DF and I drove out for a short walk, an afternoon’s exploration. I’d been laid up with a neck and back pain and then nearly recovered, when, I immediately contracted probably covid. You know, one of those just passing through viruses. I didn’t want to get up and over do it the first day. On the other hand, I was stir crazy with frustration.
Thirty minutes from town and then a few miles of dirt backroads, the trail began to splinter, getting worse. The 4runner is crawling over piles of rocks, in berms and zig zagging. Pin stripes can be heard forming in the overgrowth, then deep sand. Don’t stop in the deep sand.
Along the way, just across a field up the hill, seven deer are getting up from an afternoon siesta under a palo verde tree. Our loud motor has disturbed the peace and quiet. The odd loud red thing with two beings have disturbed their rest. We’ve stopped and watch as they lumber to feel a safe distance. Nobody actually runs. They just stop look and listen as the truck idles and two naked shutter bugs grapple with the telephoto lens, rolling down the window and working out elbow room, whispering for some senseless reason.
They are big. There is a lot for animals to eat out here in this lush Sonoran foothill desert. The first thing that we had noticed was that the ground is carpeted with a lawn-like green. The Spring bloom is setting up. The abundance of rainy days have encouraged it. Maybe, this year will be another a super bloom.
Big “Slim” a dead saguaro waves as we pass. “Hi Slim.”
Mooning and flashing have had a varied and useful history!
I came across this unfamiliar word, anasyrma, while looking into ways to solve my conflict with the censorship of mere nudity on the internet. If nudity is tossed into the realms of porn by the corporate powers that bought the internet, it is teaching and reinforcement of the ideas that the sight of our bodies is improper, immodest, indecent, or even evil and dangerous…Anyway, one thing led to another and I discovered anasyrma. A lovely term about lifting a skirt, or kilt.
I looked it up. Here’s Wikipedia for starters:
“Many historical references suggest that anasyrma had dramatic or supernatural effect—positive or negative. Pliny the Elder wrote that a menstruating woman who uncovers her body can scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds and lightning. If she strips naked and walks around a field of wheat, caterpillars, worms and beetles fall off the heads. Even when not menstruating, she can lull a storm out at sea by stripping.
According to folklore, women lifted their skirts to chase off enemies in Ireland and China. A story from The Irish Times (September 23, 1977) reported a potentially violent incident involving several men, which was averted by a woman exposing her genitals to the attackers.”
Wiki continues, “According to Balkan folklore, when it rained too much, women would run into the fields and lift their skirts to scare the gods and end the rain. Maimonides also mentions this ritual to ward off the rain while expressing his disapproval. Stripping away clothing was perceived as creating a “raw” state closer to nature than society, facilitating interaction with supernatural entities. In Jean de La Fontaine’s Nouveaux Contes (1674), a demon is repulsed by the sight of a woman lifting her skirt. Associated carvings, called sheela na gigs, were common on medieval churches in northern Europe and the British Isles.
In some nations of Africa, a woman stripping naked and displaying herself is still considered a curse and a means to ward off evil.
In Nigeria, during mass protests against the petroleum industry, women displayed themselves in anasyrma. Leymah Gbowee used anasyrma when trying to bring peace during the Second Liberian Civil War.”
So, there is power perceived in nakedness.
I think back to Mel Gibson, “Braveheart.” It was disarming, disconcerting and of course insulting to someone trying to be serious about soldiering, to see the dropping of the dress up that symbolizes and legitimates the socio-cultural game (yea war). It can make a joke out of someone’s serious imposition. I’m sure that has been a driving force in the repression of nudity. Naked has been taken as an affront to the status quo and its controls, from hippies dancing naked, to irreverent kids sticking their butts out of car windows as they pass. It is defiant against repression. It undermines authority in its free expression. It is liberating. It can even be revolutionary, but not televised!
What strikes me as absurd is that in this state, Arizona’s statute law, it is legal to use nudity in any protest, but not to protest about the laws that are anti-nudity. I can playfully cavort nude on a bicycle to protest fossil fuel use, or walk the oppressed helpless naked to show my sincerity about any injustice. I’ll be arrested and lose in court for carrying a sign protesting anti-nudity laws, without dressing up first.
Anasyrma, a beautiful word, just seems like it should be about a beautiful thing, not the act of a teenager standing up on the seat of a moving car and shoving a bare butt out of the window, just to upset the cart of the status quo.
I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.
We’re running late, its 1pm. Well, that’s three hours late. It looks like this will be a shorter walk than we thought, but that’s okay. DF has been getting some therapy on a sore leg the last couple of weeks. This should be a test run. She should be careful, as to not overdo it and too soon.
The plan is to visit the Tortolita Mountains, but this time taking the back way from my old home. We’ll need to find the pass heading south this time, It’s one that we used to come out of our hills through, but heading north.
In the pass is a trail that the mountain bikers have been using more and more during the last decade. Their treads should have kept it evident, but we’ll still have to find the unofficial path in a pretty large piece of grassland desert.
The trail that we’re looking for is one that I used to use often. I wrote a story “Naked to the County Line,” here:
I have mentioned the AirBnB here at my home in Tucson. It has been functioning by word of mouth. In mid- February “Ida’s Place” became marketed as a clothing optional AirBnB. This is a bit of advertisement and a bit of story.
The house had an extra living area off of the porch when I bought it. I didn’t really want a roommate full time, so an AirBnB was proposed. As I considered it, I remembered how much that I enjoyed meeting people from all over the world, during a job, a few decades back. I have been around Tucson gathering information, for over 50 years and it was fun to turn them on to Baja Arizona, in their sense of a new adventure. I realized that I could apply that to my business and have some fun.
In the rental, there is a small kitchen, breakfast nook and a walk in closet.
I introduced better climate control and brightened up the color of the walls. It still felt too dark, so I added a window with some art outside.
As time has gone by, I have enclosed the porch to regulate the weather’s impact and dust. My plan was to increase nude use when the outdoors is uncomfortable. On chilly winter mornings, the sun comes through the 5×5 windows, heating it, as I sit on the carpet stretching.
On warmer days, I can open the large windows and allow air to drift through. It provides a spot that lies in the transition from indoor to outdoor.
The Free Range Naturist 