Painting: iamcootis

Everyone has one opinion or another about nudity in public places.

There are nudist beaches, there are nudist saunas, and there are life-drawing classes, where models pose naked.

My own opinion about public nudity was rather controversial until recently. I come from a family where modesty was a virtue, and was shocked when I moved to the Netherlands and found an open approach to public nudity. (I once saw a naked man in Amsterdam, riding his bike to work).

I felt outraged and insulted.

“Never, never in my life will I be naked in public,” I told myself. However, since then, some things have changed.

I became a nudist. My current boyfriend happens to be a nudist and on our first holiday he introduced me to the joy of being naked on the beach.

And I rather liked it.

Being naked on the beach gives you the feeling of being free and in union with nature. And it is rather natural, considering that humans only started to wear clothes 72,000 years ago. For more than half of our existence we have been nudists.

However, being natural with nature is not that easy nowadays. It is still a controversial issue. Some regard public nudity as exhibitionism. Others say that nudity sets a bad example for the children. In most states of the US, for a woman to be topless can result in a fine.

Woman are paradoxically bombarded by glossy magazines with pictures which depict thin, beautiful and mostly naked women. Even if you would like to be a nudist, you might avoid going to a nudist beach for the reason that your body doesn’t correspond to the beauty standard.

But curiously enough, what I noticed at the nudist beaches is that people there in all shapes and forms, and rarely do they resemble Kate Moss. It can be indeed a liberating experience, especially if you have some confidence issues.

I started my nudist experience when I considered myself slightly overweight, and it helped me to realize that human body is beautiful as it is. And I certainly recommend everyone try it at least once.

Here are some tips, which could come quite handy if you are ready to try it yourself.

Photo courtesy the author

Tip #1 – Lather Up

Don’t forget to put sun cream on those parts of your body about which you might otherwise forget. It’s really not pleasant to get sun burn on some vital parts of your body!

Tip #2 – Watch the bend

Don’t bend over when adjusting your towel or picking something up from the sand (unless you’re Brad Pitt, of course).

Tip #3 – Eyes to yourself

Don’t stare at other naked people!

Tip #4 – Incognito

In case you do want to stare, two best ways to do it is: (a) wearing sunglasses, (b) pretending to read a book (but then, don’t forget to turn the pages!)

Tip #5 – Ditch the camera

Be respectful to other people when you take our your camera to make some pictures of the beach. It really does make all naked people suddenly very nervous.

Tip #6 – Cold water syndrome

If you are a man, be aware that even if you are lucky to possess a giant male organ, it will shrink to tiny proportions when you emerge from the sea. Don’t feel bad about it…

Tip #7 – To shave or not to shave?

This is a difficult question, since enjoying a nudist beach is all about being very natural. However, think twice, as it’s nice to be well groomed.

Tip #8 – Avoid philosophy

Try to avoid deep philosophical conversations with you naked neighbours. It does sound (and look) rather weird, when a naked person talks about Foucault.

Tip #9 – Keep your suit handy

Take your swimming suit with you just in case. For instance, when all other nudists decide to leave the beach and you are the only naked person remaining.

Tip #10 – Top of the morning

What to do in case of erection? Quickly lie face down on the sand, but don’t forget to fill in the imprint when you stand up!

Hopefully, these tips will help you enjoy your next nudist beach with wild abandon, setting your body and your mind free.

Do you have any tips for nudist beaches or settings? Share your tips/stories in the comments!

Your perception of place depends on your mind.

Travel is not just a physical experience. It is a state of mind, a life journey. And it can be all kinds of different things to different people.

Some of us travel all the time, some of us travel occasionally, and some of us only travel in their heads.

For some, it’s an exploration of museums in Florence, or a week at the beach in the Canaries, or a spiritual retreat in India. And some travel while staying where they are.

Travel is often an escape, a relaxation, a search, a dream. Many people work the whole year long thinking about their holiday. Some try to get away every weekend. Others plan a trip to a different country as soon as time and money permit it. And there are those who are on the road all the time.

But whatever is the destination, whatever is the journey, usually all of us have a place called home. A place where we rest before traveling again, or simply the place where we were born.

And quite often, we fail to see its beauty.

