Too many / Too few

I just read an interesting, if flawed, story in New York magazine. Still scratching my head on how I came to be a subscriber, but for the first time since it started showing up in my mailbox I didn’t feel that I was contributing to the demise of more trees and increasing carbon emissions when I flipped the magazine pretty much straight into the recycle bin.

The story is called The Economy of Touch and though it is one in which it appears the author was intend on her thesis and set out to find sources who would corroborate it, I learned something interesting: If the New York mag stats are accurate, there is a proliferation of nail technicians—at least in New York and I would suspect in large US cities. Yet massage therapy is suffering from a distinct shortage of trained professionals in the spa industry worldwide. In spa land, the certification requirements change from state to state and country to country and it is much easier to slip under the radar and work illegally as a nail technician than a bodyworker. This means a lot of naturally skilled but not formally trained and certified bodyworkers are prohibited from working. This is true especially in Asia. There are organizations that are trying to change by setting up foundations.

Where Are We Going in Spa Land?

I heard an unintentionally funny story while at the International SPA conference in Orlando, Florida in mid-November, one that is both telling and thought provoking.

I was talking to an Asian spa entrepreneur who I admire and like a lot. He was telling me that he was recently diagnosed with a gallstone. He decided to treat it with Chinese herbs as part of his ongoing research on the efficacy of the treatments that he promotes, to live his beliefs. It took ten days for the TCM cure to dissolve the stone, which cost him considerably in time—he didn't work unless he could do it from bed—and pain, for which he offhandedly mentioned that he was regularly popping pain pills. . .

Meet the health dilemmas of 21st century seekers.

I know the feeling. I’ve been harboring a freaky super-cold that has come and gone for over a month and counting. During that time I’ve had massages, acupressure and acupuncture and chiropractic. I’ve taken homeopathic and Chinese herbs. And I’ve been popping Benadryl faster than you can say (correctly) thassalotherapy.

We're straddling two worlds: the modern, quick fixes that we know aren't particularly healthy for us, and the desire to live a more natural, healthful lifestyle. Who's got the time or the patience for that?

With just a small leap, the themes above figure into the ongoing discussion that has been on the tip of everyone in the spa industry’s collective tongue these days: Where spa is heading. Where should it be heading? The general consensus at spa conferences and summits, to varying degrees, is that it is, it must, it should move away from surface-y pampering and in the direction of wellness. Mind-Body-Spirit, the whole shebang working together.

On the part of the spas, it is about creating environments conducive to the promotion of well-being rather than just repeating the overwrought and overused bliss-heavy terminologies and think that's going to cut it. And to the spa goer it is about empowering and teaching people to participate in their own good health by, say, posing questions regarding their expectations for this spa experience rather than expecting external quick fixes for internal—spiritual, psychic, emotional—stuff.

The fact that no clear one-size-fits-all model has yet been arrived at is no surprise; these things take time. It’s a new paradigm that is being put forth. What pace should be set for these changes to take place? After all, some people just do want to go a spa where they can plunk down their cash and call it a day. All the bells and whistles are great but really they just want to get away from the kids, or the job, or the whatever for an hour or two.

Others, likely the more frequent spa goers, are a bit more discerning about spa. Whether it’s because they’ve had enough experiences that left them cold and empty, perhaps even taken, or because from the get-go they’ve used spas as part of a larger personal wellness program, they are seeing the cracks in veneer.

It’s no surprise, then, that many of the media stories that have appeared lately fall into one of two categories. One half is targeted to the first group and feature “the next new thing in spa land” stories, and some of it is getting just plain weird. The stories beg, What’s next? (Grocery store spas! Spas from a vending machine! Spa funerals!)

The other types of stories are complaint stories. Are-prices-getting-out-of-control-with-insufficient-return type stories. You’ve seen them; you’ll see much more of them.

It’s no accident that these are the stories being reported, and they should be. That’s what happens when we’re saturated with a topic. The microscope comes out and the talk gets tougher. The industry is growing so fast but we’re still are not so sure what it should look and feel like.

One way or another, we’ll get there.

Spa-ing in Asia

Spas are woven even more firmly into the Asian culture. No surprise since so many of the spa treatments we enjoy today originated there. This is a photo of Boracay's Caticlan airport. These massage stations are a common sight at airports for "quick fixes."

