Be Careful With the Clippers!

Now this is a holiday, if you'll pardon the expression, I can get behind - Annual World Naked Gardening Day.

The holiday is celebrated globally on the first Saturday of May (this year on May 2nd) by tending to your portion of the world's garden as nature intended.

WNGD is a collaborative project founded in May of 2005 by the Body Freedom Collaborative.

Of course, the first celebrants of WNGD were Adam and Eve in a little plot of land called the Garden of Eden.

John Muir, the great naturalist, responsible for our national park system, and founder of The Sierra Club said:

The body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable.

Global Post (www.globalpost.com) puts it this way:

Why garden naked? First of all, it's fun! Second only to swimming, gardening is at the top of the list of activities people are most ready to consider doing nude. Moreover, our culture needs to move toward a healthy sense of both body acceptance and our relation to the natural environment. Gardening naked is not only a simple joy, it reminds us - even if only for those few sunkissed minutes - that we can be honest with who we are as humans and as part of this planet.

WNGD has no political agenda, nor is it owned or organized by any one particular group. All people are encouraged to celebrate the day as they see fit.

Naked gardening enthusiasts suggest that on the first Saturday of May, find an opportunity to get naked and do some gardening. Do so alone, with friends, with family, or with your gardening club. Do it inside your house, in your back yard, on a hiking trail, or at a city park. Stay private or go public. Make it a quiet time or make it a public event. Just get naked and make your part of the botanical world a healthier and more attractive place. (Although I'm not sure if seeing me naked would make any place more attractive.)

Secondly, they recommend you tell someone about your participation. Tell your friends about your day of naked gardening; write about what you thought of your experience, and email it to your local newspaper; and post your thoughts and images onto an Internet site.

It is also a good idea to be aware of thorns, thistles, briers, and burrs, and especially poison ivy!

Barbara Pollard of Abbey House Gardens says, "When you're out there with a gentle breeze on you, every last hair on your body feels it. You feel completely connected with the natural world in a way you just can't in clothes."

World Naked Gardening Day epitomizes the spirit of communion and back-to-basics living.

Just remember the sunblock.