Two years ago on February 2016, I went to the Sunsport Gardens Family Naturist Resort. It is a nudist camping resort in South Florida. It was a beautiful resort, very natural campground. The Mid Winter Festival is a weeklong celebration of nude activities and/or workshop regarding nude activities. Although my husband and I only went for one day, it was a beautiful day of the Festival. We met so many wonderful people. We encountered so many wonderful things, wonderful families and children. It was a wonderful sight. We anticipated returning the following year in 2017 however it wasn’t possible at the time. The organizer had a personal issue and then when it was time for the festival in 2018, we were unable to attend sadly. However, t hat one day gave us a great taste of the wonderful world we would encounter or live in if we just removed the sexualization of the Human Body we were all programmed to have except for the children raised on this camp and camps similar to it.
For those of you who have yet to experience such a festival, I truly recommend you visit at least once and experience the naturalness of the human body.
Anyway, my husband and I went there so that I can teach a workshop about the UnMasking Ceremony. For some of you reading this, you have experienced the ceremony either privately or in class since that is how we begin each class. However at the Festival, we went into further detail about the Ceremony, its purpose and its design origins. Some of you were interested in receiving the ceremony in written form so that you may practice it on a daily basis. Please remember as we discussed during the workshop the Ceremony is not only for one to prepare the physical body for a nagna yogic practice but also to prepare the mind to clean out social programming and download the Universal Truth. Mind you, I am not speaking about religious truth but truth from the Universe about love, compassion, Universal Energy that lives within all of you and allows us to be ONE (Energy Beings in Human form). The benefits to the Ceremony can reveal a lot of things that have been holding you back from success, stress relief and/or general release from Unhappy memories. It will help you to finally understand what “letting go” means. The Ceremony should allow you to Let go of the emotional bounds of whatever is holding onto you. It doesn’t mean you will forget them. But, you will be able to speak, remember, write, anything or everything about the memory without reliving the emotions of it. You will be able to learn from it and move into a better relationship with yourself and others. Enjoy the practice. It will be an enlightening, sometimes difficult journey but all in all it will be well worth it. Take care and be blessed.
The UnMasking Ceremony is done in 3 parts. It is done with a Japanese saying in mind regarding 3 faces. The words go like this:
It is unknown whom wrote this but I use this to do the Unmasking Ceremony. I use the UnMasking Ceremony to introduce nudity to those who are uncomfortable with nudity or leery about the nagna process. The removal of the clothes during the UnMasking Ceremony represent the “masks” the Japanese mention in the poem. With my yoga practice, I try to work with 3 bodies as well: The physical body, The mental body and The energetic (spiritual) body. I also did some research on the number 3 and its importance in the spiritual world. Just to touch on just a little bit of the significance of the number 3. Three is considered a divine number, a number of sacred significance in many religions. In Christianity there is the trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Confusianism and Toaism, it stands for Heaven, Earth and Human Being. There are three states of matter: Solid, Liquid and Gas which correlate very nicely with the 3 bodies each human being contain within themselves being the Body, Mind and Spirit, respectively.
So let’s start doing the UnMasking Ceremony…We begin with Tadasana, Mountain pose.
I like to have the legs separated hip apart directly underneath the hips, the feet planted on the ground with the bones under your big toe, little toe and heel pressed on the ground and feel a slight pressure under the arch of the feet.
The first layer we remove will be the upper half of the body. We elevate the hands above our heads, connect the hands and interlace the fingers except for the pointers and thumbs. We begin by taking a few seconds, few breaths to go within and see from the surface whatever stress or discomfort comes to mind immediately upon the mention of stress and let it go towards the sky. The sky will handle it. One must promise oneself that upon releasing you do not accept it back into yourself. Your thumbs are to act as a zipper releasing the first mask of the body: the one that EVERYBODY SEES; the mask that was formed with the education, experiences of the world. It is formed by Social Norms. Once we get to the belly button we use our thumbs and press into the belly button [the center of the body between the solar plexus (manipura) and sacral (svadhishthana) chakra], create an open line by opening your hands and acting as if your are zippering off your top layer from the belly button to the small of the back and remove the top layer off the body tossing it to the side as if it is a release of a heavy burden.
The second layer is the bottom half of the clothing. We start again in Tadasana, Mountain pose and then again with arms elevated and hands connected, fingers interlaced except for pointers and thumbs. We unzipper the top again with the understanding that we are going deeper this time and removing the second layer, mask off the physical body. This time we are removing the mask that we share with the partners in our lives, BFFs, close relatives, etc. We are pass our belly button this time and go below it towards the hips. Open the hands into the line going towards the back and press the small of the back, activating the sacrum the beginning of the root (muladhara) chakra. Then remove the bottoms and toss them to the side along with the top half. Discard them aside. Make sure you plant your feet again and ground yourself.
Now we are left with the third mask, the one that we show to no one except probably to the man in the mirror. The one that we cannot hide from the Universe, the Great Spirit, the Creator, the Grand Energy, The Greatest Energy of all, whatever you like to call IT. We can now begin with our yogic practice and prepare to begin our journey.
You can do this seated as well or lying down. In each different pose, you can use your hands or you can use your imagination and use your imaginary hands to do the unzippering. Take your time with the UnMasking Ceremony. Do Not RUSH IT!. This is a moving meditation to get you ready for the Nagna Yoga practice. I have seen that this has been a much better way to do class with everyone who are new to the practice. If you are already a nudist and eager to perform, then I do not teach it. However, I prefer starting my practice with such ceremony. It connects so much to the Divine. It is like having a double savasana. One in the beginning (UnMasking Ceremony) and the later one after the Asana practice. I will be demonstrating the UnMasking Ceremony here on this program. Follow along. I will do one for a brief class and the other one I will do as a walking to sitting to lying savasana.
I hope this helps all who reads this. Enjoy the journey.