More on the Farm at San Benito and Energetic Healing

Did I sound too high-minded in my last post? What I really meant to say was that it felt great to visit this place of healing where I could talk freely about alternative practices and energy healing without having to clean up my language for fear of sounding too woo-woo. I’ve gotten bad responses in the past. I remember going to an ear, nose and throat doctor about my sinuses and telling him that I’d had acupuncture for the condition. He was silently disapproving except for how his eyes narrowed. I think he disliked the fact that I was actually participating in trying to get myself well. He didn’t like being questioned, even when it was for a $5000 CAT Scan he proposed. I never went back but was none too happy when I got his bill and realized that the probe that he casually put up my nose cost $500.

By the time I sat down with one of the Farm doctors, Dr. Marian Alonzo, it was dusk. I was several hours late because of bad weather that put my whole day behind schedule, which ended up being a blessing because the doctor was finished with work and free to talk. I remember being aware that I should begin our conversation slowly despite the late hour. I thought she might be cautious or even defensive speaking with a journalist and I didn’t want to get too deep too fast. But it was she dove right in.

Dr. Alonzo was mesmerizing. She is young, petite, pretty and appeared . . . breakable. She wore flip-flops (practically the uniform of tropical countries) and a crisp white coat and her perfectly silky hair was perfectly pulled back. She shared stories about being green when she first started working at the Farm, and of her first patients and how she was afraid. When was the last time you heard a Western doctor admit that? She actually hid from one of them, she told me. It was a woman who came in quite ill but very feisty, angry and demanding. Dr. Alonzo called her a—and if you could see her you would know how out of character this is—“the bitchiest patient I ever had.” The woman came with a tumor in her colon. Dr. Alonzo and she ended up being great co-partners in restoring the woman to health. They had a ritual after the woman left: at 7 AM each morning, no matter where they were, they would both envision the woman’s colon being healthy. She said they’d often have wild images while doing this. I recall her saying something about an octopus. . . Seven months later, the woman’s colonoscopy showed no sign of a tumor.

Caroline Myss, the teacher and medical intuitive talks a lot about this type of energetic healing. If you’re interested, she has lots of great CDs on the topic. She also travels the world, teaching. And then there’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, of course, who's done wonders in bringing healing practices that were previously considered quackery to the mainstream.

After medical school Dr. Alonzo studied naturopathy at Chi Med Asia in Manila. The Philippines is very advanced in their acceptance and use of alternative therapies.

The Farm at San Benito - Unplugged

There was something about going to the Farm at San Benito that felt like I had come home. Yes, the grounds are spectacularly designed—feng shui’d within an inch of its peaceful and serene being. (Have I mentioned how inadequate I feel writing about the beauty aspect of spas and wellness retreats? To me, the experience is sublime and visceral, yes, but these are feelings that don’t lend themselves sufficiently to a block of words on a page. They are better experienced through stillness and an acknowledged sense of awe. So please don’t take my abrupt descriptions as anything but an admission that I choose not to attempt to properly do justice to works of beauty that are designed to create an emotional response within.)

The facts are that the Farm sits on what once was a coconut and coffee plantation—hence the term farm. It sits at the base of Mount Malarayat and any footpath you choose will take you one of many private oases where you can sit and . . . breathe in the beauty.

But as a follower and user of complementary therapies, what most compelled me to want to visit is the fact that the Farm is one of the few—and certainly one of the first—wellness facilities to seamlessly and unabashedly weave medical and complementary therapies into their core reason for being. They have a staff of 150, which includes 5 medical doctors, nurses and one medical secretary who can field calls from guest 24/7.

Now, to grasp how radical a concept this was when they opened in 2002—and apparently continues to be—can be put in perspective best this way: Just this morning I received in my inbox a media release from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is a part of the National Institutes of Health, announcing that their medical journal, Academic Medicine, is about to publish research studies on why CAM (Alternative Complementary Medicine) courses should be required in medical school—just now, on the cusp of 2008!

It’s good news that the allopathic establishment is finally realizing that there must be something to this trillion-dollar wellness industry. But something makes me wonder if trying to crack the code on energetic healing quantifiably is a doable task. When Albert Einstein came up with E=mc2, he was saying that mass and energy are both manifestations of the same thing, that mass can be converted into energy and vice versa.

