Day Three - Nude Cruise Questions Answered

OK, so I've received some interesting questions that are quite fun to answer!! (If you have some, I'm happy to answer them. And if I don't have the answers, then I'm more than entertained to go ask random nudists... hehehe!!)

1. What happens when men become sexually aroused? Do they just parade around like “that”?
   The truth is that they just don't become aroused. I've talked to lots of men about it who have been nudists for a long time and it just doesn't happen. Nudists just like being naked. They don't connect being naked and being turned on – which is really a huge connection that we make in the “clothed” world. We think that if we are clothed, then we aren't being sexual and if we are naked, then we are obviously into sex or something (broad brush I know, but it's something like that). You truly get used to seeing a lot of skin.
   
   
   One guy told me that if a woman came up behind him and brushed his shoulder or said or did something provocative, then sure, he would become aroused... So then you jump in the pool until things subside...
   
   
   We were just talking about this at breakfast actually, and our friend from California said that sometimes guys will bring a girlfriend to their nudist club who is shy about getting naked so she'll wear some skimpy little bikini. This woman in the skimpy bikini turns way more heads than if she was naked... So it's an interesting perspective that being naked makes things more sexualized...

2. Is the environment more sexualized?
   It isn't on this kind of nudist experience. Most nudists aren't looking for anything sexualized. There certainly are resorts like Hedonism in Jamaica where it is clothing optional plus there's all kinds of swinging, sex games and all of that. But the resorts are very specifically one or the other.
   
   
   This cruise is definitely the other. In fact, if anyone is caught doing anything at all that might make someone else uncomfortable, they are kicked off of the boat at the next port. Friends of our new friends actually did get kicked off a ship a couple of years ago because they pretended to take a picture of themselves giving oral sex on the deck. It wasn't real or anything. They were just being silly. But one of the staff saw them and Carnival kicked them off the ship because they couldn't risk any of that getting out!!
   
   
   The other thing about the sexuality is that it's not like you don't look at each other. You do. And sure you notice “nice bits” and stuff. But for some reason, it just isn't all sexually charged. It's like you can just appreciate something and get on with it. But in the clothed world, we just get all amped up about seeing nice breasts or whatever. Maybe it's marketing. Maybe it's old-school puritan training. I don't know. But it's really only in the clothed world that we're so weird about it.

3. What is the median age of the nudists?
   I'd say the range of nudists go from 30 to 80+. Average age? Probably 50.
   
   
   This also does something for the “sexualized” question. I mean, you can be sitting there and some young, buff guy is strutting along, all tanned, tattooed, whatever. And right beside him is someone's 75 year-old grandma who looks just like any woman that you'd find at any knitting circle in Goderich. The mix of ages and body types seems to kind of normalize the whole experience.

4. Jumping up and down? How does that work?
   Well, honestly, I was trying to figure this one out too. But honestly it depends on the person. Some women “keep 'em still” and others just give 'er... And the men? I kinda think that they like the sensation myself (I apologize to my children and their friends if they're reading this... :) )
   
   
   
   

I'm not sure you can have more fun than this!!

Funny Breakfast Happening:

So over breakfast today, we're sitting at the bar chatting away with a couple from Idaho... And this 70-yr-old guy walks over towards the bar... and my eyes are drawn down to .. you know.. because there were two yellow eyes looking at me!! It was some kind of clamp/jewellery-type thing that basically put one eye on either side of his penis... And yes, I couldn't stop looking at it. So, I said to “Laurie from Idaho”, “Hey check out those eyes!!”... As soon as she saw them, we broke into hysterics! Then it was just one line after another... Hey, you lookin' at me?... Hey four-eyes! ... Keep your eyes to yourself!... Whatchu lookin' at?... The husbands were going, “What? What?”... We could barely eat our breakfast!!

If you ever find yourself in a serious Fun Deficiency, then I would highly recommend going on a nude cruise!! I don't know whether it's because only people who take themselves lightly can go on nude cruise or the fact that as soon as ANYONE gets naked, they immediately become more relaxed, take themselves lightly and are just open to anything else that's fun...

