselves against this intrusion. Knowing the games helps to unmask them and go another way.
An old song comes to mind (Andrea True Connection – What’s your name what’s your number, 1977) and it seems to me that in front of another person we’ve become policemen: we believe in ID cards, bar codes more than in natural faces…
The happy couple
June 3, 2020 in Environmental, Philosophy
I have passed by this meadow a thousand times, a thousand times I saw these two poplars, but only a few days ago I noticed that they were a “happy couple”. If you notice, there is no branch in the middle, as each of the two trees was respectful of the other and did not want to invade it with its branches. If you look at the whole foliage, you would say that it is a single tree, like an apple cut in half. My naked presence is an act of thanksgiving…
Reading in the vineyard
May 25, 2020 in Environmental
6 o’clock in the morning. Trying to find a (large & open because of social distancing) place for a reading. Too beautiful to give up.
Early morning honeysuckle
May 22, 2020 in Environmental
Yesterday the hedge was swollen with white and yellow flowers of the honeysuckle and brambles. This morning I find the hedge “sheared”. Along the same path, the fallen pappi of the cotton trees had already become seedlings – they disturbed the walk, and someone zapped away those too. I make do with what remains. Visitors, joggers, families will arrive later, after breakfast or for an afternoon walk. The dew evaporates at the first sun: I breathe it in during my walk.
The virus is over – Games go on
May 18, 2020 in Environmental, Political
The virus is over. Games go on. The nature reserve reopened today after two months of closure. In the past two months, water birds have been able to make their nests in peace; the vegetation has grown luxuriant, the reeds (Phragmites australis) have grown through the cracks between the axes of the bridges. On the one hand, nature continues indifferently to what happens to men. On the other hand, we men continue to play the new game for everyone, called lock-down. Government is measuring our patience, and we the endurance. I’m curious to see when we will rebel against the absurdity of the face masks (how can you eat a pizza with a mask? how can you breathe the poison of your CO2?). We will submit to the blackmail/harassment of the vaccine mandatory for all. Eyes open.
We are the ghosts
May 10, 2020 in Political
Two months ago, I was writing a post “Report from a ghost country.” And now, two months later, things have changed so much that I can say «we are the ghosts». Without civil rights, without political representation, with increasingly precarious economic resources. The hammering propaganda has made us psychologically subjugated to the regime. Fear has been transferred from the virus to the police forces, to other people. It seems to me that we are in the Russia of dissidents (in the ’70): those who protested were locked up in asylums. And it is that happens here in Italy, in Sicily (in Ravanusa, Agrigento). A young man, Dario Musso, 40, in a car, alone, protesting with a megaphone was stopped by the police, sedated by three nurses and locked up in the psychiatry ward of the hospital. But it also happened in Germany with the lawyer Beate Bahner.
They hid our body, locking us at home, now they are also erasing our opinions, dissidents are insane: what remains fo us if not the vague form of a ghost? More naked than that…
Gleditsias – Honey locust
May 5, 2020 in Environmental, Lifestyle
Passing through a path, the first rays of the sun backlight the leaves of the Gleditsia (honey locust). The place has almost a magical light. Passing through it, I take some of that light away.
Thoughts for May 1st – Labour Day
May 1, 2020 in Environmental, Political
The first article of our Constitution says: “Italy is a democratic republic based on work”. The unilateral suspension of work is, therefore, an arbitrary, unconstitutional act (among other things, it has not been approved by Parliament). It has never happened, not even in the worst dictatorships.
Many small companies will have to close, or accept one-sided contracts to continue to survive, or “merge” with larger companies (multinationals).
We had already seen this when supermarkets forced a thousand small shops to close.
I have learned a lot in the last two months: things themselves with their evidence have clarified my thoughts: we can only understand what we can make (“verum ipsum factum” Giambattista Vico – http://blog.creaf.cat/en/knowledge/verum-ipsum-factum-3/). Analogous to a saying of Confucius: I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. (http://www.chinesetolearn.com/chinese-proverb-originally-conficius-%E6%88%91%E5%90%AC%E8%A7%81-%E6%88%91%E5%BF%98%E8%AE%B0-%E6%88%91%E7%9C%8B%E8%A7%81-%E6%88%91%E8%AE%B0%E4%BD%8F-%E6%88%91%E5%81%9A-%E6%88%91%E4%BA%86/)
Not doing has deprived us of knowledge, but perhaps this deprivation of knowledge has given rise to questions, has increased our consciousness of ourselves and of the world in which we live.
And so it happens every day: I go out for a walk, I don’t do anything special, I observe nature, I let it enter through my eyes. I marvel at the beauty I see. Thoughts take a certain amount of time to form and then translate into words. My naked body is a great catalyst – if I do, I understand -.
The measures of containment, day after day, have stripped the king of the sumptuous cloak with which he hid a thousand things. He wasn’t the one hiding them: we didn’t see them, we didn’t understand them. We worked almost unconsciously; we worked for others. At home, we did a lot of things, and we could see the difference.
Naked German doctors
April 28, 2020 in Lifestyle, Protest
German family doctors are making an unusual protest: they are posing naked to report the shortage of PPE (protective clothing and equipment).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/german-doctors-pose-naked-in-protest-at-ppe-shortages
https://www.blankebedenken.org/
Why naked?
1) The original meaning of the word (from the Greek gymnós) was “without weapons”, so is gymnastics and so were Spartan gymnopediai (war dance performed by youths). The pharmacological and technical training of doctors leads them to neglect the natural defences of the body, which are by far the most effective and long-lasting.