In the most simple language I can safely conjure, that’s the kind of healing that is happening at places like the Farm at San Benito: Medical doctors are looking at real diseases and, along with close medical monitoring, are using natural healing practices to excise disease. The owners say they chose their location because they found that it possessed four distinct energy wells—locations that vibrate at a higher level. They include a 200-year-old mango tree, the amphitheater, the orchidarium and one of the villas.

The Farm at San Benito is located in Lipa, Batangas, about 2 hours from metro Manila.

The Heart of a Massage Therapist

A big debate is quietly raging on Anitra Brown's blog about.com/spa regarding necessary qualifications for being a good massage therapist. This one started because a spa bigwig was quoted in a Luxury Spa Finder saying something along these lines: “good therapists have to have the heart of a servant.” This seems to be the call to action among spa professionals these days—especially because it’s becoming harder to find and keep good therapists.

That fact kept coming up at the Wellness Summit because apparently the level of talented healing hands entering the industry is not sufficient to keep up with the demand. Good technicians, on the other hand, are easy to find. You go to school, you study your anatomy, you learn the skills necessary to set up shop and you get a job. But when you have the heart of a technician apparently your heart may not in the right place. Your heart is probably in your head, which is more focused on your bank account. And burnout is a big issue in the spa industry these days.

In this country, of course, peddling flagrant descriptions of employees as servants is like issuing a battle call. The politically correct contingency will rear its head and Western therapists—some, not all—cannot, will not, wrap their heads around the word. Here, someone making minimum wage in a retail setting is called an “associate,” not a clerk. We’re big on titles, small on customer care. So people latch onto their title, the fancier the title the bigger the head. I’m not promoting classism; I just think that we put too much emphasis on impressive-sounding titles and not as much on putting in the work to fulfill the title.


After experiencing Asian massage therapists, I think it comes down to attitudes. I really believe there is a cultural precedent in the argument for the superiority of Asian practitioners. I mentioned how the staff at Mandala Spa greets visitors: right hand to heart and a slight bow. At another spa, which I’ll talk about another time named Nurture Spa, I was greeted by a man who put his hands, palms up, out in front of him and then brought them both back to his heart as he said, “Welcome home.” The gestures felt so genuine it nearly took my breath away.

Chinggay, my massage therapist and Mandala Spa told me that the massage therapists start each day with a Sivananda yoga class. In fact, I read on the spa’s website that even the kitchen staff and gardeners must attend a yoga class once a week. I hope they like it. I know Chinggay does. She told me that as a result of taking yoga classes she’s decided that she wants to spend time on an ashram. I credit Mo-Ching Yip, a yoga instructor, spa consultant and wife of Dieter Schrottmann, Mandala’s co-owner with Karen Villarica-Reina (see personalities on website). I believe that together they are creating an environment that is not just a pretty construct but a living breathing thing.

Levitating Yogi

I recently stumbled upon a great spa blog called Asia's Best Spa and Massage Review. (See blogroll.) The author, Katherine, lives in Singapore and is a wealth of knowledge on the spa scene in Asia. In a recent post she has included a video of a levitating yogi. It's a must see. Go visit her.

Mandala Spa and Resort is So Much More Than This

I learned about the two-to-a-room practice while at the Mandala Spa on Boracay. Our little group—three of journalists who had attended the Spa Asia Wellness Summit in Manila—arrived at dusk. On our rickety jipney we turned off the rackety main road to follow the simple sign (see logo, top left) that would lead us to a little piece of paradise—one of many. The grounds were enchanting. The design was so simple that I felt absolutely absorbed into its purity. A lovely woman named Preeti,, all dressed in white, held her right hand to her heart and welcomed us. Soon hot ginger tea arrived. I drank in the beauty and serenity along with my tea. I think I sighed a lot. As I wended my way through the wooded grounds—left to the Watsu pool, right to the yoga studio and upstairs to Prana, the vegetarian restaurant, where all the produce is grown onsite, and which overlooks White Beach—I wanted to pull out my credit card and book a room right there, right then, for the remainder of my stay. The place felt like The Land That Time Let Be.

Soon, Chinggay came to take me to the massage room. There were two beds. I didn’t know one of them would soon be filled with K, an American woman living in Bangkok that I’d only met that morning and who was part of our entourage. MC, who I’ve mentioned in my last post, was also in our group. She and I had rooms across the hall from one another at the Sofitel, where the Wellness Summit had taken place, and we had become friendly. MC told me that morning that she knew K, that K had lived with her and another friend a few years earlier in Bangkok. She also told me that K had skipped out on the rent. Just what an overly sensitive, people-pleasing Libra like me needs: to be caught between two women who are not speaking to each other.

