Guest post series continues. Please welcome Keegan Kittock to SaunaTimes who shares his love for sauna and how his sauna friendships are forged in fire.
Sauna connections
“Oh the people you will meet”. I think that was an old Dr. Seuss song from my childhood, but it rings true. Especially when you find yourself on the top bench. I never imagined the connections I would make sitting in 180 degrees, wrapped almost completely…in silence. The only sounds to be heard are steam rolling off the rocks, and the echo of the bucket when the ladle goes in for another splash of heat.
Bonds formed in these moments are hard to explain.
Speaking the friendship language
In a world where communication moves at lightning speeds, a special type of link is formed in those silent circumstances. Words mean less. The shared feeling of sauna means more. It does not matter what part of the globe you come from or what language you speak. Those moments overcome the differences between us; they overcome the barriers of language.
Lifetime of friendships
In very short periods of time, I have formed relationships in saunas that will last my entire life. People who can hardly understand each other in the normal world; who couldn’t possibly connect in normal circumstances; find a deeper recognition of each other when they share sauna.
I have met some of my favorite people through sauna. Once you share that with another person, everything else just becomes circumstantial. No matter what happens you will always have that deep bond of togetherness. It creates an understanding that we are more alike than we think.
In a society that is constantly highlighting our differences, it provides a contradicting perspective. One of hope. One of community. I think that is what makes those connections so powerful. As humans, we search out that hope and cling to it. To find that hope in people we barely know, is truly an amazing feeling. If you are a traditionalist like myself who prefers that good deep heat of a wood fired sauna, then those friendships are literally forged in fire.
Keegan Kittock
Co-founder of Deep Wave Sauna Co.
