Healing connection to Self, to body, to others, to nature, to spirit, to ancestry, to wholeness.

A pirts master in every county and country.

Baltic Wisdom is a non-profit organization preserving, revitalizing, and sharing the ancient nature-based cultural, spiritual, and healing traditions of European ancestry, particularly Latvian song, folklore, and pirts (sauna) practices, through education, research, translation, and community engagement.

The goal is to establish a Baltic Wisdom School in partnership with Latvian scholars and practitioners to train, support, and connect English-speaking healing arts practitioners globally.

Pirts is an ancient Latvian sauna ritual that integrates heat, cold immersion, aromatic plants, song, and guided sensory awareness to cleanse, heal, and restore harmony between body, mind, and spirit. Unlike a modern spa sauna, pirts is a ritual practice led by a trained healer (pirts meistars), who uses natural and rhythmic touch to open the body’s natural pathways of release.

Rooted in an animist worldview that honors fire, water, earth, and air as living forces, pirts reconnects people to nature, ancestry, and their own inner intelligence. Research has shown that heat–cold cycles improve cardiovascular function, immune response, circulation, and stress reduction, while compassionate guided sensory engagement supports nervous system regulation and trauma release.

As a culturally embedded, nature-based healing system, pirts offers a holistic and effective approach to physical and psychological well-being that is increasingly relevant in modern integrative health.

What is pirts?

Close-up of small rocks and pebbles with flames rising from the background.

Latvian culture is one of Europe’s last intact nature-based cultural systems, where ancestral healing, songs, and rituals have survived colonization, war, and occupation through nearly unbroken oral traditions rooted in land, spirit, and community.

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  • Back of a person's head with long brown hair, wearing a flower crown made of green leaves and pink and white flowers, outdoors in natural light.

    "The dainas came from my mother, And she from hers before her; As long as we keep singing, The spirit lives."

  • A group of people standing around a circular arrangement of green plants and ferns, with logs and flowers in the center, in an outdoor setting.

    "To the oak a wreath, To the birch a leafy crown; Whoever gives gifts to the earth, The earth gives back the year."

  • Person holding a bouquet of flowers over a cloth bag filled with green leaves, standing near a red surface.

    "Little herb, little herb, Heal my heart; Where you grow, I will go, So life may be joyful."