Why I Garden Naked
On sunny spring and summer days at Easton Mountain, I usualy spend a few hours in the garden working naked.
Working in the Garden
I have three reasons for being naked. The primary reason is that I enjoy it. If being naked encourages me to do something that is healthful and useful, why not continue?
The second reason is that if I didn’t work naked, I’d have to wash clothes three times as often. Consider the photo below of my knees after a gardening session.
After gardening
As I would shower anyway after working in the garden, I save the water and energy that would be expended on washing my clothes.
My third reason for gardening naked is a passage in the writings of plato that says, in the translation I read, that in warmer days men should work in the fields “commonly stripped.” Who am I to contradict Plato?
I also find that some cleaning tasks. like washing the floor of a shower room, are best done without clothes. And at Easton Mountain we have a tradition of painting naked. Again, it’s easier and more environmentally friendly just to wash paint off ones body than to have to wash it off clothes too. Here a picture taken several years ago of a volunteer who follows the Easton Mountain tradiiton.
Naked painter
This is one tradition that not everyone follows. At Easton Mountain, we respect people who don’t follow tradition.
The best reason for why you garden naked, of course, is because you can, though these are all excellent reasons as well. At Easton, I followed your example and cleaned the washrooms while naked, which was far more practical and a lot more pleasant.
Now back in the city, I am forced by the prudery of my neighbours to cover my loins while gardening, though I keep that cover to the bare minimum. Being naked and working in the dirt is among the most liberating of basic human experiences. The world would be a happier, more peaceful place if more of us would follow Sunfire’s example.
Edward
July 6, 2009