I knew there was this sour-cherry tree along the trail. I went back there one clear day, a few minutes after sunrise. Now that I see the photo on the monitor, it amazes me how the light penetrates everywhere, and the shadows are not so dark. Anyone could have come out from behind the curve at any moment: now that I see the photo, I think the risk was worth it. The beauty of the moment diverts the thought from nudity (a social concept): everything is perfectly integrated: nudity is harmony, balance, silent dialogue with nature, time and place. I don’t get tired of looking at this photograph: and I know that when I feel drawn to it, it’s because there is something to understand. Something never thought of before, something I can’t actively imagine, but that brings thought to a level of intensity, substance and depth that rational logic alone cannot reach. I’m not a mystic – I don’t like that label – I like to follow the thought, the associations, to see what emerges, the connections my unconscious can draw. Thoughts that, as a human being, I have carried in my DNA for millennia. Now I no longer need to eat sour cherries to survive; I need instead to recover an ancient discourse that has come down to me since before prehistory. Seeing myself naked tells me how much history I have stripped away, the recovery of an ancestral authenticity, which is becoming my current identity day by day.
