Back To Nature – a guest story

words & photos by Kristina Vateva
published October 27th 2025

I’m a person who feels deeply, perhaps too much so. External processing is how I usually smooth the mental wrinkles in my brain. Sometimes words feel inadequate - this is one of those times, but I will try anyway because writing is the first step towards understanding.

I ended up on a yoga retreat in Henningsvaer - a small island in Lofoten, Norway. The village is a collection of paint-splashed houses hugging the water. Not a full-fledged town, though there’s a quaint center and a grocery store. The retreat took place in September, mid autumn, where the mountains meet the sea. They called it ‘back to nature.’

And yet, getting here is a story in itself.

The past year I’d been immersing in yoga in a way I hadn’t before. Years ago, it had been a tool to soothe a body relentlessly pushed by running and climbing. But last winter, a difficult stretch of life left me rethinking how to care for myself. I stumbled upon rocket yoga at my climbing gym in California - a 90-minute blend of ashtanga flow and breathwork led by PK, a teacher more calisthenics/martial arts man than yogi. In that room my brain could finally switch off. Still, I searched for a slower, deeper exploration of yoga beyond the physical.

I’ve skirted the idea of a retreat for years thinking they weren’t really my thing. What first caught my eye about this one wasn’t the yoga, but a seaside sauna teetering above the coastline. A trail runner I follow on socials had posted it, and I saved the bookmark thinking, one day.

When I found out this place with the sauna also offered a yoga retreat in the fall (Lofoten’s off season) it felt like timing had aligned. Without much hesitation I signed up.

The Place

Trevarefabrikken is an old carpentry factory in Henningsvaer, resurrected by four Norwegian friends who came for a climbing trip in their early twenties and stayed…one might say permanently as that was a decade ago. They bought the building on impulse and transformed it into a community space - a hotel, cafe, sauna, yoga studio and cultural hub all folded into one. Henningsvaer hums differently now, thanks in part to them. Artists, climbers, travelers, and musicians converge here. The ground floor is alive with the chatter of different languages, footsteps on the creaky wood underfoot, and the smell of fresh baked bread. A space where you sit down for breakfast and lose track of the hours as conversations linger and the morning fades into lunch.

The former factory owner, in his eighties now, still stops by for coffee most days - a quiet witness to the building’s rebirth. Every employee seems to be operating with more hours in a day than the rest of us because they’ll sit down and have a drink with you. Remember your sauna schedule. Connect you with fellow climbers. Share their life stories of moving to Lofoten.

The love and care they so freely give out has seeped into the walls of the space, you feel it the moment you step inside.

The Retreat

When I received the retreat itinerary in my email I smiled big - as if an old friend who knew me intimately had crafted it. Morning, afternoon, and evening yoga. Mountain hikes. Daily sauna sessions. Foraging by the sea. A piano concert.

Yoga here was not the rocket yoga I knew. It was slower, meditative, the kind that leaves your body tired in an unfamiliar way. At the end of each practice, I would collapse into exhaustion. As if my body had permission to finally release tension I knew I was holding but hadn’t been able to let go. I had the space to exist without effort. Sound baths and breathwork dissolved my thoughts. I floated in a liminal space between the present and a dimension that wasn’t quite the reality we were in, the first time in my life experiencing this state of consciousness. Tears sometimes came without reason. I learned to still the mind so the soul could rest. I promise no drugs were involved.

Our teachers, Rina and Hedda, moved us through with tender care and guidance. Their presence felt like a thread weaving the week together, anchoring us to ourselves and each other.

"After yoga we’d pile into the sauna for an afternoon sweat. A small wooden structure perched on the sea, its heat biting and comforting all at once. When it became overwhelming, I would step outside, body trembling, and plunge into the frigid waters. The shock stole my breath, I felt intensely alive and present."

Another day we met Odd Arne, a local who’s lived in the area his whole life, sustaining himself, his family, and later the broader culinary community with his life-long foraging endeavors. We drove out to a nearby beach spending the morning gathering various kelps and seaweeds. Odd Arne then proceeded to cook the most incredible meal with what we had scrounged up. Tangy, salty, bursting with flavor. He’s known for swapping plants into common recipes - lasagna in his household means ditching gluten for kelp.

Besides what we pulled from the sea, he took us on a walk along the shore, pointing out various leaves and stems growing around us, describing the medicinal properties of each one and how to cook with it, steep it, apply it on your body to heal wounds. I was captivated, hanging on his every word. The amount of knowledge and deep reverence for nature this human held was inspiring.

"Dinners were communal as we sat for hours sipping wine, watching the sun dip below the horizon, sharing stories. I’ll treasure them the most."

The Nature

And then there was the outside world beyond the walls of the factory. Lofoten’s landscape is stark: unforgiving cliffs, light that bends and lingers. The sunny days sparkle, the stormy ones rage with wind and pelting rain. Inviting yet fierce. I hope to return, again and again.

I cannot promise I’ve captured it all, and perhaps I don’t need to. Most places are meant to be felt. You arrive, sit, breathe. The humans of Trevarefabrikken will wrap you in the warmest embrace. And you return quietly, to nature and to yourself.

Thank you Kristina, for being a part of our autumn retreat and sharing your experience with us through your lovely words and photos.

—the Trevarefabrikken Team