So, I have to paint the picture for you... There's the Lido Deck – which is where most of the pools, hot-tubs, waterslides, etc are – where all the fun is!! There's a pool and a couple of hot-tubs in the middle. From there, there are tiers that go up all around for two floors that look down on the pool and hot-tubs. And all the tiers have various kinds of chaise-lounges and chairs on them.

So we're lounging on the top tier – overlooking the ocean flying by... Aaahhh... And all of a sudden, I hear all of those crazy songs that they play at weddings all of the time that are so desperately over-played it's truly painful when they play them... the Macarena, the Twist, ride a cowboy and of course YMCA!!!

The music is absolutely blaring, people are laughing and having crazy fun... So the macarena comes on... first my eyes instinctively roll. But then I thought, “Hey, when will I ever have the chance to do a naked macarena?” So I climbed down all the stairs down to the dance-floor and joined all of the other naked people doing a crazy-fun macarena... And then the twist... I really dislike this song... But the people I was dancing with were so much crazy fun, I just had to keep going... And the crazy dancing continued... I didn't even know that doing the naked macarena or the naked twist was on my bucket list... Who knew?

And then, I'm back up on my chaise-lounge, and the music starts up and it's this great song that I danced to in Jamaica that goes “Penny, nickel, dime, dollar...” And so I jumped up off of my chaise-lounge and became one of those crazy people dancing in the aisles all by themselves... and then the cruise director saw me from across the way and the two of us started doing this crazy Jamaican dance together from across the Lido expanse...

And then I lay back down...

Soon, this awesome salsa music is playing (blaring really)... I look up and my cruise-director-friend is doing some dance moves and sweating like a crazy man. So I get up and walk over to the railing and look down. The whole bloody place is dancing. Everyone in the hot-tubs were standing on the edges just salsa-ing like crazy. People in the aisles are just given-er!! I have to tell you that my inner smile was absolutely laughing hysterically!! It was completely overwhelming in the most awesome way!!

And then YMCA came on!! OMG!!!

Normally, this is where I run for the border. But the first few bars came on and the entire deck started cheering and now nearly everyone was on their feet. Hundreds and hundreds of naked people were just jumping up and down following “Victor” in really fun YMCA moves.

I'm totally on my feet dancing to YMCA like I've never heard it before and it's the best song ever. Even Wayne had to concede and started dancing too!! :) Now everyone is just going crazy. People in the pool are doing it! People on their chaise-lounges are doing it! Everyone was just groovin'... The smile on my face is killing my cheeks. It's definitely one of those “now-I-can-die-cause-I've-seen-everything” moments...

But most of all, it was just SO MUCH FUN!!!

We need to have fun like that.

Do we have to be naked? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not...

But to feel so free and so uninhibited – and not wasted (the drinks are crazy expensive and not included on the ship – so alcohol wasn't really a factor...).

It was absolutely wonderful.  So healing and fantastic!!

I tell you... I will never be able to hear these songs ever again without getting a crazy silly smile on my face and be jumping on the dance-floor dancing like a crazy person!!!

Such good medicine!!! Might be worth a try ;)

The Big Nude Boat - Day One

So here we are on a cruise with 3000 naked people. It should be a bigger deal. But strangely enough, it just isn't...

So, first of all, we made some awesome friends – Peter, Laura, Heather, Jerry & Marina from San Jose, California. Most of them are hard-core nudists. They belong to “naturist clubs” which are like golf & country clubs except for all of the events are naked. Before a year ago when they banned public nudity in San Francisco, they would walk down the streets naked for an afternoon stroll. They even have a big 10K running race where all the nudists would walk it together – just for a chance to walk naked outside in public together. (I'm not sure, but I don't think Goderich is ready for that yet! )

We got to travel with them to the ship and navigate where to go and all that. So nice to have friends!! It's also nice to have people to ask all the silly questions that we all want answers to. Plus, they're just the funnest people I've ever met!! So awesome!!

So, we all get on the ship – Carnival Freedom (such an appropriate name!!!) - at noon and it was absolutely crazy! Everyone was dressed because we aren't allowed to be naked until the ship is 3 miles out to sea... it's an interesting distance... as if anyone could see anything half a mile out to sea... but regardless, it's actually a really big deal for Carnival cruise lines to even have these nude boats and they want to make them as proper as possible. So, everyone starts out dressed.

