Naomi Moriyama - The Sisterhood of the Enchanted Forest: Sustenance, Wisdom, and Awakening in Finlands Karelia

Naomi Moriyama & William Doyle

The Sisterhood of the Enchanted Forest

Sustenance, Wisdom, and Awakening in Finlands Karelia

This book is dedicated to our son.

What is this fragrance around me?

What is this quietness?

What is this knowledge of peace in my heart?

What strange, great, new thing is this?

I can hear the flowers growing

and the talk of the trees in the wood.

I think all my old dreams are ripening,

all the hopes and the wishes I sowed.

Everythings quiet around me,

Everythings gentle and sweet.

Great flowers are opening up in my heart

with a fragrance of deepest peace.

E INO L EINO, P EACE

Wide-spread they stand, the Northlands dusky forests,

Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams;

Within them dwells the Forests mighty God,

And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.

J EAN S IBELIUS, T APIOLA

I CLOSE MY EYESAND I am in the forest.

I am walking on a soft carpet of needles and moss, in a wilderness of birch, spruce, and pine trees.

I am drenched in pure, otherworldly silence, and my lungs are caressed by the cleanest air on the planet.

It is Nordic high summer here in the remote forest of Karelia in Finland, but the trees are so tall and their vegetation is so thick that only occasional shafts of sunlight pierce the fairy landscape.

I am on the edge of the Western worldto the east are the endless forests of the desolate Russian taiga; to the north is a sliver of Norway and the Arctic Ocean.

I am traveling in a vast cathedral of nature, in the largest national forest in Europe. I am alone but not lonely, and I am perfectly safe. This is a life-altering realm of tranquility, peace, and beauty, a forest that has inspired and nourished my soul, and transformed my life.

I am traveling in the happiest, greenest, and safest nation in the world, the country with the worlds cleanest water and the best public schools, a country where parenthood is championed by law, childhood is revered, schoolchildren are required by the government to play outdoors three or four times a day, and long-distance trains contain mini playgrounds and mini libraries for children to enjoy.

Six years ago I moved here with my family for six months, to the great forest of Karelia, a romantic and mysterious region that helped inspire J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth fantasies.

In the forest I found something that changed my life.

I discovered a tribe of invincible womenand they became my soul sisters.

This is the story of how I discovered an enchanted forest in a place not far from the Arctic Circle. In Finland, I found a land of unspoiled nature, a culinary symphony of succulent wild edibles, herbs, berries, mushrooms, and fish, all harvested by hand from the pristine forest, rivers, and lakes. I found an entire nation of people who roam the woods and forage for the earths treasures, incorporate them into traditional dishes and beverages, and preserve them for long, dark winters.

This is the nation that is ranked as the number one top contributor to humanity per capitawhere gender equality and womens political and social rights are baked into not only the nations one-hundred-year-old founding constitution, but into everyday practice, offering inspiration to the world.

It is a nation with its share of social problems, including racism and domestic violence, but it is also a nation that leads the world in striving to achieve a better life for all its citizens. In 2021, Finland ranked first among the worlds 160 nations in sustainable development, according to a United Nations report, which found that Finland had achieved or nearly achieved the UNs goals on alleviating poverty, improving health, education, water, energy, peace, the rule of law, and reducing inequality.

This is a nation that today is run by womenthe thirty-four-year-old prime minister is a new mother who leads a governing coalition of five parties, all of which are all led by women.

I lived here once. I came in the summertime. As an idyllic summer and fall gave way to a subarctic winter of mind-bending darkness and cold, I faced my hopes, my fears, and my future. Over the course of six unforgettable months, I found my life transformed, and I discovered the power that lay within mewith the inspiration of my sisters of the forest.

Then I tried to leave.

But I kept coming back.

What would happen if you built one of the worlds most advanced societies inside a forest, and strove to make women full partners in power? You would have Finlanda place that actually exists in the world right now.

This book is the story of how I fell in love with Finland and the story of how its women, its society, and its nature have astonished and inspired me.

This is the story of glimpses my family and I had of this strange, beautiful, and faraway land when we lived there as residents and visitors from New York City in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and then returned to as residents in 2020 and 2021.

Come with me, lets take a journey deep into one of Europes last great wildernesses, and join the sisterhood of the enchanted forest.

In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

A LBERT C AMUS

I T BEGAN WITH A PROMISE in springtime.

Several years ago, my husband, William, got the news that he had been selected as a Fulbright Scholar to study and write about the world-renowned Finnish public school system, and to lecture to university graduate students about his career specialties in the media and publishing businesses.

We were going to move from Manhattan to Finland with our seven-year-old son. I was a full-time stay-at-home parent at the time.

I knew almost nothing of Finland, except that it was somewhere in the Nordic region atop Europe, and it was supposed to have great schools. By now, I had pretty much forgotten about my husbands applying for the Fulbright Scholar program many months ago. It seemed like a fun idea at the time, but I had a lot of other things to think about. Then, I realized that Finland was to be my new home. I plunged into online research, and borrowed books from the library.

The more I read, the more I worried.

I was going to live for six months in a far-off place, in the most sparsely populated country in the European Union.

Finland? I thought. He couldnt have picked a country like Italy, France, or Australiasomewhere Id actually like to go? This does not look good at all.

Id spent most of my life in the high-energy, ultra-populated metropolises of Tokyo and New York City, where I had plenty of friends and things to do. But according to the few books and articles I could find, Finland seemed like a dark, cold, and lonely place. We would be living not in Finlands sleek, cosmopolitan capital, Helsinki, but in Joensuu, home to the University of Eastern Finland, where Williams project was based.