In fact, I’d been handling it pretty well. Somehow I managed to float a few inches above the tension. Dare I say I even felt pleased with myself for being the human cushion that they both leaned against occasionally so that it wasn’t even obvious to our guide Rene that the two of them never actually spoke to one another.

What I didn’t know was that shortly after I’d been whisked away to my own room, K and MC were being led—together—to another. Luck of the draw. But K couldn’t handle it; in fact, she refused to enter a room with MC. I can only imagine how the lovely and gentle staff felt by this sudden burst of . . .rancor. What did they do? They separated them and put K in my room. By this time I was about 5 – 10 minutes into my session. Here I was, face down with my head in the face pillow and I hear someone entering and sotto voce talking.

What is that? It surely took me out of my own peace. Fortunately, I was done 5 – 10 minutes before K so we weren’t forced to dress or undress together. But I was scratching my head the whole time, metaphorically, of course. The massage lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes and on and off, I wondered who the heck was in my room. Remember this was my first twosome experience so I was doubly confused. I don’t know that all the other treatment rooms were taken, and I don’t know that they weren’t. Again, tradition has it that sharing is nothing unusual and so the doubling up was pro forma.

I can’t help but wonder how the outburst affected K’s therapist. After all, negative energy flows both ways. She may have had great difficulty working on K. I know I felt it, though it wasn’t until afterwards when MC fairly pounced on me to relate K’s scandalous behavior that the gaps were filled in for me. Let me just say that for the Libra that I am, always looking to smooth things over and make everyone else in the room comfortable, I stood up for myself when MC approached me. I put my palm up, shook my head and gently said, Please.

MC got it and apologized and floated away. K left early the next morning.

Two in One

One of the surprising things I found about spa-ing in Asia is that it is common practice to book friends and acquaintances in the same treatment room. Here is the US we are so private that it would be considered a real breach in etiquette to do so. Yet I shared a room during all of my massage treatments, except when I arrived alone.

No, I didn’t like it much. I especially didn’t like the pre- and post-treatment times when I was in various stages of dress and undress. I felt awkward and it put some of the tension back into me that had just been removed in the last hour or so. Also, ever aware of maintaining my roommate's privacy, I sometimes felt at a loss as to where to focus my gaze.

But I also felt that my awkwardness was my problem, not theirs. In other words, part of entering another culture is that you expect to conform to it, not the other way around. I think Americans are especially guilty of fancying ourselves the center of a universe in which everyone and thing should revolve around us. So I tried to give myself an attitude check and as time went on each session got a little easier—and I got a little better at covering up strategically and at figuring out how best to allow my roommate as much privacy as possible. It started working out pretty well.

I think this is a really important point for all spa goers to consider, no matter if you’re in your home country or not: Not everyone likes what you like. What might be considered absolute heaven for someone else might turn out to be your particular nightmare scenario for you. That’s why—even though I know I have a hard time practicing what I preach—you’ve got to let your feelings be known so that the spa can do its best to accommodate you.

In fact, I have a rather funny story about that, which I will share in tomorrow’s post.

The Unbearable Lightness of Spa-ing, Part II

No, I didn’t complain, and I got into a “thing” about it with a Dutch journalist, MC, who also attended the Summit and who I was spending a few days with. The day before we’d gone to a drop-dead fabulous spa called Tirta, which I’ll talk more about another time. She told me after the massage, having been given forms on which to grade our therapists, she had given hers the lowest rating. She said the therapist was awful because she pulled her hair. (This hair connection is totally coincidental.) Worse than just giving her a lousy rating, the other therapist—mine—noticed it and pointed it out to her while we were still in the treatment room. (Note: In Asia, all massages are couples massages. If you come with another person, they will use one treatment room. But that too is another story.) MC saw her therapist grow completely deflated after seeing her rating. She was annoyed that the other therapist pointed it out while she was still there, but I think more than that she was looking for reassurance because she felt a little bad. I couldn’t give it to her.

I agree the therapist shouldn’t have looked at the ratings until we were gone. But we were there as journalists and were given, I’m sure, what the spa manager thought were the finest therapists. So I think the rating shocked them. But I was more shocked that MC was so cavalier about giving a bad rating. We had a big debate about it. MC is a tough cookie. I always thought I was a tough cookie but it turns out that on these matters compared to her my personality is like, say, Ellen DeGeneres eating cotton candy while holding a hot water bottle, sitting on Buddha's lap .