But what a party going on!!! I don't know if all cruises are like this, but we headed to the Lido deck (there was food) and the music was absolutely blaring – all seventies and eighties... (I think we're going to hear a lot of Prince and “Mustang Sally” this trip!!)... And people are up dancing in the aisles. They're laughing, they're happy, they're just having a blast! I mean, sure, they're on a cruise, why wouldn't they be happy. I was happy too, but I didn't just start dancing in the aisles... and in the pool ... and in the hottubs... According to our new friends, these nude cruises do tend to be a little more light-hearted and fun and the people are just totally relaxed and easy-going... Hmm...

Then an announcement comes over the loud-speaker that the captain will announce exactly when the "fun" will start... (when everyone's allowed to get naked). So then I start thinking, “What's going to happen when this happens?” Is everyone going to start ripping their clothes off and hooting and hollering? I was having quite a bit of anticipation imagining watching 3000 clothed people suddenly ripping their clothes off... And the more I thought about it, the more I just couldn't picture it at all...

And so, for a couple of hours, I kept imagining different scenarios of how this was all going to go down

But alas, it was all quite anti-climactic. We had to go for our emergency briefing about where to gather for our lifeboats... The ship was late to leave... It started raining... We had to go for dinner (where we have to be dressed)... So, by the time we were done dinner, we all went our separate ways and found hottubs around the ship (because it was bloody cold with the wind and rain...) and by this time, most people on the ship had simply become naked.

There were naked people walking down the hallways, on the ship's deck, in the hottubs, at the customer service counter, in the casino,... everywhere. There are also clothed people who just came from dinner, or for whom it was too cold to be naked. There are people walking around in bathrobes, sarongs, just t-shirts, and every combination of dress/undress, you can imagine.

But it's all pretty chill. Nobody looks at you funny... Not even all of the Carnival cruise employees who are fully dressed. They just say as you walk down the corridor totally naked, “Evening ma'am. Hope you have a good night.”... And life goes on...

Hmmm...  

And so, off we went to a hot-tub at the back of the ship and warmed up with a whole pile of people from all over the world... I sat and chatted with Dino from North Carolina for a while... talked about the weather... how this was our first time on a nude cruise... you know, basic stuff... And it was... really normal. 

In fact, so far, I swear it was even more relaxed BECAUSE we were all naked... No posturing. No pretending. Just totally there... chatting in the hot-tub... Very cool... Really nice :)

Aahhh... So we'll see how many pictures I can come up with from here on in... pictures are totally prohibited for obvious reasons... But we'll see...

The Healing Power of Love Meditation

I was recently in Jamaica at the Caribbean Yoga Conference and I made this video about how we can bring the feeling of love into our everyday life... partly through understanding how we push it away... and partly through practising a simple meditation.

I know that it sounds a little hokey... like every love song ever written... "All you need is love.." 

But one interesting point comes from people who have near-death experiences and the amazing sense of love that surrounds them when they're "in that other place". I have had this experience twice in my life. But I couldn't articulate it until I read Anita Moorjani's book "Dying to be Me".. and while she was clinically dead - her body wracked with cancer, she was having the most beautiful experience.

She felt completely happy, blissful and surrounded by love. The love absolutely permeated her entire being. There was no lover or child or anyone else there... just love.  This is what we forget "down here". We think that we have no love if our partner thwarts us or we're struggling with our parents or children. But that "love" that we think we've lost isn't really love... It's relationship expectations and other twisted versions if it.

But real love is a beautiful feeling that we experience. It's not rational. It's just there. And our biggest problem is that we actually only let it so far in... then we push it away - ever so slightly - or a lot!!

But this love has amazing abilities to heal us.

When Anita Moorjani returned to her body, her stage 4 cancer was healed. She was forever different. There's something to be said for that. (As a side note, we are super excited that Anita is coming to Blyth from Hong Kong on April 21st to speak about her book. More details can be found at: http://www.eaststreetstation.ca/coming-events/april-21-anita-moorjani.html )

And so, without further ado, here is the video from Jamaica. 

Enjoy!

Just follow this link: Meditation Video

Please share this with anyone you know who needs some love in their life... anyone who needs hope and uplifting... anyone who feels alone. 

