01/10/2026
LAPLAND — 13°F. Sauna. Snow. Full moon. And ice-cold plunges into the Ounasjoki River.
The Ounasjoki lay still beneath the ice, marked by snowmobile tracks like a snowy avenue. And beside it, Roiske: fire tamed inside the sauna (around 90°C), breathing slowly behind the wood.
Sometimes we think we travel for the attractions. And yet, sometimes we find ourselves somewhere else entirely—in the true scale of Creation. The full moon above. The sky, immense. The northern lights. A silence so present it feels textured.
Then comes the moment of stepping into the ice hole cut into the river, once, twice… and a third time. And what surprised me wasn’t the extreme cold, but the sense of belonging—as if the river, the snow, and the ice all around weren’t a test, but a welcome. As if the body remembered it, too, is nature: water, fire, air, earth…
Because nature isn’t always something we “visit.” Sometimes we enter into communion with it.
Under the full moon, with the Arctic sky as a dome, it felt like a threshold—a reminder that we are not separate.
We are part of the same whole.
—Dr. Graciela
