Naturism

human landscapes

A long and boring speech, which will certainly dissuade many from reading it, but this is part of the game, precisely to discourage those who are not truly and deeply motivated but are animated only by stupid curiosity.

Let us not reason about them, but look and pass...    - Dante Alighieri -

You have to make your life like you make a work of art.    - Gabriele D'Annunzio -

Naturism means realizing that in contemporary civilization there is a balance error between the forces operating

Today's man is a servant of his own tools, a shciavo of the civilization he himself created: he is the being without health and without peace, the only animal that no longer knows how to live.

- Lamberto Paoletti -

"Naturism was born long before all the current associations that have sprung up in defense of nature. Naturism, with its unsuspected goals, is the most peaceful and revolutionary challenge to the system. ... We fully agree to the defense of the wolf, the bear, and all animal species, of greenery and natural and historical beauty, of artistic and cultural heritage, but we believe we are the most qualified in the defense of man against himself, a defense of which, moreover, no one seems willing or interested in replacing us in its global aspect."

- Ada Coppi Ranieri -

"Nature ... gave man his first garment: the skin; the only one he had to care for most, and he neglected this very thing, to prove right to someone who is not his, and does not make him a man."

- Eugenio Paulin -

"Whoever Naturism tries to counter does so artfully, knowing they are wrong. If a doctor opposes Naturism, he certainly will not do so out of altruism, because if Naturism is disclosed, his profit will cease."

-Giovanni Lopez -

Today, we modern men consider ourselves the best specimens of the human race, the fruit of thousands of years of physical, spiritual and cultural evolution.

But aren't we just a little presumptuous? They instilled in us the idea that progress is a dart shot at mad speed that runs inexorably from the past through the present day, into a radiant future. But if I look around, in everything from cultural to social, moral, political, and spiritual, I see little reason to be so enthusiastic. I see almost zombies around me, I noticed them the other day, many people I meet on the street don't even know how to walk anymore, they look like crawling monkeys, and what's worse is that they're even young! Let's not even talk about freedom. Every day that passes is a step backwards in the rights our grandparents won with hard and bloody struggles, and a step forward towards Orwellian society, where human beings are reduced to empty shells that are worth what they do, economically speaking. Today, indifference and resignation reign, everyone fights just enough for the exclusive interest of their own little garden and in most cases not even for that, and we all let consolidated conquests be plundered from us in total general apathy. Our society has many, but many problems, so it doesn't seem to me that this bolt of progress has taken the right direction. I challenge anyone to claim otherwise.

What does this have to do with naturism? It has to do with it, indeed, because if the world has taken a direction that some of us don't like, it's right to dissociate ourselves from this mass direction, at least ideally it's right to say "no, I'm not in it," and try to take a different direction, at least in our personal lives. Not as a protest, because it would serve no purpose, but as a personal ethic. Now the protest is outdated, often manipulated and exploited, now we simply have to ignore it, take our own path and push forward. To use the words of the great poet: "let us not reason about them, look and pass"... in fact, I would say to simply pass, even without looking. Because there's no point in looking at the ugliness of the world, they only fill us with anger and frustration! If you notice, even modern art, including music, especially music, is ugly, incomprehensible, and distressing, because it's probably part of a plan: to mortify the human soul, to kill it inside first, outside accordingly. In order not to succumb to ugliness and brutality, we turn our gaze elsewhere, even simply towards a flower, a beautiful sunset or a poetic word. A peaceful revolution, beautiful and discreet, but powerful! We should in a certain sense rediscover the value of those things that are dismissed as trivialities, the value of the obvious, of simple, unspectacular, unsensational things. It's not about fighting windmills, but about changing sides, about fighting with ourselves, to maintain our own integrity and consistency with our personal vision of the world and of life, without being swept away by the shapeless current of homologation. A personal choice, which must remain personal and private, but which will necessarily also be reflected in an "absenteeism" from that life and sociality that involves wearing masks and reciting personalities we don't feel belong to.

