The Christmas holiday is over and I am sitting in my office again. After the Christmas celebrations we spend one week of our family holiday in Koli, in Finnish national landscape. Yes, we stayed for a week in a cottage in a snowy landscape with minus degrees. We fetched water from a spring or the lake Pielinen and the toilet was cold. Inside in the cottage we had pretty warm as there were electric heating and a nice fireplace. We heated the sauna every day so that we could wash and get hot water. In addition to the incredible landscape with beautiful late sunrises and early sunsets we enjoyed this real sauna which was heated with wood and situated by the lake.
As the lake was frozen we had to make a hole in the ice to go to swim from sauna. It is a real Finnish tradition to go to swim in a ice hole. It is not so daunting as it sounds like. In fact you can call it awesome, it makes you feel really good! The ice hole swimmers are healthier both physically and mentally. You get resistance against infections and it is mentally relaxing.
I do not have any weekly habit to go to ice hole swimming, it is not a part of my everyday life like for many enthusiasts. Still, this wonderful world of sauna and ice hole swimming is familiar for me already from my childhood. My grandparents introduced me to this old culture when I visited them. These moments together with my grandmother are unforgettable. I reminisce them every time I have the opportunity to warm wood heated sauna and swim in a ice hole. This is like a holy ceremony which I make to uphold the heritage of my family.
Anyway, we are back to our working life with all the normal amenities which make your life really easy. In a normal life we use to go to sauna twice a week but it is not the same. Electric sauna is heated quickly just by switching on and water comes from a tap, also hot water. We do not have to carry water from a lake or wood from a storage house to heat the sauna stove. But there is nether lake to go to swim. And it does not feel so ceremonial either.
Despite of all this I would not give up sauna even I feel guilty to use so much electricity and natural resources to that. Sauna is like little holy moment in everyday life and I would cut out many other things before it.
The seventh of January 2009 in cold and sunny Espoo waiting for more snow. Best, Marja(´)
