If you’ve been following along on Instagram or via my Substack (Reclaiming the Wild Woman), you know that I’ve returned to Sweden after almost four years away. 

Almost four years away. It has felt important to emphasize the “almost.” It has been too long, and to reach that four year mark would have carried a lot more weight. 

And if you haven’t been following along? Well, now you know. 

I lived here for some years, trying to build a life under democratic socialism by way of a self-employment visa. Unfortunately, I finally got my visa at the start of the pandemic, and had two years of a worldwide shutdown to work to prove myself to the Swedish government. You can probably guess that it wasn’t optimal timing. 

I pivoted, left to Portugal for four months, and told friends to lock me in a room if I tried to move back to Sweden. (I had an unhealthy relationship with the country, in which I would stay for a few months, get depressed, leave again, come back with renewed hope, and repeat repeat repeat). 

So, here I am. Returned in the spring of 2026, after leaving in summer of 2022. 

Upon leaving, I left bags and boxes and suitcases of my belongings here, promising to my last landlord that I would someday (soon) come back to collect them. 

And, well… It took a little longer than I originally planned. Ever since being a teenager, I spent time each year in Europe. To go more than a year without truly leaving the country (sorry but Canada doesn’t count) felt like a misalignment to my soul. And that misalignment as been gnawing away at me. 

So, here I am. Literally unpacking a time capsule of belongings that past-Savannah left for present-Savannah to deal with. 

Amongst the prized possessions, the most important was a hard drive. Well, it turns out there were three that I left behind, but I had only remembered one: that one that held the photos and memories of when my mom came to visit me in 2019, and we traveled up to the Ice Hotel, west to Norway, and flying to Italy. 

Italy has always been close to my heart — it was the first country I truly fell in love with (and, I like to think, not in a cliché way). My mom had never been, and I wanted to introduce her to a place that I loved so much. 

Though I had established a visa in Sweden, my goal was eventually to gain the freedom of movement that came with permanent residency within the European Union. 

At last, it never happened, and I have been leaning into a life of more wilderness and adventure than I think I could ever establish in a continent so populated as Europe. 

And though that is true, there has still been an umbilical cord pulling me back to Sweden, and preventing me to fully step into the next chapter in my life.

Returning to Sweden has been less about writing an unfinished chapter, but instead… closing a book. 

This spring is a chapter of letting go of what was, and staying open-minded to the possibility of what could be. That, and, rekindling and expanding my sense of possibility. Because living in a smaller American town, my capacity for possibility has shrunken. It does not do me well to be surrounded by small-minded people. 

Of course, the Universe has a sense of humour, and my word of possibility began expanding as soon as I bought my ticket back to Sweden. Seeds began to bloom, and now I must trust that they will continue to grow during the (too many) months I am away.

But, back to the time capsule. 

Beyond the tangible material items I’ve been sorting through, I’ve been taking a trip back in time via my images.

You can follow along with the journey on Reclaiming the Wild Woman, where I’m regularly sharing stories of my emotional processing. But, because people like my grandparents are part of Substack (and I don’t understand the censorship rules of fine art nudes on the platform), I’ll be sharing my unburied self portraits and other nude art here on the Beast Goddess grimoire (blog). 

Without further ado, here are my first unburied treasures.

This first batch is a series of self portraits captured in August and September of 2019. Stockholm was the place my #MorningCoffee series was born, and while I have yet to return to the forests of 2026 and create self portraits again, it’s an enjoyable process looking back at the art I created in the past.