Naturism is a lifestyle that fits into this perspective, a concept of life that is perhaps a little idealistic, too much so for some, certainly romantic and Spartan, 1960s hippies style, a betrayed generation (read in this regard Roberto Gremmo's interesting book "Who defeated 1968"), which brings us back with our thoughts to a hypothetical golden age, to a remote and nostalgic lost paradise, which perhaps existed only in our fantasies. But fantasy must not remain just something camped in the air, it also has great importance, it serves as a guide for our daily decisions, it serves to direct our energies and shape the world around us as closely as possible in accordance with our feelings, our ideal world, our inner world. A vision of life that has something poetic and artistic, to use D'Annunzio's words: make your life a work of art!

Naturism presents itself as a set of ideas and practices, that is, a way of being, which therefore aim at the total well-being of the person, physical and spiritual well-being, holistic, we would say today to use a modern term, and traces its origins, at least as far as our Western culture is concerned, to the beginning of the last century, particularly in the countries of Northern Europe, then soon spread to France and later to other countries.

The renowned and esteemed professor wrote way back in 1931, in the midst of the Fascist era. Eugenio Paulini in his book "Nudity and Naturism":

" ...naturism is understood, as it should be, as the reaction of the will and its customs against the constrictive, unnatural, and unhealthy work of civilization; not the denial of civilization itself, but its healthiest and most valid corrective ... "

It is already in the ideas that developed at the end of the Middle Ages that we can see the first seeds of this new philosophy, at least in Italy " ... where the Renaissance was all a fervent return to the vision and adoration of Nature, on the trail of what classical civilization had taught.

Thinkers like Pompanazzi, Macchiavelli, Leonardo, and a hundred others who saw man as a true creature of Nature are to be considered true factors of the modern naturist movement."

and again:

"Thousands of men instinctively seek their well-being outside the scaffolding of civilian life, returning to sources of bodily and spiritual health that are of all time and still available to all. This means, ultimately, turning one's criticism on oneself and seeking the remedy in one's own work."

These are the words and concepts about naturism that were expressed at the beginning of the last century, in a historical period in which words of a much different tone would be expected. Instead, we find discourses that reveal a great consideration and respect for the dignity of the human being, understood in his physical, moral, and spiritual totality, and an active pursuit for his well-being and fulfillment. Speeches written by doctors and prominent figures, certainly not by some rebellious hothead, speeches and reasoning written in books that have come down to us as documentary value.

Naturism is also and above all this, a pause for a moment, taking stock of the situation, taking a few steps back, returning to reconsider values, plans, well-being and health, vision and purpose of life, in a harmonious whole, out of love and respect for oneself, for others and for the Nature that surrounds and nourishes us. "Big" words, challenging concepts, but that's naturism. A going beyond, beyond clichés, beyond hypocrisies, beyond set phrases, beyond beautiful words, courses, certificates, which then very often strengthen cages and chains rather than untie them.

Our society accepts the vision of the body only if it corresponds to certain standards and canons of beauty and performance, but most of us do not meet these canons or "kill" ourselves with hard work and diets to conform to these canons, without realizing that we waste a large part of our energy and time precisely to "conform" and not to live a life of our own, not to realize himself but to realize what society expects of him. It depends on how one sees it, to me it seems like a veiled form of violence and abuse, and not so veiled after all.

Naturism is love and respect for every body, each with its own uniqueness. This does not mean abandoning oneself to ruin; on the contrary, it implies care and attention that nevertheless leads to results, not only on the physical level, but also and above all on the level of physical, mental, and emotional health (personal satisfaction).

I've always been a naturist, not by choice but, pass the term, by "vocation": because I've always felt that I was fine like this, that I was myself, and I felt that freedom and that lightness of spirit that comes from not hiding behind superficial roles, from not masking behind constructed and always unsatisfactory identities. I repeat, it's not about exhibiting anything, much less provoking or criticizing the choices of others; naturism should teach an absolute respect for all ideas. Rather, it's about following your instincts, listening to what our soul and body have to say, and indulging them as much as possible, even at the cost of appearing ridiculous, because at the end of the year they're always right, and if you don't indulge them, they take revenge with those lethal and devastating weapons initially called discomfort, malaise, pain, and which then turn into real pathologies. Nature and the spiritual essence of the human being do not forgive that he betrays them!

