Finns are forest people. Even in the center of Helsinki, it takes only a few minutes to step from streets and buildings into the quiet embrace of the forest. My own children spent their early childhood climbing trees, wandering mossy hills, and inventing worlds in the small forest behind our home. And we live in the capital area.
For us, the forest is not separate from life. We belong to it.
The forest calms the nervous system and activates the parasympathetic state , the part of us connected to rest, recovery, and healing. Science is now confirming what folk traditions have long understood: being among trees soothes pain, reduces stress, and restores the mind and body.
In Finnish folklore, this wisdom appears in old runo songs and healing spells. There is a lot of ritual song dealing with pain and casting the pains away.
Here is one traditional verse preserved in the archives of the Finnish folk tradition:
Tuonne mie kipuja kiistän,
Tuonne vaivoja valitan:
Kivut soille, kivut maille,
Kivut aavoille ahoille,
Kiviä kivistämähän,
Paasia pakottamahan!
Ei itke kivi kipuja.
(SKVR I4 156. Akonlahden r. a. Europæus K, n. 83. 45..)
A translation into English:
There I send the pains away,
There I cast the aches and sorrows:
Pains to the marshes, pains to the earth,
Pains onto the open meadows,
The ache to ache the pains,
For the rocks to bear!
The stone does not weep from pain.
The suffering is given back to the rocks and the ground. To the mother earth, the origin of life and also as pain is part of life, origin of pain.
Forest, nature is the origin, the original state of all. And as we remember our origins, we are healthy and happy. Pain-free.
Now, as spring arrives again in Finland, the forest begins to offer its gifts. Foraging awakens something deeply old within us. Reminds us of our origins. Reminds us of our original nature. Gathering herbs, shoots, healing plants, and later berries and mushrooms reconnects us to the hunter-gatherer memory still living quietly in the body. There is deep satisfaction in walking slowly through the forest with open senses, noticing the first nettles, spruce tips, and wild herbs emerging after winter.
And of course, there is the sauna. Our temple of the forest.
Traditional Finnish sauna is born from the gifts of the forest: logs, firewood, water, bark, and stone. From the forest we also gather vihtas, the leafy sauna whisks for our thermal bathing, along with healing herbs used for steaming, bathing, and cleansing rituals. The relationship between forest and sauna has always been inseparable. One nourishes the other.
Perhaps this is why so many Finns feel a sense of peace when stepping into either the forest or the sauna. Both invite us to remember our origins, our nature.
Mielikin metsän tarinat
Sauna-Akka, perinnesaunottaja Laura Foon tutkii itämerensuomalaista perinnettä käytännöllisestä ja lahjatalouden periaatteisiin pohjautuvista lähtökohdista. Mielikin metsä on Sauna-Akan koti, josta hän ammentaa työhönsä saunottajana. Tätä aarreaittaa hän haluaa avata myös kaikille muille kiinnostuneille Mielikin metsän tarinoissa.