Nature Is Doing the Thing

Mystical forests, bog magic, and a wild morning swim.

We met at Einar’s at 6am. Parked our cars, got into one car and started driving to the bog trail.

We wanted to get there by sunrise, but the sun rises in the middle of the night here in summer, so we felt 7am was more reasonable.

It was about an hour away and we chatted the whole drive there. There’s always a lot to talk about with these two.

I’d already had my chocolate porridge for brekkie that morning, which I make with ceremonial cacao, so I was a little chattier than usual myself.

The morning was fresh and crisp, still slightly foggy. Mysterious.

We stopped twice on the way.

Once because a whole herd of cows was standing on the road. Not that common around here, and it looked like they might have escaped through a nearby fence or something. We drove past them slowly and they seemed super curious, coming over to check us out.

I love cows! They’re my favorite. I spent my childhood summers in the countryside and cows were a big part of them.

Anyway, cows dealt with.

The second stop was for a field full of poppies in bloom. We had to stop, it was gorgeous!

We got to the trail around 7am thinking, surely no one else is here this early, but there were about six or seven cars in the parking lot already. We weren’t the only ones who’d had the sunrise bog-hike idea.

This trail is so special.

It starts in this bushy mixed forest, then opens into a field, and after that you cross a little bridge and enter another forest.

And this forest is mystical.

It feels like you’ve entered another world.

It had been raining the night before, so everything was wet. We were wearing trainers, and when we got to the field, the ground was so sludgy and muddy that we figured we’d just take our shoes off and walk across barefoot.

We’d even brought a separate bottle of water so we could rinse our feet afterward, put our shoes back on and avoid having wet shoes for the entire hike. But when we got through the field and reached the forest, where we’d planned to put our shoes back on, we realized barefoot actually felt really nice, so we just kept going like that.

We’d been chatting pretty much nonstop since leaving home, but once we entered the forest, something shifted.

It was so quiet in there. So beautiful.

Agnes then said, Hey guys, should we do the rest of the hike to the lake in silence?

We agreed.

And suddenly there we were, the three of us, walking barefoot through this magical forest without saying a word.

I’d been on this trail many times before, but this felt completely different.

Once we stopped talking, I started noticing everything.

Wild raspberries along the trail. The intense smell of sookail, this wildly fragrant bog plant we have here. Water still dripping from the leaves after the rain. Birds. Wind. Spiders and their webs everywhere.

And my inner world too. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, imagination. I could hear, see and smell things I’d probably walked straight past all the other times.

I was fully there instead of being in my stories and chatting.

Eventually the forest opened up and the actual bog began.

The wooden trail. Open bog land. Nothing blocking the view. Just this long straight path toward the bog lakes in the distance.

Ahhhh.

There is something about being somewhere you can see far, far away that my whole system seems to love. I get the same feeling by the sea, on a beach, or standing on top of a hill or mountain.

Spacious.

Open.

Clear.

My brain and nervous system love this.

When we reached the lake, there were two tents nearby and a couple of women making their morning tea on camping equipment. 

They’d slept there overnight.

Dreamy.

That’s one of the things I definitely want to do one day. Spend the night in a bog. No light pollution. No noise pollution. Clear starry skies. The silence, the quiet, the purity.

We walked up to the lake, got butt naked and jumped in.

I was expecting the water to be ice cold, but it was warm and soft and had this almost smooth, milky feeling to it. Amazing.

And just like that, our peaceful silent-hike energy disappeared :) 

We were squealing, laughing and buzzing like little kids! It was such a different energy from the forest. Energizing. Electrifying almost.

High on nature. High on life. ✨

Happy, healthy, free.

Eventually we got out, got dressed and sat down beside the lake on the wooden trail, with our feet in the soft bog moss, eating the snacks and drinking the tea we’d brought with us.

We started talking about what the silent part of the hike had felt like for each of us. How different it had been. How special. 

And then we started talking about bringing other people here.

People need to experience this.

And suddenly I remembered something.

Damn.

I’d been wanting to do this.

Organizing silent nature hikes had been sitting on my to-do list for years. Probably longer. The idea actually started years ago in Corfu, when I had an experience in this fairy-like forest with a group of maybe 20 of us. We were told to be silent when we entered, and then all of us just wandered around this magical place together without speaking.

I never forgot how special that felt.

For years I’ve had this idea of doing something similar myself. Morning hikes. Ceremonial cacao. Nature. Silence.

And somehow I'd just... kept pushing it forward on my calendar.

Agnes organizes sauna ritual days, and as we sat there snacking by the lake, she said how beautiful it would be to have this as part of the experience. Do the morning hike first and then continue into the sauna rituals.

And something in me went:

Hhhhhhh. I HAVE TO DO THIS ALREADY.

I immediately wanted in.

Maybe I could do the hike part. She could do the sauna part.

Because really, what would I even need to do?

Give people cacao. Bring them together. Take them into nature.

And then do nothing.

Just be together and be silent and notice.

Nature is doing the thing.

It felt like this beautiful activation for the day ahead.

And so simple.

On our way back, we passed the camping ladies again and I apologized for possibly disturbing their peaceful morning with our kiddy squealing at the lake.

One of them laughed and basically said, Oh no, no need. You’re not the first ones here this morning. The first people were here at 4am. And you weren’t even the loudest.

I get it :) This happens to people here, you can’t help it! The excitement and aliveness take over.

We decided to walk the way back in silence too.

And again, my mind came alive. Thoughts. Ideas. Little downloads. I had to take my phone out just so I could write them down.

I felt so happy there.

Connected.

Plugged in somehow.

I’ve done tons of hikes in silence before, of course, because I hike alone too. But there’s something very different about being in a group and everyone being silent together.

It feels more special somehow.

Safer. Unified.

Primal.

Like being part of a herd of animals.

Which, really, we are.

We’re herd animals too. We’re meant to be together.

Eventually we made it back to the car. Einar and Agnes sat in the front chatting while I curled up in the back and snoozed off. 

Best. Nap. Ever.

And somehow it was still only the beginning of our day. We had a whole sauna ceremony and rituals with friends ahead of us. 

But more on that another time, perhaps.

♡