August has arrived, and that means it is time for the Ethical Naturist to turn off the computer, close up the shop and get outside for some recuperative holidays of recreation. Life is challenging, and the better we care for ourselves, the better we can care for others. So, today’s piece conveys what we are seeking for the weeks ahead. It comes from a book titled Rhapsody in Nude published in 1949 by the Halcyon Outdoor Club, an association unfortunately lost to history.
This should be our last post until sometime after Labor Day. Stay tuned though because lots of good ideas are percolating for the fall and beyond. Until then, we wish blessings of sunshine, laughter, good health and friendship to everybody. Enjoy.
“Outside my trailer it is one of those star-drenched, radiant nights intended for dreams and the makers of dreams. The moonlight has laid a quivering path of light across the pool, and the white rocks are gleaming on the distant mountains.
From the hills a soft breeze is blowing gently swaying the shrubs along the trails. Clouds move lazily between the moon and the stars. The air is mild, sweet scented with the flowers of the valley.
My house trailer stands under a giant oak tree in Camp Halcyon. The camp lies in an idyllic location in a little mountain valley thirty miles from Pittsburgh. It is a place of peace, ideal in which to read, write, meditate or dream. It is a tiny haven of stillness between green mountains.
The magic memory of the days I have already lived here comes to me, every now and again, like the echo of some youthful love – mellow and sweet creeping across the barrier of weeks, months and years, to rest for a moment, like a sigh, like a kiss… and it is gone.
It is a free, healthy and simple existence I am living here, bathing in the open and running wet and naked knee-deep through the grass in the early morning sunshine, after waking to watch the dawn.
And out in the busy world live people, millions of them, with too many walls around them, too much roof above them, too many clothes upon them and too much food inside them – many of them sick and unhappy, tired of life and living.
Here in this hidden little valley, we live a wholesome and nudist life in the golden sunshine of Western Pennsylvania. It is a real life, a happy life, a life worth living.
My trailer is compact and comfortable, my food is healthful and simple, and I am happy and contented here. Nudist camp life with its friendliness, its spirit of cooperation and simplicity will always be my ideal way of living – a happy haven away from a world which bids fair to wreck us in a maelstrom of worries and frayed nerves.
Here in Halcyon, a mountain paradise which beckons him who is weary of a harsh world, life is easy, serene. There are no yesterdays or tomorrows. Time is without beginning or end, for here is a place which truly is a bit of heaven come to earth, a testimony of what our world of strife and turmoil might be like if all people chose to make it so…” 1
1 “Halcyon Memories,” Rhapsody in Nude, (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Book Club, 1949), P. 105.