107

 Blueberries

At the moment, most blueberries are still green. Even the purple ones in the photo above are not ripe. They take weeks to ripen. Observing blueberries' lifecycle is a deeply humbling experience. Needless to say it feels different to buying blueberries in a supermarket where they are available all year round. Most of them come from South Africa and South America. 

106

 Copenhagen-Stockholm-Helsinki

My partner and I took a train from Copenhagen to Stockholm where we stayed for a few days. I decided not to take pictures for this autoethnographic project when we were together because I wanted to be fully present and honour our time together. 

I took a ferry from Stockholm back to Helsinki. It was decorated with birch twigs, a symbol of Midsummer. Another well-known symbol of Midsummer is a maypole (midsommarstång). 

When I was back in Finland, I went to get some Finnish food to reconnect with the country. In June, one can get Finnish snap peas without packaging. 

105

 Helsinki-Stockholm-Copenhagen

Recently I was contemplating how to reach Copenhagen to see my partner and spend some days together with him. Flying from Helsinki to Copenhagen is straightforward, but I made a decision to go all the way to Copenhagen and back to Helsinki by trains and ferries. Since approximately 2012, I only took two flights, one from the UK to Helsinki and one back. Before taking those flights I had travelled to Helsinki by trains and ferries, but that was completely unsustainable. It was incredibly time-consuming and expensive. 

I avoid flying for ecological reasons, but not only. In fact, I have never compared carbon emissions associated with a flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen and those associated with going the same way by sea and land. This is because merely calculating carbon emissions is reducing my interactions with nature, others and the self to a number. I cannot reduce the way I relate with the world and my impact on nature to carbon emissions: it is also, for example, about the social systems I choose to reproduce and about my wellbeing. Flying physically and psychologically separates me from the earth, the ground, so much that for many days afterwards I feel unwell. I much preferred other modes of transportation far before I decided to lead my life in a more ecological way. Trains and ferries allow me to appreciate distance and to see nature. 

As for flying to see one's partner, I am not against it at all. Perhaps this is an unpopular view, but there are far less legitimate reasons to fly or use air transport in general. Flying to consume places, for shopping, conferences, workshops, meetings that can take place online, flying as a means to transport goods that can be produced locally or are unnecessary (e.g., cut fresh flowers such as roses are transported by air), and so on. 

 

Travelling by ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm takes many hours. The ferry I took leaves Helsinki at around 5 pm and reaches Stockholm at 10 am. The journey can be both less and more expensive than a flight to Stockholm. Many use this ferry as a means of entertainment rather than a mode of transportation. For me, it is also a means to connect with the sea and the sun. Being in the sea is a magical experience. Even though there is still much evidence of human activity and presence, the vastness of the sea causes a strong feeling of awe. 

I don't participate in any form of consumption in those ferries at all. 

A fellow human told me that a better way to get to Stockholm is to take a train from Helsinki to Turku (Åbo in Swedish) and then a ferry from Turku to Stockholm. 

The ferry I took arrives in central Stockholm. The terminal is relatively close to the central station. I took a train to Copenhagen from there, and this train takes approximately 5 hours. In summer, travelling by train can be uncomfortable since it often gets too busy and too hot in those trains. Oftentimes, in my experience, Swedish trains are delayed. This is something I would have to take into account if Copenhagen was not my final destination on that day: a more ecological mode of travelling requires more planning. 

In Copenhagen:

104

 Celebrating summer

This is tap water with basil grown here in Finland and lemon from Spain, in a glass borrowed from a friend. 

103

 Living with stones and learning from them

On this path of trying to be in the world differently, more sustainably, I am learning that a more sustainable life is a dialectic of growth and reduction. And it is not necessarily so that growth is all good and reduction is all bad, or vice versa. 

Stones collected locally by myself in nature are the only decorations I use in my home, but I felt that I needed to return some of them to nature. I never intended to "own" them and keep them forever. Now my collection is contracting, I decided to keep only three of them, one from Finland, one from Denmark that was a gift from my fellow human, and the stone I brought from Sweden which is in my office. In the grand scheme of things, such changes and decisions feel insignificant. In terms of sustainability, more significant decision relate to, for example, car ownership, sources of energy one uses, belonging to and supporting certain social movements, and even one's diet and voting. Since I made many of such decisions already (e.g., to not own a car), I have been thinking more about very small, everyday aspects of my life, as each of these small aspects is a manifestation of a mode of relating with the world. It feels like keeping my finger on the pulse of life, as it unfolds. 

I learn a lot from contemplating smaller things, and important insights often arise from these contemplations. I observe that such reflections can be practised only when my life is simplified as much as possible, for instance, in terms of the size of my home, the number of possessions, and the time I spend with my fellow humans. 

102

 Ingredients

Something that is difficult to find out is where each of the ingredients in different products, such as personal care products and food, comes from. Trying to find this out for every product one uses is unrealistic. Even if a product looks simple, it can contain dozens of ingredients constellated thanks to long and often global supply chains. In my personal practice, I try to be mindful of that. At times, due to my autoimmune skin condition, I use more conventional (but still "natural") or prescription items, so my practice is far from perfect. In the photo above are rosehip oil and rose water, single-ingredient products. They come from an EU country. I use rosehip oil as a cleanser and instead of a moisturiser in summer when my skin becomes even more sensitive due to sun exposure. These products come in glass containers. I wish it was possible to refill them and to remove the labels effortlessly. 

101

Local Finnish vegetables

100

 Perfectionism and vulnerability

At times, because I do not separate my roles of a human being and a researcher, I feel that what I do is not enough. This concerns my ecological practices and also spiritual practices (including being in the world with others). I know that humans are imperfect and celebrate imperfection, but at the same time celebrating vulnerability is challenging. This includes discussing insecurities more openly, revealing my worries about my environmental practices, and concerns about being a good fellow being for the birds, the trees, the sea, and others.  

99

 Aronia jam

My fellow human brought this aronia jam (marmelad/sylt in Swedish) from northern Sweden for me, from the city where I used to live and where she lives with her family. This jam was made by her husband. Aronia is delicious and I used to pick it in Sweden and eat it raw.