We talk about other destinations. We often dream of a better place, a better life, a different country, another journey. But how often do we talk about enjoying the place called home?

Your Inner Journey

Travel, you may have noticed, is directly related to the state of our minds.

If we go to Paris on a with the biggest love of our lives, it’s highly unlikely that we won’t enjoy the place. (Paris is actually very difficult not to like, but it happens).

If you go there while you are miserable, you might find that Paris is a very miserable city. Even if you stay at the best hotel and visit the best restaurants, even if you explore the whole Louvre.

The same with other destinations. You might stay at the worst hostel, have your camera stolen, and eat only bread the whole day long…but still enjoy your journey.

And this has nothing to do with the place. It has to do only with you, and how you perceive your own existence.

Osho, the great mystique of the last century said that “beauty lies in the banality of things”. He also said and quite often, that the world’s misery lies mainly in the West. The richest countries in the world is where you find the biggest misery.

Pack Your Baggage

Happy people don’t travel in order to escape. Happy people travel simply because they just love to travel.

Photo: jojiang

And that is why travel starts with you, because whatever your destination, whatever your journey, you always take yourself with you. You always carry your misery or happiness within you.

It happened to me. I visited one of the best cities in the world – Barcelona, and failed to see its beauty.

That’s because I was miserable at that time. My parents, who had brought me there, thought that it would help. I managed to laugh once while being there, but as soon as I came back to Amsterdam (my other home) I was back in my misery. I hated Barcelona. But I hated Amsterdam as well.

But Barcelona was a lesson. It was an opening for my eyes. It was a push to start life-changes in the place where I lived. It was a push to transform the place called home.

Amsterdam became my home. Even if I wasn’t born there, even if I hated it and loved it at the same time.

It became my home because once I was back from Barcelona I realized that it wasn’t the city which I hated, it was my own life.

The Choice

If you feel miserable in your life, you should travel within your own city. Look for another job, find a dancing class near you, discover a new café, find an unusual bookshop, make new friends, or find people who can help you.

Photo: littlevanities

The travel which I started in Amsterdam eventually led me to another place, another job. A totally different life in a new country.

You always have a choice, and you always can ask for help. But here’s the key: you need to travel into your inner mind.

We are happy when we have balance in five important spheres of our lives: money, job, relationship, health, and creativity.

One of the main lessons I learned in my life is that you usually always have the money that you need. It’s other spheres of our lives which ask for a bigger effort.

The Value Of Home

My misery is not gone entirely, partly because I still live in the West.

Misery is everywhere, even if people can afford a lot of things, even if they can travel to the Caribbean islands and stay there in the best resorts. Even if they have Internet at home and plan their journey from start to the end with the help of the computer.

You can be the richest person in the world, but fail to enjoy your journey.

You can be the poorest man in the world and still enjoy your journey.

And this is because you know the value of home.

It starts with your soul. And each human soul has an enormous beauty. Each human soul has an exploration, a journey, and a discovery, which can tell you all about life and the world without the necessity to take a plane or a train and go somewhere.

The beauty of the banality of things is what you do in your daily life, and how you perceive the place where you live, and your own inner journey.

Travel starts with you.

What are your thoughts on how your mind influences your perception of travel? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo by Wazari

“Where is your Russian-ness, Katia?” an ex-boyfriend once accused me while visiting me in Amsterdam.

His remark was provoked by the fact that I didn’t offer him a whole cooked dinner – only a cup of tea with a cookie.

I wasn’t happy about his remark but I did start to think about my Russian-ness later, when I saw a program on Russia on the television.

The presenter of the program described Russian people as the nation of soul seekers, who dwell upon questions about existence even when there is no food in the house.

I was sad about the fact that some of my Russian roots seem to have gone to the wind, especially when the criticism came from a man with whom I used to have vivid fights about democracy in Russia.

“You don’t know the meaning of democracy in the Western world! And stop talking about my country in such a bad way,” I would shout at him, even ready to defend the image of my country in a physical way.

Keep On Keepin’ On

Nowadays, however, when someone asks me about the politics in Russia, I simply smile in an English elusive sweet way (I am in the UK now) and say something like: “Or you know, we always manage.”