2) Nudity is used as an analogical symbol: “I am as helpless as if I were naked”.
3) German family doctors are making an unusual protest: they are posing naked to report the shortage of PPE (protective clothing and equipment).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/german-doctors-pose-naked-in-protest-at-ppe-shortages
https://www.blankebedenken.org/
Why naked?
1) The original meaning of the word (from the Greek gymnós) was “without weapons”, so is gymnastics and so were Spartan gymnopediai (war dance performed by youths). The pharmacological and technical training of doctors leads them to neglect the natural defences of the body, which are by far the most effective and long-lasting.
2) Nudity is used as an analogical symbol: “I am as helpless as if I were naked”.
3) You use nudity as a means: you add the impact or shock that a naked person’s eyesight usually has, even more so if he or she is your family doctor.
Finally, however, it seems to me that the protest can help to “normalize nudity”, all the more so when it is shown by educated people who have our trust.r.
Finally, however, it seems to me that the protest can help to “normalize nudity”, all the more so when it is shown by educated people who have our trust.
Two worlds
April 19, 2020 in Environmental, Lifestyle
Like every morning I went out for a short walk in the country. It is against the prescriptions, not the law – and the prescriptions are unconstitutional, they have never been debated in parliament – fines are 300-3000 euros. On the one hand, I have this social and political reality in which, for better or worse, I have to live, on the other hand, nature – the same as every day and that changes every day (today, for example, I noticed some beautiful ash trees in bloom, a picture is coming).
The two worlds base themselves on completely different bases. Nature has its internal laws, its becoming day after day. Society is based instead on ideas, conceptions, goals, words, mental architectures (changeable at will and according to convenience). Nature has no purpose; social dynamics tend toward a so-called never-ending amelioration. As if feeling happy and satisfied would always be just a stage in an infinite process of improvement, and this perennial dissatisfaction is also the spring (note the metaphor) of our action.
Our projects are often against nature. We believe ourselves to be better than nature and we are playing – dangerously – the sorcerers’ apprentices. This difference became clear to me after listening to a recent interview with Nobel prize winner Luc Montagner (https://www.pourquoidocteur.fr/Articles/Question-d-actu/32184-EXCLUSIF-Pour-Pr-Montagnier-SARS-CoV-2-serait-virus-manipule-Chinois-l-ADN-de-VIH-podcast) who states that the corona-virus has been manipulated by inserting a sequence of AIDS virus. But nature will put things back in order as before (even without vaccines, I might add).
As if to say that we are now paying (innocent as we are) with life or inconveniences, the claim to dominate nature, challenging being one step ahead of nature.
It’s like with clothes: nature has made us naked, but we claim the right (or freedom) to wear clothes (we even make it an imposition, a law). And only when we are simply naked (without our conceptual castles, taking away from our body what is non-natural), we manage to be more balanced, tuned with nature. Even though this may cost us some social sanctions or fines.
Easter Moon
April 11, 2020 in Lifestyle, Philosophy
Easter full Moon
Yesterday morning I went out because I wanted to take pictures of the Easter Moon before the sunlight made it fade. The Civil Defence had left me a mask in my mailbox. It was the first time I’d ever used it. It’s mandatory in supermarkets, and everywhere. When I saw the photograph, a thousand thoughts about “identity” came to mind. The mask – as far as it hides the face – hides at first our social image. The perception of our identity is behind the mask. I noticed then that my identity as a whole is not distinguishable from my identity as a whole body. Seeing myself naked with the mask, I recognized myself; the off the rack clothes would make me anonymous. Finally, I came to the conclusion that clothes deny our body identity – even to ourselves. We have a long tradition of defamation of the body, which has led us to distinguish too much the visible face from the rest of the covered body, standardized by fashion uniforms. I can only thank nudism for “reattaching my head to my body”.
“Got no human grace your eyes without a face” (Billy Idol)
Spring doesn’t wait
April 8, 2020 in Environmental, Lifestyle
Going for a walk in the countryside (around dawn, when the Carabinieri are still asleep) you have to breathe and you feel your chest open: together with the air enters who knows what: oxygen, light (maybe the same light that makes our DNA live). The mind goes on other drifts and thinks about freedom: very right. A cherry tree is not “free” to bloom when it wants to, but it does so in spring. But I cannot consider this an obligation or a constraint. To be in tune with the ways and items of nature means to be free from the cages (even golden ones) that we have built for ourselves. I focus my attention on freedom, also thinking about the obligation to wear clothes.
I put together the daily increasing amount of constraints of this period (this morning I saw that even our small cemetery is closed) and this reminded me of the word “interdict” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdict). Then, as today, the dead could not be buried, there were no masses or functions, not even for Easter, no sacraments: the cities were severely punished, denying them the comforts of religion, and what in religion is called “dignity”. Much worse if we remember the “vow of interdict” (Hebrew cherem) in the Bible (Leviticus 27, 28; Deuteronomy 20, 10-20) translated by the Italian Episcopal Conference also “vow of extermination”.
Nature is not contrary to our health; on the contrary, it is nature itself that keeps us healthy.
Morning Sun
April 3, 2020 in Environmental
Despite the strict restrictions (one more every day), I do not give up my morning walks. The movement, the fresh and pure air, letting what you see become thought these are all things that help my health. I would also add the independence of thought. I’m the same as usual: I like nature to see me as it has done me, and as a result, I see how much I have to get off my back to understand and be as I would be according to nature. This morning there was frost in the grass, but it was fine in the sun, that fizziness that invigorates. An olive tree, docks against the light, cypresses, a vineyard: an hour of my life…
