The earth gnaws at my toes, pierces my skin, drives its teeth deep into my soul. The snow makes me feel. Feel something. Something different. Something new. A full body numb. A numb that reaches up, up, up through the warmth of my body, slicing me in two, separating my mind from my body.
As the body goes numb, the mind races. Races through the trees, dances around me, around my friends. The cold burns through me, but finally I am free. Free from shame, free from guilt, free from uncertainty. For there is only one truth in this very moment as I stand bare before my friends, before the trees and the ground and the pale, blue sky.
I am like you, you are like me.
I turn to my friends, who are similarly grappling with the cold. We are all learning to embrace it, learning not to fear it. In this moment, it does not matter that we are naked, that we have never experienced each other like this before. In this moment, we are bodies, minds, ecosystems, whole worlds intertwined. We are nature itself, one with the raw power of the trees and the harsh chill of the wind. There is no separation between me and them, there is no me versus them. There are only bodies in the cold; interpreted, distorted, reworked and humbled before the lens.