As Eastern traditions beautifully tell, we are divine beings, we contain divinity, and our body is the temple of divinity: if we do not keep it clean and if we do not honor it, we make an affront to divinity itself. Surely there are those who will smile at all this, but the motto says: he who laughs last laughs laughs well! ...and I would like to die laughing.

Then tell me: between a person on the beach without a costume and one with a thread between her buttocks, isn't the former far more intellectually honest? what would that thread or that triangle represent to me? What would they hide? Death? Hell? I don't know… tell me! The hypocrisy of social media is also chilling: it lets absurd, violent, depressing, and uneducational content through, while a breast of a mother breastfeeding her puppy is censored and denigrated like the Black Death! But where did we all eat when we were little? Today, the obvious is demonized and ridiculed, and absurdities are raised to honor. But these are strictly personal opinions, and I do not want to lapse into sterile polemics, as I said just now. Controversy, arguing, claiming, protesting, and so on, are all now obsolete operations, mainly for two reasons: the first is that they are useless wastes of time. In my experience, I see that you can argue for hours with other people, but in the end, everyone sticks to their own idea, so it's better to use the time for other, more profitable uses. The second reason is that arguing, protesting, fighting, and so on are all reactions to something, that is, they imply being exploited and influenced by what one wants to counter. If you are truly free from one thing, you don't even consider that thing. If you take it into consideration, you are giving it importance and allowing it to influence you. Even in the naturist field, there are movements, activists, and organizations that "fight" for recognition and rights, but I don't fully agree with them. It's not that I think they're wrong, but I don't feel these demands are mine, because personally I don't feel the need to be approved by anyone, I don't feel the need to be recognized, much less "authorized" to be myself! I don't give anyone the right and authority to do such a thing!

Returning to the social, hiding is a very powerful weapon, a clever stratagem that generates desire, and desire, with all its psychic and economic by-products (shame, curiosity, morbidity, embarrassment, guilt and so on), is thus provoked and generated a whole series of psychological dynamics with which people can be manipulated, held in their grip and exploited, especially mentally, which is then the most intrusive, most powerful, most subtle and most widespread form of power. The naked truth, on the other hand, in every sense and in every field, is simple, obvious, and disarming and would undermine the very foundations of many insane mental and social mechanisms. Nudity is very democratic, too democratic, especially in a "modern" context like ours where democracy and freedom are just sterile empty words, a well-crafted showpiece.

Naturism is therefore above all respect and knowledge, considering that the physical body is essentially a shell, even if indispensable to life in this dimension, it is nevertheless a container containing something very precious, a soul and a spirit; our body can be seen as a temple, a temple in which a deity dwells, or at least something far superior to our human miseries. As such, the body, every body, must be given due consideration, and must be cared for, respected and well managed, and possibly it should also be used to express and give voice to what it "contains": our physicality is also a means of expression, a tool through which soul and spirit can interact with the material world, can manifest themselves and can create and modify it, give it meaning, a meaning, a purpose. In other words, creating and manifesting a consciousness and an ethic.

A small consideration then I allow myself to make for those who believe: the Bible clearly says that "man was made in the image and likeness of God": a divine spark is in us, and our bodies were created directly by God, so who are we to judge a creation of God? All the more to judge her in negative and derogatory terms! And where would ethics and morals come from? From divinity or from our earthly mind? From God or priests? Can we say that God or the deities created something wrong or immoral? Shall we not be a little blasphemous and presumptuous in being ashamed and judging a divine creation, rather than glorifying it and giving it due respect? In this field too, endless discussions are being raised about the distortion of philosophical, moral, and religious doctrines and about the various impostors who arbitrarily arrogate to themselves the right to judge and interpret, but this is not the place.

