The challenge Andrew
@allsop gave me was "Fashion." I previously posted a picture I took on Monday
https://365project.org/mcsiegle/365/2024-07-11 It was taken quickly and with only a superficial look at the art exhibit. Comments by Suzanne
@ankers70 and Andrew and links they posted to the artist's website and work led me to think further about the subject of fashion (clothes and other adornments and the decisions we make to wear or not as the case may be) and the part it plays in the formation of self-identity and self-acceptance.
I spent the first week of this month at "Freedom Festival" -- annual gathering at SweetWood in Wisconsin, the neoPagan land and community I have been a part of for over 25 years. SweetWood is a clothing optional site, meaning that nudity (to whatever degree) is an option. Out of site of the public road, clothes can be worn or not, as desired and/or in response to weather. Throughout the week there were a few individuals who spent a good deal of time fully or partially naked -- enjoying the freedom not available in other places. I spent most of my time mostly clothed. For the closing circle I was dressed much as you see me here, but minus the fan and goofy sunglasses, instead adorned with one or more necklaces made for me by a friend.
The bright sarong, inexpertly draped as a skirt, I bought from a friend and SweetWood member who vends clothing each year. Wearing things like this, especial in ritual circle, lifts the experience out of my normal day-to-day life.
Back to the issue of clothing optional -- at times when there is mention of social nudity, someone will say If I took my clothes off, you wouldn't want to see it! And I find that sad that the old narrow standards of beauty and ugliness are still so entrenched with many people not happy with their bodies. Young women, in particular, receive so many unrealistic messages from social media etc as to what they have to strive for to be attractive.
I'm not saying you have to get naked to feel comfortable in your own skin, but I find it very liberating and inspiring to look around me at people old and young, skinny and fat (even obese), and wonder at the real beauty of the human body in all those different shapes, sizes, colors etc. Clothed or in various stages of undress, even when various bits are now sagging or wrinkling -- my God, we are all so beautiful!
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: one thing I didn’t take the time to articulate late last night when I posted this is that, on the issue of weight, it’s possible to acknowledge the very real health concerns of obesity while still seeing the body and the person inside the body as beautiful just the way they are right now. I had a conversation one evening at the festival with two friends who are quite heavy and who both had brought similar wide chairs they fit into. One woman had gained a good deal of weight during the pandemic and was in the process of trying to lose it. She spoke of how hard that weight was on her legs. She’s a very talented photographer and has one beautiful photo of a nude that I bought a copy of a few years back that calls to mind the Venus of Willendorf
https://mymodernmet.com/the-venus-of-willendorf/
The other woman had, at one time, told me that when she and her late husband had first come to SweetWood and decided to become members, she had loved it because he could be naked (as he enjoyed) and she could keep her clothes on with no pressure to take them off. After he passed away suddenly, she had begun to spend time out there less fully clothed herself. She led an awesome new moon ritual one night fully naked, and admitted in our conversation that every time she appeared disrobed in the presence of others she had to force herself past the body-shaming that society has instilled in us.
Whether or not we decide to take our clothes off (in socially appropriate settings such as Sweetwood) I think these are issues that are worth consideration.
