I’ve read it so many times in books and blogs – now is the season for making love out of doors, jumping naked over Bel fires and generally doing your Paganism in a carefree, unclad sort of way. It is warm enough to be barefoot outside, I grant you, but far, far too cold for nudity. A traditional British summer brings more rain than it does cavorting options. The naked dancing Pagans are either far tougher than me, or don’t actually do as much of the cavorting out of doors as they imply.
As a species we obviously didn’t start out wearing clothes, but have got into the habit over thousands of years. It’s allowed us to extend our habitat far beyond the balmy zones our hairless and not that blubbery bodies could otherwise tolerate. So the trouble with viewing nudity as natural, and thus desirable, is that you aren’t budgeting in what we’ve been doing for a long time purely because we can and do wrap up.
Outdoors nudity isn’t as fun as it sounds. If you’ve not built up the soles of your feet then your soft skin will suffer from every sharp and pointy thing on the ground. Even in the loveliest of meadows, there are sharp and pointy things. Some of nature likes to bite skin, and that bit of nature is just starting to get lively at this time of year, too. If you aren’t used to exposing your skin to the sun, it will burn very easily and quickly. If you aren’t used to the whole being out of doors thing, you can also get really, really cold.
When we start talking about the joys of outdoor nudity, often we’re moving towards an idea of Paganism rather than an actuality. There are definitely Pagans tough, determined and fortunate enough with the climate to manage this, even in early May, but if you’re fairly new to nature worship, you could easily form the mistaken impression that we’re all out there, letting it all hang out. It might be nice, but in a wider culture that sexualises female nudity and criminalises male nudity, we’ve got a lot of collective issues to consider.
If you want to bring your body into closer communion with nature, without risking arrest or significant discomfort, I recommend taking your shoes off. Our feet are remarkably sensitive, and if you sit and let your feet air, you will be that bit more connected. Stand barefoot for a while and actually feel the earth beneath your feet. Even if it is a bit chilly, if the rest of you is covered, the odds are you can take it. If you feel your feet going numb, obviously warm them up. Paganism is not about masochism!
Learning to walk barefoot is a profound way of connecting with the earth and with our ancestors. Up until relatively recently, bare feet were not unusual, especially for the poor. Build up gently – little and often. Get into streams, into mud, into soft grass, but do be careful because broken glass and rusty metal are incredibly dangerous to bare feet. Become a barefoot person, and you will probably also become an ardent remover of litter.