The wood-fired sauna in the woods is really a kind of converted garden shed. You get to it by driving north through a few small towns, over narrow, single-lane bridges, and in winter, past the smoke-billowing, Christmas tree-lit ice-fishing camps perched on the frozen surface of the Abagadasset River. Inside, past a small living-room decorated in a rustic Japanese style, is the sauna itself: two rows of wooden benches, a cold-water shower stocked with a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s All-One Magic Soap, a kitchen pot for dousing, and the source of the healing heat, the stove: a rock-covered black metal box so hot it glows red like a tiny sun in the soft light of the room. Outside there’s a small flagstone patio roofed with lattice and crawling vines where you can spend a few moments cooling off in the freezing night air before entering the hot tub. While warm, blue-lit water purrs around you, you can look up to see the Three Sisters gazing back from across the light years. A small metal bell, jostled by the wind, rings softly. All this, naturally, while wearing absolutely nothing at all.

The subject of human nudity is a tricky topic. When we sometimes ask friends to join us at the sauna, most will ask if they have to be naked. We always say they don’t have to be, but we will. This, simply put, freaks people out. Thanks to a toxic, particularly American cultural combination of Puritan heritage, childhood trauma, and an invasive, almost pornographic brand of capitalism that chops us up into sexualized parts to be sold on the open market, the human body is viewed through two lenses only: lust or shame. In our culture, nudity only equals sex. There is no other reason for getting undressed ever, except to occasionally perform the necessary hygienic ritual of a bath or a shower. Otherwise, for the remaining 99.9 percent of our lives, we stay clothed and protected from the gaze of others, even until death, when the last people to see us naked are not our partners or our spouses or our lovers or our friends, but our doctors and morticians.

For many people, this is an acceptable math. But I guess I would suggest there’s a third, better way to view the body, one not based on either lust or shame. And that is just as the thing that it is; a body. Our single, absolute possession. The only thing that, while we live, can never be taken from us. A vessel for our consciousness. A miraculous web of cells and chemicals and star-stuff that carries us through our lives, but ultimately is nothing special. The nonspecific fact of our bodies is in fact what makes them so special. As a Zen master used to say; you and I are both the same, but I’m not you and you’re not me. Once you get over the shock of your own nakedness, and you see others as they actually are in all their lumpy, wrinkled, sagging yet beautiful glory, you realize that our individual bodies are just the varying expressions of our essential unified humanity. The expressions of which can be best felt naked in a wood-fired sauna with people you love, or sitting in a hot tub gazing up at the stars on a cold winter night while you laugh, and talk, and share stories about what makes this single human life so fleeting and so precious.

Plus, it just feels good.

 

 

Winter keeps me indoors, dreaming of pond swims or trips to the beach. Except for a predictable work schedule I’m never busy, which means I’m alone most of the time. I’m not much for large group activities, and it’s hard for me to manufacture enthusiasm for things I don’t like. I don’t think this is snobbery; it’s just who I am at 52 years old. The Greeks advocated knowing thyself, and at a half-century on this rainy, stony earth, I’m approaching satori. The plain, the dull, the common. The things most people don’t notice or find boring. The most exciting thing I do most days is make coffee.

And yet, despite my introversion and tendency to sulk indoors, I do dream of community. I dream of taking care of people, of being generous with my time and labor. I dream of buying a small piece of land in the forest and building a wood-fired sauna. I would become a caretaker of sorts. I would chop and stack the wood for the stove. On cold nights, I would arrive a few hours early to build up the fire. I would sit with my thermos and wait for the sauna to reach the perfect temperature. I would fill a small wooden bucket with water and hang the ladle on the hook on the wall, for those who wanted a little steam. I would light tea candles and invite my friends. You can see the path through the trees from here.

It would be a dark, cold night and all the stars would be out. We would sit in the wood-scented warmth and laugh and tell stories. We would let down our guard, becoming open and vulnerable to each other and so become even closer in our friendships. If we got overheated, we could always jump in a snow bank or take a plunge in a nearby stream. After, we would bundle into our clothes and enjoy a simple meal or a walk in the woods under a full moon, silent in our wonder at the fact that we were alive and together at this precise moment in time. The simple elements. Water, fire, and these fragile human lives.

When I was younger I used to float in the pool or in the ocean for hours, skin wrinkling and shivering. I never wanted to leave the beach. I wanted the day to stretch forever, because no matter how long it lasted, it was never enough time. I was trying to get close to something that always put up barriers. Trying to cross that divide between my tiny individual self and body and the body of the universe. I’m still trying to cross barriers and stretch time. I swim in the pond well past the time most people go in, or in conditions that are far from perfect. I swim on hot days, cold days, rainy days. Rainy days are actually the best time to swim because the rain keeps the beer drinkers and the teenagers at home. Only the mad ones swim in the rain.

I suppose these two things I’m talking about, water and fire, are to me what the bog was to Thoreau. It’s as close to nature as I can get without becoming a tree or a rain cloud.

I imagine that someday I actually will become a tree or a rain cloud, although I might not be aware of it. Right now I’m trying to cross barriers without relying on technology or data or algorithms. I’m dreaming of creating the kind of community that existed before bowling alleys and shopping malls. When we slept in caves and all we had to worry about was the next meal. Where the dogs we kept weren’t for pampering but for keeping us alive by warning us of approaching predators. When all we possessed were a stone knife, some cooking utensils and our own bodies.

In the meantime, I’ll still keep practicing my little rituals. Since I can’t live everywhere at once, I’ll make do with where I am right now. I’ll get up every morning and make the coffee. I’ll spend time with family and friends. I’ll read my books and draw my little pictures. I’ll go to the sauna at the Y when the real sauna isn’t available. And I’ll dream of becoming the caretaker to a small tribe of wild, kindred souls.

So if you see a warm glow through the trees at night, smell the woodsmoke, and hear the laughter, you’ve arrived. And you’re very welcome to join us.