Love always,

Katrina

Our True Human Potential

I truly believe that we are able to do anything we put our minds to. I believe that our bodies and minds will respond with vigour to any challenge that we put before them. The problem is that our goals are too small due to fears, conditioning, "what has always been", our upbringing, our society, whatever.

And so, with this in mind, I have signed up to participate in a Tough Mudder challenge on May 11, 2013. (See www.toughmudder.com for a video). This is a challenge that is truly quite beyond me right now. It is a 20km route with 25 military-style obstacles designed to test your strength, your mettle, endurance and challenge your fears. There's everything from climbing cargo nets to getting over vertical walls to jumping into ice-water to jumping off 30ft heights into water. And in-between these things, we run... in our case, it's at Mount St. Louis Moonstone, so it will be all climbing mountains.

(By the way, this is a team running electrified wires... 

always the final obstacle before you get the headband and the beer!!)

So why am I doing this? It's a great question. But I feel called to do it in that wonderful way that always turns out to be the most interesting!!!

Basically, at the time of writing this, I have 18 weeks to be able to comfortably run 20 km with serious hills in them (I'm nowhere close). I have to improve my upper body and core strength enough to even be able to participate in the challenges and help my teammates(I have the upper body strength of a T-Rex) ... Oh yeah, this is a team sport. So the teams must progress together through all of the obstacles. For me, this is a huge stimulus...Letting other people down is definitely one of my greatest fears!! 

Our Human Potential:

This challenge lets me finally test my deeply-held belief that our bodies will rise to any challenge that we put before them. Back when I wrote "What If You Could Skip the Cancer?", this was the number-one finding in the research I did about spontaneous healings. Over and over again, we see people overcoming SERIOUS disease. People heal against impossible odds. 

Why? Because this is what these amazing bodies are designed to do!!!

These bodies are not only phenomenal in their physical make-up alone, they are linked to our amazing minds and spirits which have infinite potential for ideas, healing, and future possibilities. When our minds are clear, our bodies respond.

And our minds are absolutely amazing things!! They are entire pharmaceuticals that will help us in any situation we find ourselves in. Our minds are amazingly plastic - they can adjust and adapt to any situation that we put them in. We are limited only by our imagination and our fears.

And so it only stands to reason that our bodies would also respond to this kind of challenge - to build strength, endurance and stamina... 

And so, these 18 weeks will be a chance for me to really dig deep inside and weed out the ideas, beliefs and thoughts that stand in my way. Because as long as they are there, I won't train enough. I won't heal enough. I won't become strong enough.

But when I can get my mind and intentions clear, what is possible? Anything? Everything?

This is what I truly believe. And I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to really experience it!!

It's going to be an interesting 18 weeks!!!

Being Careful of Our Goals

We`ve been in renovation for a while now. Partly it`s because we moved into a "fixer-upper". And partly it's renovations from the tornado last year.

This morning over coffee, my husband remarked that there are lots of people that would be crazy living in constant renovation like this - that he was glad we weren't like that.

Hmm... The truth is that we are definitely kind of slack about these kinds of things. Maybe it was 17 years of living on a dairy farm where the work was never-ending has burned us out. Or maybe we're just too busy to get too wrapped up in it. But the truth is, I don't want to miss out on REAL LIFE because we've set a renovation goal.

I had a really weird thought last August on the day of the tornado.  As my daughter and I were coming up out of our basement and we saw the devastation all around us, it was horrible to see all of our neighbours' houses destroyed (ours only had minor damage).

Now, the mind is a weird thing and I don't know when I actually had this thought (and I know that this has nothing to do with them personally - that it's my stuff), but I remember looking across the road at our friends' house which was destroyed. It was a cute little wartime home that they had really spruced up inside - it was really lovely. Well, our friends were devastated. They had just grabbed their infant daughter out of her bed just in time before her room was filled with debris and glass. It was a horrible time for them...

And what goes through my mind? "Man, I hope that they didn't bust their butts getting the house cleaned and fixed up that morning."

I know it's sick and ridiculous. But that moment has haunted me ever since.

