On the surface level, being skyclad does mean a freedom from the restriction of clothing, which allows for more movement and the ability to dance and to leap (and can be a good idea especially if you decide to leap over fires). It also means freedom from any reference to what walk of life you may come from, especially in the past when your class could have been seen in your choice and quality of attire. But, most of all, the freedoms implied in going skyclad are that of being free to be yourself, to enjoy who you are and why you are there. It symbolizes the ability to express love and pleasure and joy and your own particular light, your own innermost being.
Flesh is beautiful enough, especially by the mystical glow of candlelight or the full moon and in shared ritual, as it is a symbol in and of itself of our will to be born into this world. When we then further choose to wear jewelry or tokens, they are donned knowingly and specifically to be meaningful of our lives in the Craft, in a particular coven, or where we are along our own personal path. We wear them for the signs they are, as reminders of promises, of hopes and aspirations, and of any understandings that we’ve reached along the way.
Naked Freedom
The key here is that all we put on in ritual is done by choice then, and with knowledge that they are symbolic of greater thoughts, ideas, and mystery. In this regard, they are as much expressions of freedom as going naked in the first place, so long as we don’t fall into the trap of attaching ourselves too much to the specific thing or to what has no true connection to our innermost selves, to our truest natures.
For that is a huge part of what being a witch is about, shining with your own particular light, being a unique thread in the grand tapestry of the ultimate divine. In fact, we are charged to be and to do just that—to strive towards letting who we are light the world through the window of our physical forms, and to always remember that we are free beings, free to choose and free to act. Because to forget that is the first step towards giving it away.
Forgetfulness of freedom is forgetfulness of self. It is sad neglect of our own personal star, our personal thread in the tapestry of life, and one that allows others to use our own energies to line their pockets or further their agendas, some of which hurt us, those around us, or even the Earth Herself. Except that every time that we strip off our clothing and step naked into ritual we are in-acting our right of choice, we are becoming living symbols of freedom, and of the very qualities that the Goddess most delights in us to have. Qualities that the rest of the world sometimes forgets are there and that we have to keep reminding them of to the best of our ability—the taste and touch and pleasure of freedom, of hope, of life, and joy, and, most of all, of love.
Copyright © 2009, Veronica Cummer, All Rights Reserved.
Veronica Cummer is the Author of Sorgitzak: Old Forest Craft and Masks of the Muse