There are a lot of articles about expats and research being done on those who leave their country in order to return afterwards. There are also a lot of articles and books about immigrants, those who leave their country for good.

But there seems to be little research on so-called ‘soul-seekers’ – those who leave their country with no precise idea as to where the journey will take them.

My friend from Italy is a perfect example of a ‘soul-seeker’. We met while studying in Belgium, she from Italy, me from Russia, and we both traveled to different countries afterwards. Margerita went to Russia, I went to the Netherlands.

For a while, Margerita stayed in the Netherlands, while I returned to Belgium, and I remember what she told me on one occasion: “I don’t know what is worse, to live in total misery or not knowing where you belong.”

No End In Sight

On a TV program in Russia, one man described how my people have always managed to live under extremely difficult conditions. He said:

“Here in Russia, we have life and daily survival. Life is about discovery, when you read, or write, or listen to music or just try to answer the questions about existence and the world around you. And daily survival is the job, the cleaning, metro, sleep. Here in Russia most people prefer to live.”

I would apply his description to the nation of soul-seekers, and all those who go for the discovery of wonder.

It happened to me. Never in my early life did I imagine I would leave Russia at the age of nineteen and change four countries of residence in eleven years.

I became a strange Russian-European hybrid. I have nostalgia for four different places and don’t feel one hundred percent happy in any of them, because I miss the other three.

I am simply between countries, cultures, friends, jobs and languages and am not sure whether I will ever settle in any of the places I visit. Travel is like an addiction.

I know that there are more and more people like me. They go to discover the world but realize at some point that they don’t know where they belong anymore.

Your own culture back at home may simply be not enough once you return. And so you travel again and again and again. Until you find your better half or reach retirement.

Frankly I am not sure what is more likely to happen, as I’m not married nor am I entitled to a retirement yet.

Do you ever feel like you don’t belong anywhere? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo by Konstantin Sutyagin

For single travelers, there is always an anticipation of meeting someone on the road. You wonder: maybe this special someone will be the love of your life?

My travel experiences have always been one big disaster in the love area. Some say planes are a good place to meet handsome men, but I either end up on a seat all alone, or next to a family packed with children.

On a few occasions I felt like asking the ticket agent, “Please, put me next to a handsome single guy.”

With trains, it’s the same story. Just the other day I was taking a train from London to Brussels and hoping to end up next to the most eligible bachelor on Europe. Instead I found myself next to a woman… with two kids sharing one seat…next to mine.

At the end the mother and I had to share the kids.

Love And The Law Of Attraction

When it comes to love, the law of attraction seems to promote that you get what you expect. Or to put it differently, your thoughts attract the outcome.

Well, I tend to disagree. My own experience shows that the law of attraction works differently where love on the road is concerned.

The two times I actually met someone with love potential while traveling, it came without a warning. It also came when I had a clear warning look on my face: not available.

The Man On The Train

On this day I was a student traveling in the train from Amsterdam to Brussels to study languages and recycle myself from a typical Russian into an advanced European.

Meeting a man was really unexpected, because I was not what I call ‘wearing the most presentable appearance.’

I was sitting alone in a train compartment, wearing glasses (but no make-up) and feeling totally stressed out. I was trying to translate one political article from French into Russian.

The article was anti-Russian (in the field of politics) and so I was also feeling angry.

This combination of disheveled anger seemed to attract one particular guy. He simply opened the door, installed himself on the opposite bench and said: “I want to know you. I want to know all about you.”

The guy wasn’t a stalker. He was handsome, well-educated, totally cute, and studied medicine, also in Belgium. We talked for the whole two hours, until his station in Antwerp.

He asked for my phone number. He wanted to meet me again.

But here is where the law of attraction worked as expected – my thoughts attracted the outcome. At the time I wasn’t feeling ready. I was actually feeling awful without my make-up, and I didn’t believe that a guy like him would want to meet me again.

The story never continued.

From Russia With Love

Here’s the story of the other train meeting, when I stumbled upon the most handsome guy. At that time I was still at school in Russia, and was traveling in the Moscow metro.

I was young, blessed with pimples, in love with George Michael and totally sure that I wasn’t even pretty in the slightest.

This was probably the reason that I behaved like an idiot when the guy started to talk to me. He was older, a student, and spoke French – the language I was studying in school.

