Sauna Cultures, Plant Magic, and Healing Traditions in Finland
Wednesday, 16 October 2024, 3–5pm Helsinki Time (Zoom)
Traditional Finnish sauna whisking by sauna healer Kaisu Mokkila. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (Ville Kurki)
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View the seminar recording here.
Download the seminar flyer here.
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Dalva Lamminmäki will speak on ‘Forest Magic and Sauna Wisdom’
In the presentation, we will explore the world of Finnish folk magicians, called seers, healers, and cunning folk, and their words through archive texts and pictures. The Finnish National Archive holds tens of thousands of descriptions of magic rites and over 52,000 recorded variants of magic incantations, from where we can also read the relationship to the forest and specific trees. When and who can collect the material for the sauna whisk? Why sit on pine needles in the sauna?
Eero Peltonen will speak on ‘The Healing Sauna, the Spirit of Steam, and the Powers of the Forest’
The presentation introduces us to the Finnish and Karelian sauna healing heritage. We will hear how the spiritual forces and helping spirits are traditionally invited to the sauna rituals. We will get to know how they are asked to enter the Löyly (the sauna steam) and help with the healing. Löyly originally means the spirit.
Timo Mahlamäki will speak on ‘The Bear Necessities’
To register, please send an email to <sentientforestproject@gmail.com> by Monday, 14 October 2024 at 5pm Helsinki time.
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ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS
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Dalva Lamminmäki is a Finnish folklorist (MA) who specializes in Finnish folk healing, spells, and mythology. She is conducting doctoral research on Finland's sauna culture in the University of Eastern Finland and the (sauna) healing tradition as a living cultural heritage. For more information, see www.folkloristontheroad.com
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Eero Peltonen is a bearer, keeper and transformer of the Finnish and Karelian folk heritage. He lives in Joensuu, Finland. Eero is a cultural educator and traditional singer who has broad experience and expertise in Finnish and Karelian sauna and folk healing traditions. He is a torchbearer and a teacher of the Kalevala songs, poems, laments, and incantations. Eero helps people to find their roots with mighty means - the power of songs, word magic and mythology. He also works as a travel guide, event host, and an educator of creativity and awareness skills. For more information, see www.eeropeltonen.com
Timo Mahlamäki has been guided to dedicate his path to being the guardian and servant of the sacred medicines of nature. Humbled and carried by the gentle force of universal oneness and love, illuminating the illusions of cultural and societal conditioning, slowly, slowly but surely, surely becoming present in the natural way of truth and love. He works with plant and animal allies as a way to help us re-member ourselves, to reclaim our inherent nature. “Holding a safe, loving & conscious container, trusting higher natural intelligence, allowing, accepting and surrendering, are the principles and key ingredients in my approach to life in general as well as to healing - being present and letting the medicines gently guide us back to that which we may have been looking for so long, but that already found us - that which never actually left us - our own true essence, our nature.”
