[at-l] Clarification to nude hiking post

[shane@theplacewithnoname.com (Shane Steinkamp)]

> Anyway, I'll disappoint Shane, but I've never considered
> nudity to be acceptable on the AT.  Too many people use
> the Trail who don't appreciate it at all - and very few of
> them are thruhikers.  I have lots of nudity stories
> - most of them funny, a few not so funny.

Doesn't disappoint me in the slightest.  You always have to use good
judgment for any activity, and nudity is just another of those things.  The
case you indicate where the lady walks into a crowded place nude, is
obviously a case of bad judgment.

Society at large is still recovering from Victorian prudishness, among other
things, and isn't ready to face the human body without shame.  The concept
that dignity, modesty, and nudity are not always connected values escapes
most people. As an aside, there is a life sized nude statue in the New
Orleans Museum of Art at the top of the stairs near the entrance.  I have
always wanted to strike off my clothes and stand next to that statue and
have my photo taken, then see how long it takes someone to have me arrested.
Why is it OK for bronze to be nude, but not for flesh and blood?  Exactly
why is my body illegal?  Maybe one day...

Nevertheless, I respect the fact that most people aren't ready for this kind
of dialog or this kind of raw experience.  In those places and times when
one can shed all the interposing masks, however, I do recommend it for those
few souls who can cast off their timidity long enough to reconnect with
their humanity without worrying about what their mothers would say...

If you have never stood atop a high place as the wind caresses your whole
body lovingly, then you have missed something sweet.

If you have never leapt from that high place and plunged into a deep clear
pool uninhibited by any trapping of society, then you have missed something
delightful.

If you have never lain in the cool grass while the rain drops kiss you in
your entirety, then you have missed something valuable.

If you have never sat in a waterfall and been truly free, you have missed
something worthwhile.

If you have never been down to the sea clothed only in the night, then you
have missed something divine.

If you have never met the wilderness exactly as you are, then you have
missed something very precious.

If you don't understand any of this at all, I hope that one day you will.
If you never do, then you will have missed something important about your
very humanity.

Either that, or I am some kind of sick pervert...  I don't think so, though,
because I have wept in the wind, and swam in the sky, and danced with the
rain, and made love with waterfalls, and spoken to the sea, and been a part
of the wilderness in ways that are mostly lost to modern man.  These are
precious gifts that have very little to do with nudity, but nothing to do
with clothes - or any of the other interposing masks that we carry with us
into the wild.

Now that I've caught myself preaching, I'll quit...

Shane

"What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that
the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful that the
garment with which it is clothed?"
- Michelangelo