A girl surreptitiously bathing in the nude

This universal idea is best expressed through planets in

17th degree of Capricorn (16° - 17°)

FREEING ONESELF FROM INHIBITIONS
Much of society's forbidding codes of conduct are unnecessarily prohibitive and can be unhealthy taken to extremes

Emotional repression has been well and truly embedded in society, institutionalised into religion, morality and law. Quite innocent displays of nakedness are mostly disallowed whereas it is quite wholesome to feel such freedom and release of inhibition. The idea that the body and soul are separate is false – but the implication in such social condemnation is that the body, and its naturalness, is somehow dirty. We are reminded that emotional and sexual repression cannot support self-realisation.

Rudhyar:
A REPRESSED WOMAN FINDS A PSYCHOLOGICAL RELEASE IN NUDISM

A repressed woman finds a psychological release in nudism

Immersion

Only by letting go of that which covers us, can we find out what is being covered up

The need for hiding nakedness is not experienced by primitive communities so much; it is the processes of civilisation that moves us away from acknowledging sacredness in the physical body. Any sense we may have to become furtive in life, and hide our eccentricities, shows something of the extent of our renunciation of the natural state, in favour of sophistication.

An alternative strategy is to immerse ourselves totally into a full enjoyment of our physicality, employing the body as a temple in which to celebrate spirit.

This sense of profound joyful physicality generates a feeling of intimacy – with ourselves and with our roots. To remember our primordial aspects touches the heart, and reclaims innocence.

Furthermore, on a purely physical level, we find a sense of self-renewal in the act of becoming naked and vulnerable to the elements – Sun on back, wind in hair, and rain on face.

Beneath all the dressing up and courtesies of social interaction, there is a more basic self – and, if we are to be effective in expressing our fullest potential, this deeper part of who we are must be first accessed and then presented.

The symbolism here takes us beyond the physical to the psychological, is to do with being occasionally stripped back to the essentials and this is more than naked simplicity, more than sacred sex, sport and sensuality, and includes depth awareness of various body clues such as intuition. Only by letting go of that which covers us, can we find out what is being covered up.

Once we have seen a deeper truth, it is likely that we will want to become further renewed by the process of self-sacrifice. Rather like a snake occasionally shedding its old skin, it is life enhancing. This does not have to be traumatic – since we can never surrender anything essential. Only what is outworn or false can ever be lost.