With a bundle of birch leaves as my pillow, I’m in my swimsuit, lying face down on a makeshift massage table in a 180-degree sauna tent. I hear the hiss of water on hot rocks before I feel boiling droplets hit my back. The dripping turns to brushing—someone’s gently sweeping me with oak leaves now—and then suddenly, they start whacking me. Back, butt, legs—nothing’s spared. My first thought: Is this supposed to be relaxing? My second: Because it feels kinda good.

The person wielding the leaves is named Dustin. He’s performing what’s called whisking, an ancient Slavic and Scandinavian sauna ritual that involves soaking bundles of birch, oak, and eucalyptus leaves in warm water until they’re soft and fragrant. Then, they’re used to brush, pat, and swat the body to stimulate circulation, cleanse the skin, and release the natural oils of the leaves for aromatherapy. In Russia, this practice is called Platza. In Finland, it’s Vihtominen.

My skin tingles. The steam grows hotter. After about ten minutes of this, Dustin tells me to turn onto my back and covers my face and head with the birch leaves that served as my pillow. He then goes through the ritual again: sweeping and slapping. At the end, when my skin is as red and raw as a ripe tomato, he pours cool water from a watering can over my body.

But the experience is not quite over. Dustin guides me to a wooden folding chair outside the heated tent. He rustles the wet leaves at me—I brace myself in the cold—before he drapes the branch bundles onto my head and shoulders like a crown. My treatment is over. I feel a little silly sitting there in the open courtyard, but then again, it’s not so weird, as I’m among 847 attendees, ages 10 to 68, of the first-ever Seattle Sauna Festival. We’re all there to immerse ourselves in sauna culture together, which, I have discovered, includes getting flogged with wet foliage.

Held over the weekend of daylight savings, I drove three hours from my home in Portland, Oregon, hoping that perhaps the festival could prevent, or at least prolong, my annual spiral into seasonal depression during the bleakest time of year in the Pacific Northwest.