“Now,” said the soft-spoken Latvian man with whom I’d just spent the last couple of hours mostly naked in a smoke-filled cabin in the woods, “I hit you with a whisk.” 

Under any other circumstances, the statement might provoke concern, or at the very least, confusion. But whisking was in line with the rundown I’d received earlier on what to expect from my inaugural pirts. The word is so deeply ancestral, it defies easy translation, but “Latvian sauna” is the most frequently used shorthand to help outsiders get the gist.

Not that I could have felt like an outsider for long when I booked a session at one of the country’s most acclaimed providers: the family-run Ziedlejas, a wellness resort whose name means “flower valley” in Latvian. When I asked the owners how to get there from Riga, the mother, Madara, suggested I take an afternoon train to the small town of Sigulda, just about an hour northeast of the capital, where she’d swing by for me after school pickup. In the course of a single email exchange, I’d gone from stranger to family carpool participant. 

As for why I’d reached out to begin with: Pirts will likely be enshrined as part of its nation’s intangible cultural heritage this fall — on the heels of Ziedlejas winning a tourism award from the Prime Minister’s office — both exceedingly rare honors in the wellness world. The reporter in me was intrigued, and the sauna lover in me was obsessed.

Neither was disappointed. 

“The earliest time we can start the Smoke pirts ritual is 5 p.m. because the Smoke pirts needs to be prepared all day long,” Madara explained when I’d first made contact. And because my session would last at least three hours (they sometimes stretch to four hours or more), I decided to reserve a post-treatment stay at one of the onsite “glass rooms,” each an outsized, 3-D window onto the surrounding Gauja National Park.  

I stopped in my room to drop off my bags, but the real unburdening began when I took a meandering forest path to a fairytale cabin, complete with smoking chimney and misty pond. There I made my way down a staircase to meet Rolands, one of several highly trained pirts masters on staff, who let me know that people tend to feel such a profound letting-go during these sessions that crying wasn’t unheard of, nor was yelling. Then he suggested I set an intention.       

“To learn,” I said, so happily addled by the woodsy smoke that I couldn’t come up with a better answer.

I was about to experience a singular ancient discipline — one with elements of pagan naturism, Latvian herbalism, traditional folklore and local life cycle rituals (everything from childbirth to death rites here used to involve a pirts, back in the day). While no two sessions are the same — and there are plenty of creative 21st-century takes — I had selected an homage to tradition. 

After warming up with wormwood tea, bread baked by a pirts master and a generous pour of local honey, I’d be off to the main event in the cabin’s dark, hot, thickly smoky inner sanctum. There, said Rolands, I’d be treated to an herbal cleansing, then the “hitting with the brushes” (botanical bundles sourced from local maple, oak, linden and pine trees); and finally, a warm honey mask, with opportunities along the way to dip in the frigid pond and nap in the almost-as-frigid air. 

These were “all just recommendations, not mandatory,” clarified Rolands, a preternaturally quiet, gentle soul — even when he’s whipping steamy whisks around like he’s Alex Van Halen. 

Rounds of tapping, brushing and thwacking commenced, the temperature rising all the while. I knew I could request a break at any time, and we did, at one point, try an immersion in the pond: a no-go past the ankles for me. But there was something so soothing and intimate about the process, especially with Rolands’ faint renditions of Latvian folk songs, I was delighted to stay put.    

Soon, I found myself bundled up for a nap on a wooden bench outside the cabin, where I discovered that — if I’m sufficiently euphoric — I can sleep like a baby in a freezing Latvian forest. From there, I returned to my glass room and had dreams so vivid and beautiful, you’d think I’d inhaled something more potent than wood smoke.

Reflecting on the experience the next morning on a walk along the ethereal Gauja River, where I had only ducks for companions, I realized I’d neither cried nor yelled in the pirts. But I was content with my beginner-level bliss.

Perhaps, I thought, I should continue my studies during one of Ziedlejas’ Pirts Spirit Camp sessions. And if I make the one that’s happening July 7-12 (for which there are still a few spots), I’ll be the one trying to go more than ankle-deep in the pond.