Conference moira::naturism

glitter with
  my wildest dreams
    billowing clouds
      with silver seams

the moon seeing
  all my sins
    washing my body
      taking me in

a breezy chill
  encompasses my form
    leaving me cold
      without that warmth

air is passing
  thru my soul
    the sea is closer
      in, it rolls

splashing frantically
  to and fro
    i'm lost within
      the nite-time glow

swimming gently
  with the tide
    succumbing only
      to enjoy the ride

we are one
  for a time
    i am the seas'
      the sea is mine


    Reprinted from _Clothed_with_the_Sun 7.4.

			A CZECH TRIBUTE

	A Czech participant in the Delegyhaza International Meeting of
	June 1987, Zdenek Foltanek wrote a tribute to naturism and its
	ability to pass borders.  This is its first publication.
	

			NATURISM

	In the swift tiring course of life today,
	we seek out, from ancient times,
	The most natural, full and beautiful
	way to restore the human powers.
	IN THE LIFE-GIVING CLEAR SUNLIGHT
	IN THE ENFOLDING ARMS OF MOTHER NATURE
	At the seaside, the lakes, the rivers and streams,
	on the sandbars, in meadows, on the plains and mountains,
	With self-respect of common
	nakedness with one another
	But always and everywhere
	with respect for the environment
	and the opinion of others

			- Zdenek Foltanek

                                   
    This has always been one of my favorite poems.
    I'm surprised it hasn't appeared in this conference yet.
    
    The Naked and the Nude
    
    For me, the naked and the nude
    (By lexicographers construed
    As synonyms that should express
    The same deficiency of dress
    Or shelter) stand as wide aprt
    As love from lies, or truth from art.
    
    Lovers without reproach will gaze
    On bodies naked and ablaze;
    The Hippocratic eye will see
    In nakedness, anatomy;
    And naked shines the Goddess when 
    She mounts her lion among men.
    
    The nude are bold, the nude are sly
    To hold each treasonable eye.
    While draping by a showman's trick
    Their dishabille in rhetoric,
    They grin a mock-religious grin
    Of scorn at those of naked skin.
    
    The naked, therefore, who compete
    Against the nude may know defeat;
    Yet when they both together tread
    The briary pastures of the dead,
    By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
    How naked go the sometime nude!
    
    By Robert Graves (1895 to 1985)

    From FCN, Fall/88, Volume 3, Number 4
    
    
    	I lay there burning in all my nakedness,
    		Knowing, feeling, dreading what had to come.
    	The air was still, yet wired with tension.   
    	I felt only a vacuum of emotion,
    		but the awareness of that to come, remained.
    
    	At last the heavens cried out and yielded their all,
    		thrusting crescendos -- yet not angry,
    		powerful and purifying.
    
    	And then, as though vented of passion,
    		the tension passed, the pelting eased,
    	Only bathing, soothing, refreshing now,
    		and so soon to end.
    
    	My skin tightened to the dance of towelling breezes.
    	Then....then warm flow of sun, a return to peace.
    
    	My body, heart and soul had savoured
    		the gifts of nature -- in all my nakedness
    
    					- by Marie Chaban
                                        

    This anonymous "naturist pledge", apparently from the late 60's,
    reprinted in _Bare in Mind_, March 1989: 

	I pledge to worship God manifest in our Sun,
	    by offering my naked body to his light.

	I pledge to worship God manifest in our Moon,
	    by bathing naked in her ocean tides.

	I pledge to worship God manifest in our Earth,
	    by preserving her natural environment
	    for the benefit of all sentient beings.

        And the weaver said, Speak to us of clothes.

            And he answered:

            Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet
	they hide not the unbeautiful.

            And though you seek in garments the freedom of
	privacy you may find in them a harness and chain.

            Would that you could meet the sun and the wind
	with more of you skin and less of your rainment,

            For the breath of life is in the sunlight and
	the hand of life is in the wind.


            Some of you say, "It was the north wind who has
	woven the clothes we wear."

            And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,

            But shame was his loom, and the softening of
	the sinews was his thread.

            And when his work was done he laughed in the
	forest.

            Forget not that modesty is for a shield against
	the eye of the unclean.

            And when the unclean shall be no more, what
	were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?

            And forget not that the earth deleights to feel
	your bare feet and the winds long to play with your
	hair.


        -Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)