It is therefore clear that naturism is a philosophy of life that includes a 360-degree work on oneself: from nutrition, to body care, health and well-being without chemistry, meditation and study, from spiritual practices to consumer ethics, to respect for life and nature (respect that comes from love and therefore instinctively arises from the depths, very different from the respect that one imposes on oneself as a moral rule of mental and rational origin) respect that also manifests itself with a desire for knowledge, understanding and empathy. It is a way of relating to the world and a way of approaching life based on simplicity, honesty, first and foremost in front of oneself, and on naturalness, originality (being oneself, different from being "different" at any cost), creativity and the joy of participating in the great dance of the cosmos. For me it is fundamentally a search for meaning, a personal path that aims to "remove" rather than to accumulate (remove preconceptions, prejudices, false certainties, illusions, fictitious needs and so on), a path that is undertaken once it is realized that internal and external, subjective and objective, are abstract and artificial concepts, artificial boundaries imposed from above to create divisions and instrumental oppositions to certain logics, more or less like the political boundaries on geographical maps, lines drawn arbitrarily and certainly not for the love of humanity, nor do they reflect its character. The paths, the paths of research, are many and all equally valid if they lead towards the goal, that is, towards self-knowledge, each path equally valid, equally worthy, but each absolutely personal, and this is the beauty of life, originality and authenticity

Alternatively, there could be conformity, normality, mass, AI… fortunately, free will exists, although there would be much to discuss about this last illusion as well.

The title of this page, human landscapes, is intended to underline this empathy of human beings with the terrestrial landscape, this symbiosis, this constant dialogue with nature. The expression and manifestation of the inner worlds through identification and symbolism in the outer worlds, the uniqueness of each being is like the uniqueness of each landscape and each place, which is then the other side of the coin, that is, the uniqueness that lies behind the apparent diversity: the one is the whole and the whole is one, in accordance with recent theories of the holographic universe.

So not only and not so much physicality, but philosophy of life and, in a certain sense, ascetic practice to free oneself from a world that one does not share, not a protest (which would serve no purpose, indeed an addiction would still be symptomatic) but a liberation from the heaviness of identities (imposed, false, manipulated) and the ego (instrumentalized and manipulative), shaping oneself rather than being shaped, even through the free expression of one's body, even through the imaginative use of it, through play and experimentation with photography for example, as I try to do, but others might understand it in a sporting way, or by dancing, or by doing yoga and meditation, or simply by cradling oneself in the sun or purifying oneself in a sauna. It's also useful to play with your body, as well as your mind, only by putting yourself out there and experimenting, especially through the arts, can we truly understand and understand each other, express ourselves, and realize ourselves.

One of the most frequent questions I get when talking about nudism and naturism is "where do you practice?", two words that instinctively sound a little irritating to me, first because naturism, in light of what has been said so far, cannot be reduced to a "practice", it is a being rather than a doing, second precisely for this reason it does not have a dedicated place, and above all I love freedom and borderless spaces, I don't like fences, protected areas and yards for farmed chickens! But above all, by not harming anyone, and by not breaking any natural law, I feel no need to be "authorized" or "authorized." I am already authorized by Mother Nature to be myself, I feel the need to feel "safe," because when you are at peace with yourself and the world, you are already largely safe. Personally, I undress in every place I like, where I find peace and beauty, and where I believe there are the necessary conditions of confidentiality and discretion. The places where I undress therefore have nothing to do with commonly understood naturism, they have rather to do with beauty and energy, and undressing is a ritual and deep bath in these energies, it is a feeding on beauty, it is a fusion with Nature and its forces, a dialogue with the spirit of the Earth.

Then there are those who still rack their brains over definitions, barroom chatter, the "distinction" between nudism and naturism: please have the courage to be yourself, and leave these definitions to those who still have no self-awareness! Those who have self-mastery and are at peace with themselves do not need to identify with a prepackaged definition.

A trend I see emerging in this period is the commercial and consumerist drift of naturism understood as a "product to be sold": naturist villages, campsites, restaurants, saunas, holidays, cruises, courses, massages, and many other initiatives are increasingly emerging which, while positive because they lead to greater diffusion and acceptance of this practice, on the other hand empty its content, how sepre does consumerism and Western society when it appropriates something: if being a naturist necessarily means frequenting a club, paying an entrance fee, having a card, well then I have to say that this type of naturism is not for me, and it is not even to be understood as naturism, in this way naturism "unnatures" itself and is reduced to a socially accepted practice only because it is economically profitable and because it is limited to well-defined places separated from the rest of society. All this is obviously contrary to any logic of naturist philosophy. I really appreciate the foresight of some European cities like Munich, where naturism can be practiced without any problems even in city parks, without the much-maligned public modesty being outraged.

