Gifts from the Sentient Forest
Communication & Collaboration Between People & Trees in Northern Finland

View of Pond Behind Keropirtti Lodge. Photo credit: John C. Ryan (June 2025)

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Our third retreat was held the weekend of 6–8 June 2025 at Keropirtti Lodge, Pyhätunturi, near the old-growth habitats of Pyhä-Luosto National Park. The cohort included 12 artists, writers, and researchers from Finland, Portugal, Lithuania, and the United States. On Friday evening, Dagmara ‘Mara’ Masłowska facilitated a highly grounding, meditative journey into the micro-world of our bodies through cellular breathing followed by creative writing, drawing, and reflection. On Saturday morning, the group enjoyed a long walk in Pyhä-Luosto National Park through pine tree forests of 200 or more years in age. The park's vast prehistoric landscape has remained the same for 10,000 years. Following the walk, on Saturday evening, Francis Joy led a guided visualisation connecting participants to landscape sentience and the powers of the land. The memorable workshop included drumming around a fire, based on the four directions as inspired by the Pyhä-Luosto environment. On Sunday morning, Evgenia Emets facilitated a session on tuning into a plant or tree through deep listening, receiving a message, and writing a short poem from the perspective of the plant or tree. Participants put the message into calligraphic writing, drawing, and imagery. An important part of Evgenia's workshop was a guided visualisation through the future based on imagining scenarios across 100-year intervals. The weekend energized the cohort in the lead up to the opening of the Gifts from the Sentient Forest Exhibition on 10 June 2025.  

 

All photos taken by John C. Ryan and Francis Joy (2025)