Sauna has been a sanctuary for caring and sharing.
Sauna has been a sanctuary for care, gift, love. Sauna ritual begins with greeting and ends with thanking. All forms of deep connection and interdependency. When you are dependent on someone or something, deep deep gratitude arises.
Gratitude has etymological roots to Latin gratus , meaning pleasing, pleasurable and to Proto-Indo-European gwerə which means to favor. I also has some loose connection to grace. Thank, in thank you, links to the idea of thinking, or thought/remembrance. Thank you is like a loving thought or sentiment or will.
Saunaritual is all about giving thanks. Gratefullness, gracefulness arises.
The saunatraditions around the area of Finland and Karelia have spoken about the worldview of great belonging and interdependency. Human being has not understood themselves as a separeta form the ecosystem or the world, but actually as in integral part of it. Everything has a unique purpose of existing and the meaning for you life comes by fulfilling this purpose, giving your unique gift to the world.
Sauna teaches just this.. Sauna is a symbol of life, of human, of universe. There is the wood, the rocks, the water, the air, the fire, the löyly. The work of the sauna healer is to dedicate themself to the elements. Feed the fire, circulate the air, pour the water, support the rocks. You realise that you are only as much as the elements of your work and surroundings, yet you realise that without you there is nothing. You are the keeper of the universe of sauna, yet you are the servant and have actually no power of your own.
The only thing you can do is give you gift, fulfill your destiny, perform you duty.
And the löyly will look after you. Giving you exactly what you need. Not that you get back exactly what you have given. There is no exchange. No calculation of who has given what or who has gained more. No. You get exactly what you need in order to give your gift forward.
And you get to invite people to sauna. The vihta, the soft healing hand of the forest will, the water, the heat, the löyly, will heal your clients, you family. You. You feel full and belonging. You are needed as much as you need.
You cannot buy the gift. You cannot store it. You can only let it flow. Do the best with what you got. No price can actually be put on that. It is the gift that flows, filling where is lack. Everyone
Sauna, the ultimate gift.
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.