We tend to think forest walks are peaceful and soul-nurturing. And yet possibly we walk in a war zone between two tree populations, or past trees that are screaming out (chemically) because they are being eaten by insects, or just among incessant chatter by chemical signals in the air or between the roots.
Ignorance is bliss. Indeed if we knew all this we would think forest walks quite stressful.
(Silkeborg, Denmark; November 2018)
No, this is not Canada. It is West Denmark, as high up as one can get. That means a mere 137 meters above sea level. And no, this photo is not from January. It is from late October, when we suddenly had a week of frost and snowfall. Except for on that particular day I am convinced that only the Mols Bjerge microclimate had proper snowfall and it was because we were there, in anything but winter hiking gear.
It was cold. It was wet. It was quiet. We stopped for knapsack lunch at a hikers’ shelter and wished we had brought matches to light a warming fire. The blue tits fluttering around the fireplace probably wished the same. I wished I had brought brandy for my tea.
On the path through a parkland we encountered a woolly cow and her baby. They were dressed for snowfall and frost. I was not. My woolly base layers, fleece gloves, and scarf were still back in Finland (how could it ever snow in Denmark in October?).
When I was not thinking of how cold I was, I could feel the silence creep under my skin. There is enough Finnishness in me to need to feel it from time to time, feel the silence of Nature under my skin. And there is no better time than winter, when even the birds have nothing to say to each other.
(Mols Bjerge, Denmark; October 2018)
After wandering through a military area, stumbling into deer hunting ground, and being attacked by baby ticks, a picnic lunch by the beach seemed like a good idea.
A word of newly discovered experience (and warning): people really do add any and all kinds of tracks in Wikiloc. Perhaps the one we followed was an effort to trick foolish random hikers such as ourselves.
(Sondervig, Denmark; October 2018)
The pond in the Brande backs makes me think of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Perhaps it was more shaded by forest, but the size and tranquil feel is right.
Like with so much in Denmark, this is not the original, natural state of the environment. Brande’s heather moors and wetland were exploited for peat still just a century or less ago. The people dug such a deep hole that when they stopped working it filled up with water.
I try to not think about how this pond is man-made. Instead I try to think of Thoreau’s words: “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”
(Brande, Denmark; October 2018)
Catching the last of the green before it is gone for the winter. And yes, there are forests in Denmark. Real ones, not just those plantations with one sort of trees planted in endless rows. 
But (unfortunately) one must go looking for the natural forests. To Silkeborg, for example. 
Oh, such a gorgeous backyard for the lucky people who live in Silkeborg. And how sad: this is what all of Denmark probably looked like before people got the bright idea to convert it into a flat, open-land agriculture nation.
This castle-hall pine tree forest below is definitely not in a natural state. But it is a plantation at its most beautiful (for the humans though, not the deer and smaller animals who have nowhere to hide). 
(Silkeborg, Denmark; October 2018)
Fall has arrived in Denmark. A few heathers still flower on the moor in the backs of the town. This moor is scattered with cattle gates and fences, but I never see the animals. Not even horses from the nearby stable.
Jogging down the trail I hit beach sand from time to time, even if I am an hour or more from both the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. Jutland, the peninsula of Denmark, is old seafloor turned into moorland. Instead of fish swimming around there are now mainly people walking their dogs. And me in my brand-new trail shoes.
(Brande, Denmark; August 2018)
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.(Rudyard Kipling)
(Loviisa, Finland; August 2018)
One beautiful August morning, there I was, bobbing in between two scraggy islets in the outer archipelago of Stockholm, wearing sneakers, wetsuit, goggles, swim cap, and a colored team t-shirt. A drone circled above us and there were camera people in the water, too. Along with about 350 other colleagues, like groups of colored ants clawing away at the water, drifting from shore to shore.
Swimrun means swim and run. No time to change gear in-between. The original swimrun is 41 km on this same group of islands, although we only completed a 9 km course. And it was more than many of us ever dreamed they would accomplish. Some were 60 years old, you see. Others were scared of swimming in open water. And quite a few were nervous about running such a long distance. But everybody had a buddy and a tow rope for pulling a tired swimmer, and it was not uncommon to see people pushing their colleague in the back, making running just a tiny bit lighter. 
The company I work for aims to have a healthy workforce. The local Nordic managing director takes things a notch further. This year it was the swimrun. A few years back nearly 300 of us climbed a mountain in Norway. We have also biked around Skagen in Denmark, spent an entire day outside in a snow mobile suit in -27C in Lapland (some of us got cold burns), and gone horseback riding on Iceland.
And so the entire company swam and ran between the islets of Utö in Sweden, pushing, pulling, and coaching each other until we crossed the finish line, one team at a time. Because it was never about winning a race against anyone else except for ourselves and our prejudices about our own capabilities and performance. And quite a few witnessed their own minds reset to new levels of at-minimum-achievement.
(Utö, Sweden; August 2018)
Dear Lauttasaari island, you have been good to me. You have been my safe haven for years. A place to hide and to just stare at the (mostly windy) sea.
It is difficult to live in a landlocked place, away from the sea. I have done it twice and I will be doing it again. All three times have also been the three times I have lived abroad.
I have also lived in two relatively rainy, wet places: the UK and the Netherlands. Now I intend to try out another rainy (and this time windy, too) place: a little town in the middle of Denmark. For how long? For now.
Dear Lauttasaari, I will miss your sea, sunshine, and the vast open space. The ships leaving for various Baltic port cities, and the sound of broken ice blocks floating on the water in spring.
But life plays out in seasons and no matter how well one plans, the beginning of the next season always comes with a twist. Growth does not take place when we feel comfortable and set in our routines. And so I intend to break my routines big time, hoping that growth will follow with equal measure.
(Helsinki, Finland; August 2018)
And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
(John Muir)
Nuuksio National Park, Espoo, Finland; July 2018)
This blue marble 