How can I understand and listen to non-human messages? How can I become sensitive to being present with the non-human? How can I practice sensitivity and empathy with the non-human in a non-hierarchical way? Can we explore the raw sources - the elements, the primordial roots - of the perceptions (kinesthetic, auditory, tactile) we experience in the forest? And as we become more sensitive, what stories does the forest tell us?

What kind of embodied interaction do we have with the non-human, or conversely, the non-human with us? What kind of knowledge and art do we construct through these processes of perception and conversation?

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As you travel south from Kaarina (Finland) towards Rauvola Bay, the landscape changes to a grassy one. Further south, an oak grove of elm trees, Vaarniemi, is revealed. It stands out from the rest of the Rauvolanlahti landscape both for its trees and its biota. Vaarniemi, an ancient oak grove in Kaarina, is a typical oak grove and unique in Finland. The noble wood groves are not only important because of their unusually rich vegetation compared to the rest of the Finnish environment, but also because they play a special role in the Finnish cultural and historical tradition. The Bronze Age tombs still found in Vaarniemi indicate the importance of the oak grove long before our time. In particular, the oak tree had many mythical and sacred meanings; before Christianity, in Finnish nature religion, oak groves often served as sacrificial groves in annual rites where a community of members of a region or a family would gather.

Today, Vaarniemi is designated as a site of national importance in the Natura 2000 grove conservation programme, which covers the whole of Finland. The Rauvolanlahti Natura 2000 site, where Vaarniemi is located, covers ten hectares. Today, the old oak grove is a complex ecosystem where animals and plants live in symbiosis with each other. Old decaying oak trees, a key part of the Vaarniemi environment, provide space and shelter for new species. Decaying organisms such as fungi and insects feed on decaying wood material. There are complex interactions between the inhabitants of the Vaarniemi ecosystem, with different species benefiting from each other's presence.