When you are living from the soul, all manner of things unfolds to help you find your way back “home.”
In 2021 Finnish born Sari Huhtala birthed her long-time dream of creating a healing farm and opened The Laughing Forest. Her mission? To help people re-member who they are so that they too can live an authentic, joyful life that is deeply rooted in love and light.
Sari has been embodying the path of the Divine Feminine since 2001, after experiencing a profound healing of past trauma, an initiation of the heart that dissolved her suffering and set her free. At the heart of her transformation, and the 20 plus years she has embodied the spirit of the Creatrix, despite many travails, is her unwavering commitment to conscious living through daily practice: chakra balancing, womb healing, meditation, drumming, dance, yoga, spiritual practices, ceremony and ritual.
As a holistic chef and wildcrafting guide, nourishment through food and natural medicines is at the heart of her daily life. Over her 17 plus years publishing Alive and Fit Magazine, she has edited and published well over 1000 articles in holistic health, and written nearly 100 stories of people who healed disease, often severe, holistically. She became a CAN-FIT-PRO and YMCA certified personal trainer & fitness instructor in 1997, and also studied YogaFit teacher training through the YMCA, then Level 1 yoga teacher training in 2007. She has been a reiki practitioner since 2009, and studied shamanism in 2019 to deepen her connection to Mother Earth. She is also a Certified Craniosacral Therapist and a Certified Ayurvedic Indian Head Massage Practitioner.
She left her career as a managing editor of a business publication in 2004 – a single mom of 3 boys with no savings to fall back on – and jumped into blank space nothingness to follow a path that was a better reflection of who she was – a path that makes her heart sing. Since then, she has been manifesting her best life, regardless of countless ups and downs. In 2005 she launched women’s outdoor bootcamps, and a wellness business called Cheer Factor. In 2007 she created Alive and Fit Magazine, which turned digital in late 2020, and still continues to publish it. She opened two salt cave halotherapy businesses and an organic café in Greater Sudbury between 2009 and 2012 and sold her final salt cave business in 2019.
She began organizing Dance of Joy women’s holistic retreats in 2011 in Killarney, ON, and today offers the retreats at The Laughing Forest, among many other workshops. She is an organic gardener, who also loves farming the forest with her grandson, foraging for medicines and plant foods, and a shepherdess and duck mama who lives deeply from the soul.
People would often ask her why she left her career, and she would reply “I’m finding my way back home.”
She’s home now.