For customers, it's always hard to know when is the right time to complain. If the treatment isn't great many people feel it's easier just to get through it. Some people just get bored and start making a mental grocery list. But what about journalists who are given free treatments? What is our obligation? MC, who was sharing a treatment room with me and was situated less than three feet away, said she didn't want to talk loudly and disturb my peace. (She does have a heart, after all, just not when she's in review mode.) Do I as a journalist receiving free massages have a right to complain? An obligation? Should the journalist complain right then or there or save it for the mass printing? When is the right time for any of us to complain?

The Unbearable Lightness of Spa-ing

Now that I’ve described my least favorite spa experience while I was in the Philippines, here comes the more difficult task—attempting to pick a favorite, which I already know I cannot do. So maybe let’s go for the second least favorite. Maybe process of elimination is the only way to do this.

At the risk of sounding incorrigibly spoiled by too much of a good thing, I have to tell you that I was not at all impressed with Chi Spa, in the Edsa Shangra-La Hotel. I know, five-star hotel, award-winning spa brand, what’s the problem, Spadette? It’s probably more a function of the fact that Chi is located in a hotel. I don’t care much for hotel spas because they have to appeal to such a wide variety of people. The hotel is going to have visitors from countries all over the world who come from all walks of life. That’s quite a segment of the population to please. How do you tease out levels of spa expertise, the tastes, the cultural disparities of such an enormous group? You don’t. So you go middle of the road.

That’s what I disliked about Chi Spa. But what really bothered me is that it didn’t deliver what it promised. The Shangri-La hotel has a distinctive Asian flavor and the spa menu reflects that. It offers several exotic treatments unique to Asia. When I was booking my treatment, however, things became a little muddled—or clearer, if you buy into my theory of hotel spa gentrification. When I asked the receptionist about the treatments under the heading “traditional massage,” as explained they didn’t sound so traditional to me. For example, they offer Tui Na, which is a Chinese treatment, except that when she described it the treatment suddenly included Swedish massage. Wha? The Philippine Hilot, I think, also had Swedish, and some Shiatsu, which is Japanese.

No matter, I was signing up for the Himalayan Head and Scalp Massage. By this time, I’d had several full-body treatments for several days in a row—I know! I’m so sorry to brag! I craved a break. Also, I’d heard of this head and scalp treatment, which sounded so luxurious, but never had one. Who doesn’t like to have their head and scalp massaged, I ask? Let them mix it up with a little Japanese this or Chinese that, I’m going to have an hour and fifteen minute head and neck massage orgy! I felt I covered my bases—or at least the most important base, my head.

We can skip over the look of Chi Spa. It’s totally beautiful eye candy, so enough said. We can even skip over my lovely therapist, D. Or maybe we shouldn’t. D, in fact, sort of muddled my spa experience beyond my menu issues. When we were walking to the massage room Dang asked me why I didn’t consider having a whole body massage in addition to the scalp and head. This question was a little like being offered a plate of delightful food—take your pick of whatever would be most scrumptious to you—and as you select your one or two pieces, thank the server and are about to take a bite, the server says, “That’s it? Really? Why don’t you take a few more pieces? Come on, there’s plenty. You know you want it.”

It throws you off your game. First I didn’t question my decision. “No, that’s okay." I said. "I’m fine with just the head massage. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to it.”

“Alright,” she says, sounding deflated.

Now, an hour and fifteen minutes is a long time, so as she’s working on my back, which surprises me since it’s a HEAD and SCALP massage, D points out that I have knots back there. Knots that, if they have not been removed after the amount of massages I’ve had thus far, it should be assumed I will have forever and ever. I own them. Or they own me. But instead of telling her not to worry about it, I cave. I tell her it’s okay to work on my back a bit. It seems to make her happy. More time passes and though she should well be on the head by now, she asks if it’s okay to work on my legs. Oy.