I must also consider that perhaps a normalized and accepted naturism would also lose much of its appeal, as naturism is for me a form of dissent, not so much a protest but an affirmation of my being different from a mass of people with whom I feel nothing like one. If this society were to become uniform and embrace naturist philosophy, those who think like me would have to find another attitude to differ from a society that does not approve or at least does not feel similar. Normalizing means primarily trivializing and killing the naturist spirit in a certain sense, emptying it of the profound meanings that distinguish it, and of which taking off one's clothes in company is only one aspect, and perhaps not even primary. For this reason, it is much better for naturism to remain a niche phenomenon, purely private, far from the spotlight, because and even opposed, all of this rewards the self-esteem and strengthens the spirit of true naturists!

Finally, naturism can easily be misunderstood by those who don't know it and simply judge things by their external form. It's often confused and misunderstood as exhibitionism or equated with ambiguous or immoral behavior, but obviously it has nothing to do with all these things. Sure, there are "transversal" characters, but that's in every field. Then, obviously, those who don't know and don't usually share criticism often envy, and the sacred art of minding one's own business is unfortunately a gift reserved for many few people, very few chosen ones. And in any case, I certainly won't be the one to criticize or judge other people's behavior. There can be anything, as long as there is respect, dignity and a sense of limitation.

One final personal consideration: is naturism opposed? Yes, in my opinion yes, it is not looked upon favorably, neither by ordinary people nor by established authorities, because this philosopher of life, this "art of living", has to do with the profound freedom of the individual, with his instinctual and archaic part that is difficult to harness, that part that wants to assert itself and manifest itself, to claim its vitality and independence, that deep part of the human being who is perhaps also the only one who has any meaning on this earth. For this reason, in my opinion, naturism is frowned upon and is often tarnished and misunderstood, and attempts are made to enshrine it in stereotypical codes of behavior, to make it a practice like any other, as has been done with yoga, tantra, and kama sutra, emptying them of meaning, making them superficial and empty, external forms that lead to nothing but yet another deceptive illusion. For many, naturism is already being reduced to sunbathing without a swimsuit on some well-protected and private beach, or having a sauna in some private club, where they can look at other naked bodies with impunity. This is not freedom, even if they would like to sell it to us for it. If naturism as an ethical and moral movement boils down to this, then it is finished, it has been chewed and digested by the system of Western culture and power, which with its voracity devours the energies of men making them all meek puppets puffed up only with vulgar presumption.

Well, now after all this philosophizing around these social and health topics, we can say that we have largely satisfied the rational part of our mind, and this is because the doubt also arises that all these reasoning of ours around naturism could be merely a justification and a rationalization that our mind asks of us to agree to try our hand at a practice that, for many, It can be quite unusual; and in any case, even those who are already industry veterans still feel a need to justify themselves to others and society, and feel almost compelled to provide explanations and provide evidence and demonstrations in favor of their arguments.

Our minds have been raped and vilified for too long, so much so that we struggle to accept the fact, very simple and very normal, that we all need to delay spaces of lightheartedness, carefreeness, and spontaneity, doing things that make us feel good and entertain us with playfulness and a smile on our face, without taking ourselves too seriously. The problem is that our mind always wants to have a hand in it, because it is presumptuous and considers itself superior to the ancient wisdom of the body. We, then, thrust into our ego, willingly feed this presumption by filling ourselves with readings, sources, studies and training, therapies and experiences, courses, certificates and certificates, and all this makes things become "serious and framed" even simple and elementary gestures and needs such as undressing and simply being free, even freedom from ideas, rules and labels. Rules in this field are only useful because, deep down, many of us have forgotten respect, balance, kindness, beauty, and the perception of limits, all things that fall under the common denominator of "common sense."

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