But his flirt came so unexpectedly that not only did I not understand a single word of what he said in French (he invited me for a dinner, as I understood later), I also didn’t give him any chance to translate.

I was so nervous, I simply jumped from the train on the next station.

Right Place, Right Time

These experiences have left me with a thought: maybe we meet someone on the road only when we are ready, sure of ourselves and believing that might actually happen?

I won’t give up on this hope.

Next time I’m taking a plane, I will simply ask the ticket agent to put me next to the most handsome guy.

What have you found about love laws on the road? Share in the comments!

Each of us has a different experience related to both love and passion. If we look carefully at what is happening in the world around us at this moment, and especially in the Western hemisphere, one can conclude that the concept of love is undergoing serious changes.

Relationships are quite often based on material aspects and expectations. We expect the other person to change according to our own perceptions of what an ideal mate should be.

And passions? Passions are undergoing what I call ‘commercialization’. Being familiar with tantra and tantric massage, I find it sad that very often an offer of ‘tantric massage’ involves something which has nothing to do with tantra.

To Love And To Cherish

While living in Russia I had an ideal example of a perfect relationship from my grandparents. And this came from both my maternal and paternal sides.

The mother of my mom met the love of her life when she was only eighteen. (Quite young, don’t you agree?)

She was very beautiful, very popular with boys and quite selective as to dating. But one day when she was sitting on a bench in a park surrounded by her suitors, a friend of hers joined them with a man she had never seen before. As my grandmother used to tell me:

“We just looked at each other…he took my hand and we left the group of my friends. We didn’t even talk at first. And a month later we were married.”

It isn’t surprising that they named their daughter with a beautiful name: ‘Love.’

I am still wondering what kept this relationship until death. Both survived the war, the waiting, the starvation, the rebuilding of life after the war, and their love never lost its magical touch.

My grandmom’s life actually ended when my granddad died from a heart attack. Since then she lived by his memories. It was very sad to see, but at the same time inspiring, because I wanted the same in my life.

To Have And To Hold

My other grandparents had a similar story, but with a different start.

My paternal grandfather, a proud and a stubborn Cossack (as long as I knew him his life was about Integrity), had to beg my grandmom for more than a year to marry him. He just knew when he met her: this is the woman of my life.

It took him quite a while to convince my grandmother. But since the day they finally married it was the ‘fusion’ of two hearts.

At some point my granddad was sent to serve a political sentence in Siberia, and no one had any idea when he would return. My grandmother, with two sons at that time, was patiently waiting. They were starving, they were unsure of anything in their lives and they were packed into a tiny room with almost no facilities for more than three years.

It was faith and belief in the light of life, which kept my grand mom sane.

One day at the door of their tiny room she saw a man who resembled a skeleton. This was my grandfather, back from Siberia, having marched for a month back to his village. Was the secret of their relationship the fact that the name of my grandmom is Faith?

God only knows.

Love In Modern Times?

Very often I ask myself a question: how come at the age of thirty-one I am still single? Despite the fact that I have such beautiful examples of what real love can be?

I think I know the answer. I look for the same magic which kept my grandparents so deeply in love. But this magic is almost non-existent nowadays.

We seem more interested in changing the other, in accumulating material things for quick satisfaction, instead of a fusion of two hearts and two bodies – this is what makes the real tantra.

How one can find a real love this day, when everything, including love, is commercialized?

Human beings can only survive when they feel loved. And despite the difficulties we encounter in meeting a right person in our contemporary world, the natural process through which human beings gravitate to one another will survive.

Love and only love can save the day.

Where does true love exist in the modern world? Share your thoughts below!

Ekaterina Petrovna’s current goal in life is to become a Porcupine. In the animal spirit world this animal represents rediscovery of wonder and trust in the Great spirit. She has a degree in interpreting and speaks 4 languages. In her spare time Ekaterina writes, reads Tarot cards, dances like crazy, laughs, and tries to make this world a better place to live.

What can be a more amazing travel journey than life itself? Think about this question. It is important.

Each of us is born on this planet for a certain purpose. We all have a certain mission to realize in life.

It can be anything: creating a family, becoming a banker or spending one’s whole life on the road. The most important thing is to know: this is what you are supposed to do.