I like D, she told me her story—teenage daughter she’s raising alone, loves the States, hopes to be transferred to one of the Chi Spas that will be opening here in the States within the next couple of years so that she can fulfill her dream and have her daughter attend a good university. As I’ve talked about so many times, it’s hard to complain to a massage therapist about your treatment when you’re in the throes of it. You’re naked, she’s not, and she’s being so nice. And if I were paying full price ($90-ish—cheap by US standards) things may have been different. I may have stood up for myself. Instead, I just got bored. I totally give up on the idea that this was going to balls-out fun for my head and now it’s not.

You get pretty good at calculating time when you’ve had a lot of massages and so I sort of mentally check out until about, oh, ten minutes before the treatment is to end. I start coming back to life when she begins to zero in on my head. “Here it comes,” I think. “So what if it’s short, it’s going to be sweet sweet.”

But it wasn’t. I’ve had better scalp massages at Sine Qua Non, my hair salon in Chicago. Sometimes my stylist asks the adorable Mexican lady—whose job is usually to sweep up shorn hair and such—if she’s got a sec to shampoo me. Now, that lady knows her way around a scalp. Dang did a sort of gentle tugging at little chunks of hair, using a rhythmic beat. Is that what they do in the Himalayas? I have no idea. But it was weak. And I think I can safely say that I’ve still never had a Himalayan Head and Scalp Massage.

Look for Part II on this story tomorrow.

By the way, I don't know what The Unbearable Lightness of Spa-ing is supposed to mean, either. I just needed to title for the blog.

By the way again, if you click on the Himalayan Head and Scalp Massage link in this post it will get you to an Indian Head Massage. I couldn't even find anything with the words head and Himalayan.

Happy Birthday to Me, Korean Style

My own birthday was on October 10. I spent it at the base of Mt. Pinatubo, a not-much-thought-about volcano until it erupted in the Philippines in 1991, after hundreds of years of slumber. I’d heard about hot springs occurring naturally after the eruption near the crater, and that a spa—called Spa Town—had opened, somewhat making the best of Pinatubo’s ghastly emission, which made the area a ghost town and displaced a local tribe called the Aita. (Though I’m not sure you can displace nomadic people. Actually what happened is that they ended up taking root in the area and, with some help, they’ve been taught to make touristy objets d’art from the ash that almost destroyed them. Progress? You decide.)

I should preface my day at Spa Town by saying that in the 10 or so days I spent in the Philippines I visited more spots that I can only describe as paradise and experienced more insanely divine Asian spa treatments than any mere human like myself should be allowed. (Not really; I deserved it, but so does everyone else. I wish I could have taken you all with me.) So if my birthday wasn’t spent in total bliss, hey, it’s an interesting story to tell and like I always pray, May I live an interesting life, I got my wish.

Spa Town is a decidedly different kind of spa experience. First, it’s Korean and though I can’t make judgments, the only other Korean spa experience I’ve had is in my hometown of Chicago and is called Paradise, which has become a sort of post-modern cult-y spa-esque experience for a small group of hipsters and lots of Korean-Americans. I’d post their website, if they had one. But I don't think they're in on the joke. In fact, I think they wish those hip, young Americans would just go away. Like Spa Town, the style and vibe in Paradise is not relaxation-, or luxury-, or pampering-focused. In fact, it’s sort of the antithesis. It’s a little gruff and, I found out, it can be a lot scary.

At Spa Town the facilities are totally outdoors and look beautiful, peaceful and serene. There is piped-in music that’s not quite ethereal spa music we’re accustomed to hearing. It is more like classical with a contemporary Asian flavor. I liked it. An enormous covered pavilion sat in the center of the grounds. Ladies in beautiful gold tunics were giving Thai massages while other workers industriously polished the pavillion's wood floor and the like, and generally emanated gentility. Off to one end, there was bricked-in area, this one filled with grey sulfur that had been raked smooth. On its edges were two ovens with attendants feeding the mouths kindling to heat the sulfur (check out the photo on the left). Another one exactly like it but filled with salt sat next to it. Circling further, there was a great mud bath, some showers and then a locker area.

I’m going to somewhat spare you the comical/grim trip to the hot springs, which are higher up alongside the volcano and require a 45-minute drive on what looked like the moon but was actually just a rocky, craggy and sometimes-covered-in-water expanse. I'll just give you the thumbnail sketch of that portion of my birthday. Yes, the drive up was surreal, sometimes spooky. But what was spookier is that Spa Town is located just next to Crow Valley. For the unacquainted, the U.S. essentially colonized the Philippines at the turn of the century for about 40 years, until the 1940s. They used Crow Valley to test bombs and munitions, and it continues to serve that purpose for the Filipino Air Force. We were stopped twice while trying to get to the hot springs by soldiers wearing military uniforms and carrying big guns, which was admittedly freaky except when you looked at their feet and saw that they were wearing flip flops when it became sort of sad.) Apparently, even though we were given the OK to proceed by the major on duty, target practice was in full swing and so we had to keep stopping to avoid, um, death.

