By Calean MacGealach

 The full moon is a-risin', and the snow is on the ground,

Yeah, the full moon is a-risin', and the snow is on the ground.

Ain't gonna worship skyclad, till the spring comes back around.

Now the priestess says we got to, that way we know that we are free.

The priestess say we got to, that way we know that we are free.

Well if freezin' naked's freedom, slavery's just fine with me.

Goin' skyclad in the winter Oh no, that's not for me.

 Goin' skyclad in the winter Oh no, that's not for me.

 If I'd known that Pagans did this, mighta stuck with Christianity.

 But the full moon is a-risin', and the snow is on the ground.

 The full moon is a-risin', and the snow is on the ground.

Don't wanna worship skyclad, 'till Beltane comes back around.

~*********************~

RITUAL NUDITY or "SKYCLAD"

By Rick Johnson A special thanks;

Many, but not all, Witches worship naked. There are a number of reasons for this, the first being that in the Charge which was written by Doreen Valiente from older sources, The Goddess said, "And as a sign that ye be really free, ye shall be naked in your rites."

This Charge is so beautiful that many Witches who reject the Gardnerian Traditions, retain the Charge as one of the few declamations that, if not directly from the Goddess, was unquestionably inspired by Her.

Thus, the argument follows that we MUST worship naked because it is the will of the Goddess whom we love.

This argument is countered by a later version of the Charge that says that "as a sign that ye be really free, ye shall be equal in your rites."

However, this is an American version and not at all as originally written, so is suspect. A more convincing counter to the Charge is simply to reject it outright.

Those Traditions that reject all Gardnerian and most Traditional ideas can easily reject nudity as well. In these cases, they prefer to worship clothed, about which we will cover later.

A second reason for ritual nudity is the practical one. At one Grand Sabbat where we had three Covens worshipping together in a nine-foot Circle, some of the guests were from our Outer Court and so wore robes.

During the rite, one woman stood too close to the West candle and set her robe on fire. She did manage to extinguish the flames without disrupting the Sabbat too much and I didn't even hear about the accident until after the Sabbat had ended.

On those rites where I have been robed, there have been many incidents of one person stepping on the hem of the robe of the person next to them, thus causing the unfortunate Witch to trip and fall into another. In a small nine-foot Circle, if one person goes down, usually all follow. So safety is a prime consideration. Experiences of Witches all over the world often report that naked is safer.

You are more aware of where the candles are when you begin to feel the heat as opposed to not detecting the heat of a fire until after your robe is engulfed in flames.

Naked people step more carefully and bang into the Altar and others far less frequently than clothed Witches. So it is simply safer to be naked.

The magickal reason for nudity is that anything worn upon the body will interfere with and change the energy given off by the body. This includes clothes, make-up, perfumes, jewelry, glasses, contact lenses and so on.

This argument is countered by the quite logical statement that any energy that can pass through a wall, cover miles of distance, penetrate another wall and then influence a person will not be stopped by a layer of cloth.

To counter this statement, we have to digress into Martial Arts. Consider a person trying to hit you. That person chambers his fist at his waist and throws their entire strength into a punch to your jaw. If it connects, you will be damaged or, at least, knocked off your feet.

But to place your hand before your mouth and attempt to catch the punch an instant before it teaches you is, to say the least, presumptuous and dangerous. You simply do not have the power to stop a full punch when it has developed that much inertia.

The way to protect yourself is to reach out when the punch is thrown and with little effort, lightly brush the punch away. You haven't stopped it, you deflected it a few degrees and it misses you completely.

No real effort is involved and you are safe. To apply this to magick, and I admit that I am applying physical force to psychic power but energy is energy, consider that the body and mind and Coven and spirit must generate a tremendous amount of power to send that spell over that distance. Once the Cone of Power is sent, the spell cannot be deflected save by a greater force, which is unlikely.

BUT, it can be deflected at the source by a relatively small power. In other words, wearing clothing or non-craft jewelry or non-consecrated materials can easily deflect or alter the power of the spell before it leaves the Circle.

So the spell, when it reaches its target, may be a different spell or it may even reach a different target.  It takes years of practice before the Witch can learn to compensate for external influences.

Some of the psychological factors in Nudity are that the person MUST accept themselves as they are or change themselves. It is difficult to put on a facade when you are denied a girdle, bra, wig, make-up, deodorant, aftershave, codpiece or other enhance- ments to your image.

Once naked, the individual sags, bulges, shines and, in effect, becomes themselves and not a mask. When working magick, it is vital to know yourself and accept your own good and ill, for to attempt the path with false illusions will cause trouble when your subconscious rebels and forces your work to conform to a hidden truth.

To be naked indicates freedom from conventional mundane thought. When clothed in a suit or dress, you conform to societies expectations and become what they wish you to become. Your style of dress and hair style are a reflection, not of your own desires, but of what your peers wish you to be.

Once naked, you are free to place your mind into a sphere of magickal thought where anything is possible, where the God and Goddess are not symbols hanging on a wall but REAL DIVINITIES, where magick and Psychics work.

A place between the worlds where all is possible. Clothes tend to limit your thinking to that period and culture, thus to wear your best clothes restricts you to the modern world and your subconscious feels foolish chanting with candles.

To wear a medieval costume restricts you not to your concept of the past but to the real past without our modern advancements in magick or ritual.

To wear robes, will limit you magickally, but will aid the mind in its freedom towards the goal.  Equality between class and gender is assured when naked as the rich no longer have jewels to show their class worth.

Women must face men as equals, both showing their inadequacies and realizing that the other sex is just as physically imperfect as you are.

With this barrier down, men and women can accept each other as equals. Historically, Witches usually worked Naked and there are many references to naked Witches standing on their clothes.

In a few illustrations, the Witches are clothed in the clothing of their time but examination of the drawings indicate that the artist rarely knew a real Witch.

Gardner introduced the term Skyclad into the Craft in the 1950's with the reference to "Witches worship naked which is called in the East (Indonesia), 'Skyclad' " and the term stuck as a poetic way to refer to ritual nudity.

In the 1950's and '60s, most Witches worshipped Skyclad though by the 70s. The Welsh and American Celtic Witches began to wear robes, which became the standard way to worship for years.

 By the late '70s, the Feminist Witches began to experiment with Skyclad worship and by the late 80's. About half of the American and many European Witches worshipped Skyclad.

In todays world, you will find Witches who work Skyclad, robed, in costumes and even in their street clothes.  If the latter, you will bring into the Circle all the influences that have become attached to those clothes over the day.

These influences will effect your workings as well as your mind because the subconscious will see no difference between the mundane and the magickal, and as we spend most of our time in the mundane world, it is easy to see which will win.