In which we retreat to a cabin in the woods, warm ourselves in the heat of a sauna, and jump into an icy lake.
It's no secret that the Finns love their saunas, but I didn't realise how embedded in the culture it was until I visited Finland myself. I was lucky enough to have a friend living in Helsinki and, along with a group of her friends, we drove out to a family cabin in the woods where I was shown an authentic Finnish sauna experience.
After leaving the outskirts of the city, the landscape steadily acquired more hills and trees and we eventually turned onto a forest track. We bounced along the bumpy road, the bars of reception on our phones slowly diminishing, and eventually rolled up to the dark red cabin, nestled discreetly between the lush pines. Down a slope and through the trees, the reflections of a clear blue lake sparkled and a peaceful silence glazed everything with an irrepressible calm.
The sauna process begins with filling the traditional wood fire oven with kindling and logs. Setting the fire, you leave it to build in strength, periodically checking on its progress. Once enough heat has been coaxed from the gnarled logs and the little sauna room is sufficiently hot, you brace yourself for the extreme temperature.
The first moment after a ladleful of water is sloshed onto the hot granite rocks will be hard to forget. The thick hot air that descends and envelops you has an almost corporeal presence, invading the entire space with its density. It's at the same time oppressive and blissfully pleasant. The warmth threatens to smother you and the assault on your senses strips away any false sense of existential security; you're reminded that you're a material being, vulnerable to the elements. All you can do is surrender to the heat as you fuse with it. Quicker than you thought possible, your entire body becomes slick with sweat as the atmosphere gently but forcefully draws all the moisture from you.
When you can't take the heat any longer, it's time to go from one extreme to the next.
You emerge from the little hut and tiptoe along the wharf jutting out into the lake. You can feel the chill on the air, but the protective corona of heat that your body has brought with it radiates forth. Into to the lake you plunge, overcoming the instinct to recoil from its icy surface. The pendular experience of hot to cold ripples through the surface of your skin like fire. For a while, your core is still a crucible of warmth, contrasting so acutely with the chilly water that, where the two sides meet, you no longer perceive temperature at all. Eventually however, the cold triumphs and creeps through your defences, at which point it's back to the sauna room.
Three or four rounds of this later and we were back in the cottage, contentedly sprawled on the couches, warm, drowsy and happy. I learnt that the Finns have a word that encapsulates this particular state: Raukea.