That thought haunts me every time I get antsy about getting a job finished. You know the time - when something in your brain says "You should get "this" job done. You just have to put your mind to it. You just have to get the kids helping. You just have to get your priorities straight. Don't you want to get this done? Wouldn't it be nice to live in a finished house?..."

But some days, I just don't feel like it... finishing just feels hard... I'd rather relax or hang out with the kids or go to the beach...But now, on those days when "The General" in my head starts to lecture me, I think about my friends' beautiful little house and I think, "What if we make ourselves miserable getting it done and it all gets blown away in a tornado?"

Eventually a day comes where we truly WANT to work on the renovations. And often, there is some interesting new thoughts that inspire us to do something slightly different than we would've done if we'd pushed and things turn out even better than we'd expected.

The truth is, I think that the destruction of the tornado and the suffering of everyone around us really helped me to get my priorities in line.

For the first six months, I walked out of my house into a war zone. For the last few months, thank goodness, it's a construction zone. And every time it reminds me how transient our "stuff" is. It reminds me to really focus on the things that matter - for me, relationships, personal growth and the pursuit of joy.

And sometimes that joy is truly painting a wall and laying new flooring. But it is definitely crystal clear when it isn't. And I'm not giving up ENJOYING MY LIFE just to get the job done. :)

Loving Ourselves Once and For All

Many of us struggle with self-worth issues. We spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to make our bodies look like something that we can be proud of. For some it looks like eating disorders. For others it's extreme workouts. It can even be done through extreme yogic discipline which gives it a righteous, spiritual twist - but it's a twist nonetheless.

For me, I wasn't so different from other girls who were obsessed with their body shape. My friends were all size 0 - I wasn't. I thought I was fat. I wasn't. But it started me on a rollercoaster of dieting, extreme exercise - even bulimia in my teens.

So, I am reading a book called "Body and Soul: Honouring Marion Woodman". What follows is an excerpt that describes a time in Marion's life when she was very anorexic and struggling with self-worth and so many of the things that many of us struggle with.

I found so much truth in this, I had to share it. Thank you Marion.

During her severe bout with dysentery in India, Marion had an experience that turned her life around. Too weak to stand, she fell on the tile floor of her bathroom.

How long I was there, I do not know.  I came to consciousness on the ceiling, my spirit looking down at my body caked in dry vomit and excrement. I saw it lying there helpless, still, and then I saw it take in a breath. ‘Poor dummy,’ I thought. ‘Don’t you know you’re dead?’ And mentally gave it a kick. Suddenly I remembered my little Cairn terrier. ‘I wouldn’t treat Gyronne that way,’ I thought. ‘I wouldn’t treat a dog the way I’m treating my own body. I wonder what will become of it if I leave it here? Will they burn it? Will they send it home?”
She wondered why her body wouldn’t stop breathing, why her spirit was not taking advantage of this opportunity to finally free itself: “I’ve been wanting to get out all my life. And here I’m out. All I have to do is take off,” she thought.
“Paralyzed by the immensity of my decision - either to leave my body there or go back into it - I saw it take another breath. I was overcome with compassion for this dear creature lying on the floor faithfully waiting for me to return, faithfully taking in one breath after another, confident that I would not forsake it, more faithful to me than I to it.
“All my life I had hated my body. It was not beautiful enough. It was not thin enough. I had driven it, starved it, stuffed it, cursed it, and even now kicked it, and there it still was, trying to breathe, convinced that I would come back and take it with me, too dumb to die. And I knew the choice was mine. Most of my life I had lived outside my body, my energy disconnected from my feelings, except when I danced. Now it was my choice - either to move into my body and live my life as a human being, or to move out into what I imagined would be freedom. I also thought of what a blow it would be to Ross, not to know what had happened to me, and did not want my body to be burned on the ghats in India. A profound shift took place: an overwhelming sweetness and love came into me for this poor thing on the floor.
“I saw it take another breath and there was something so infinitely innocent and trusting, so exquisitely familiar, in that movement that I chose to come down from the ceiling and move in. Together we dragged ourselves to the little bed. I did my best to take care of it. It was as if I could hear it whispering, ‘Rest, perturbed spirit, rest.” For days, perhaps nine days, I stayed in the womb of the Ashoka [hotel].”

Here's to loving ourselves, once and for all.

The lovely Marion Woodman.