Sauna Rituals

Let the elements heal you

The sauna — or pirts in the Latvian tradition — is a sacred meeting of the five elements: fire, water, air, earth, and steam. Within the heat and stillness, the body remembers how to soften, release, and restore its natural rhythm.

Each ritual I hold draws from the ancestral roots of Latvian sauna culture, where the pirts has long been a place of cleansing, blessing, and rebirth. These sessions are guided with deep respect for the tradition and the body’s innate intelligence. Through cycles of gentle heat, cold immersion, breath, and silence, the sauna becomes a space of renewal and emotional release.

At present I offer Sauna Rituals that focus on grounding, nervous-system regulation, and rest — using heat, steam, water, and breath to support calm and clarity.
A full Pirts Ritual will soon be available, as I continue my apprenticeship and learning under the guidance of a Latvian pirts meistars (sauna master), studying ancestral methods and the elemental philosophy that underpins this practice.

I was deeply honoured to be encouraged on this path by Agate, a Latvian healer often known as the “witch of the forest,” whose blessing opened my connection to the pirts lineage. This learning is an ongoing act of reverence — a way of carrying forward the wisdom of those who have tended the fire before me.

The sauna invites you to surrender to the elements — to let heat awaken, water cleanse, air cool, earth ground, and steam integrate.
It is a simple yet profound ritual: a return to presence, where healing begins not through effort, but through allowing.

Grief in the Sauna

A ritual of release and remembrance

As an end-of-life and grief doula and grief specialist, I offer sauna-based grief rituals where emotion is met through elemental care rather than pressured talk. In these sessions we move gently through cycles of heat and cool, breath and stillness, giving the body permission to exhale what it has carried too long. Tears, sweat and breath become the language of release.

• Suitable one-to-one or in small circles, including dedicated sessions for NHS staff and first responders.

• Framed by trauma-informed practice, clear consent, pacing, and aftercare (grounding, hydration, quiet integration).

• Held in partnership with community saunas in London; full pirts lineage work to follow as my training progresses.

Fee: upon request - concession/ free sessions available - please contact for more info.

Thirteen Fires: Reflections on MY Sauna Path

When I look back on this journey — thirteen community sessions and many more pirts rituals — I see not a series of visits, but a slow initiation. The sauna has never been something I “took up”; it has been something that found me.

It began one hot summer day by a lake. I wasn’t searching for anything, simply moving through the warmth of the afternoon, when I met a Lithuanian witch named Faye, who invited me into the ritual. The heat enveloped me, the steam rose like breath made visible, and every cell of my body tingled awake. It felt less like discovery and more like remembering — as though some ancient part of me recognised what was happening and whispered, you’ve been here before.

Since that day, the sauna has become my teacher. I’ve come to understand that this practice is not about endurance or purification; it’s about relationship — with the elements, with breath, with the body, with the unseen. The fire teaches vitality and transformation. Water teaches surrender. Air teaches presence. Earth offers grounding and steadiness. And steam — the fifth element — weaves them all together, dissolving separation until everything becomes one moving rhythm of warmth and release.

In the quiet repetition of these rituals, my nervous system has learnt a different kind of language. The body no longer asks for instruction; it remembers. My breath finds its own pace. Heat, cold, rest — each cycle unfolds like a prayer written in sensation.

I’ve also learnt that this path is not solitary. Every time I enter the sauna, I feel the presence of others who have tended this craft before me. Being blessed by Agate, the Latvian forest witch, felt like stepping into an old lineage with new hands — a responsibility as much as a gift. I am learning to approach the pirts tradition with humility, patience, and reverence, studying under those who have carried its wisdom across generations.

Grief has its place here too. The sauna holds sorrow as easily as joy. It gives the body permission to feel what the mind cannot yet name. Tears, sweat, breath — all part of the same language of release. Through these rituals, I’ve come to understand that healing is not about moving away from pain, but about letting it be seen and softened by the elements themselves.

Looking back, I realise there is no “progress” here — only journey. A slow unfolding, a remembering, a homecoming. The sauna has become a mirror of life itself: fire and water in constant conversation, effort and rest, solitude and connection, surrender and renewal.

Thirteen fires, countless breaths, one continuous return — to body, to earth, to the sacred warmth that lives inside all things.