Quite often, unfortunately, many of us do not have this feeling – the feeling of wholeness, the feeling of belonging, the feeling of happiness. Instead we perform, or procrastinate or try to conform to certain rules imposed on us by society, without stopping for a second and asking ourselves: am I content? Am I doing what I really want to do?

Realizing our full potential and finding our true self is the true travel journey of life.

Not long ago, when I was yet again changing countries of residence, a friend of mine told me a very important thing:

“Ekaterina,” he said, “I know why you are moving, but never forget that whatever your destination, you always take yourself with you. Finding yourself is your true destination.”

The Road Ahead

For more than ten years my life has been that of a traveler. Even though for the majority of these ten years I had an apartment and a steady job, I was still traveling. I was traveling in my mind, I was changing countries and I was always looking for a better place, a better world.

Being born in the Soviet Union, in my first years of life I had quite a simple image of what life should be: first you become a pioneer (the first grade on the scale of communism), then a ‘comsomol’ (the second grade on the scale of communism) and finally, if you are the best, you become a communist.

My gradation stopped at the first scale, along with that simple vision of reality as soon as the political regime changed.

However, what didn’t change was the belief that in order to succeed in society one has to perform, one has to ‘graduate’. The goal was no longer a final communist grade; it became something else, but it all came down to the same gradation system the majority of us are taught to achieve – almost from the day we are born.

You have to do this, you have to become that, you have to be better and work harder than others, and you have to be like everyone else. Because of these rules, slowly but surely we tend to take a road opposite to our true destination.

A Reflection

At some point in my life I achieved my ‘communist’ grade. I was leading a life many people would find ideal.

With a title of financial analyst and portfolio manager, living in the center of Amsterdam, speaking four languages and in possession of a membership in the most prestigious sport club of the city, I had everything one can wish for in life. But in reality I had nothing at all.

I was losing myself, I was simply performing, thinking that life is about having a prestigious job, a cool apartment and a nice salary. And only my terrible stomach pains and the crying during the night were clear indicators that the ‘ideal’ life I led was actually quite miserable.

One day I decided to create my own gradation system, or to be more precise, the absence of any gradation system. I stopped performing.

First, I canceled my membership to the sport club. Second, I changed jobs, agreeing to a lower salary and a less prestigious title simply to allow myself to find my own journey. Third, I started to write.

Being in love with books all my life I always wanted to share stories, and regardless of whether I am an unpublished or published writer, writing for myself is something that gives me the best satisfaction of all.

Finally, I started to follow the signs – the signs of life, trying to see who am I, what I am doing in this life and why?

I asked myself: what do I really like to do?

Journey of Wonder

The discovery of signs led me to an important realization: Life is a journey of wonder.

If I stayed in my gradation niche I would probably never have discovered bio-dance as a perfect alternative to the gym, gentle respiration techniques to make me calm and Tarot reading as a perfect activity for spending time when I am on my own.

All this resulted in the fact that, yet again, I changed my country of residence. I moved from Amsterdam to Brussels, the city where I had gone to university and where I couldn’t stay after my studies due to my Russian citizenship at that time.

I came back to this city without a grade, with a Dutch passport and as a new person. I realized one of the most important lessons in life: whatever your nationality, profession, salary or the net amount your house costs, the only real thing in life is you.

All stories have the same line. A hero leaves his village for the discovery of the world.

His first obstacle comes when he is on the road: he has to choose his destination. His second obstacle is during the journey. He has to fight the enemies. And finally, he has the most important choice: does he continue the journey or go back to the village?

We are all heroes on the road. And the most important journey for all of us is to meet our true selves. Apart from external enemies, quite often the biggest villain lies within, and this villain in the majority of cases is our own ego. Finding our soul and realizing our true potential is where our village lies.

As Paolo Coelho once said: “Never give up on your dreams, – follow the signs.”

Ekaterina Petrovna’s current goal in life is to become a Porcupine. In the animal spirit world this animal represents rediscovery of wonder and trust in the Great spirit. She has a degree in interpreting and speaks 4 languages. In her spare time Ekaterina writes, reads Tarot cards, dances like crazy, laughs, and tries to make this world a better place to live.