It was idyllic Spa Town that really put me on the edge, however, and tested my will. Once it was decided my spa treatment was to begin, three staffers, one of them carrying a shovel, took me by the arms and walked me to the sulfur pen. It’s highly unusual for the Philippines, but none of these people spoke much English—and I was beginning to need some reassurance. All I heard was great discussion in Tagalog on how big a pit to dig—for me. It was dug quickly and they motioned for me to step in. What I remember most is the inner battle I was having with myself: Should I bail now, just say No Way, and regret forever that I will never know what could have happened, could never write about it like I am here? Or should I foolishly, cavalierly and because I don’t like to offend, get in that pit, get buried and risk a full-out panic attack?

I got in. They started shoveling. I didn’t like it. It felt creepy, grainly, itchy. And very hot. Shake your body! Shake your body! They kept saying. It wasn’t until my left leg felt like it was on fire that I understood what they meant. By shaking, your body settles into the sulfur, the better to feel the hot spots. As I lifted my legs as much as I could, the guy with the shovel put more sulfur under them. Better. But not much. Someone took a cloth and put it over my eyes. I don’t like that I can’t see. Not. One. Little. Bit. For the ash! For the ash, they say, when I struggle to get it off. I am now buried up to my neck, though they’ve taken the cloth off my eyes.

Half hour is my sentence, I’m told. I’m already sweating hotly and two of the attendants are gone. One young boy remains, but I don’t know that yet. I think I’m alone and so I gather my senses and begin to breathe as deeply and as evenly as I can. I think of the Sanskrit mantra Elizabeth Gilbert recites in “Eat, Pray, Love:” Ham-Sa. I Am That. And for now, “that,” for me, is terrified and sweating profusely.

Suddenly, I feel a hand holding a soft cloth to my face, and, with the same expert touch a mother has with her child, the boy begins wiping the sweat off my cheeks, around my eyes, on my chin and finishing on the forehead. He’ll do that every few minutes, or whenever he sees me twitch. That boy saw me through my half hour burial and I love him for it—though I think he was lying to me the final ten minutes when I began to ask for a countdown; I KNOW how ten minutes feels, and my friends, this was longer than 10 minutes. I struggled again and again. Just get up. Just get up. But I stuck it out until the boy gave me the okay.

I am super lady! For a moment, anyway.

After showering the sulfur off I am led to Dante’s next level of hell and am packed in mud and told to bake in the sun. This time a female attendant sits with me. She asks me questions about the US and why I am there. She is a nice distraction.

By the time I had my Thai massage, boy, did I need it. The therapist was great and the spa feeling I love so much returned. Best of all, I lived to tell the story here. Whoo-hoo. Happy birthday to me!

Blog Action Day Dedicated Post

Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 87 years old if he hadn’t died this year in May. My dad was “buried” in a mausoleum, a practice that saves land space. I was just there yesterday with my mom and sister and we were all commenting on how much nicer it is to visit him in the covered outdoor space instead of having to go tromp to a grave, especially when it’s raining, like it was yesterday.

Though mausoleums help the environment, my dad was still embalmed, and that’s not such a "green" practice. Had he been cremated it wouldn’t have been much better, since that wastes a lot of energy and fossil fuels.

For those interested in eco-friendly ways to consider burial, for yourself or a loved one, here’s a great web site to look at the facts and some options.

Also, in 2005 the writer Tad Friend wrote an interesting piece about a man named Tyler Cassity and Fernwood, his eco-friendly burial business. It’s just the abstract—the New Yorker doesn’t make their archives easily available—but maybe you can do better at finding the piece in its entirety.

Left is a picture of him when he was already pretty sick. He's posing with my sister Anita.

Happy birthday, Ralph Spinelli. You were and are a sweet and lovely father. I miss you lots.

And Yea for Blog Action Day!

Mabuhay!

Mabuhay means hurrah (or live, thrive) in filipino/tagalog. This is according to one of those online translators so don't get mad if it's not an exact translation.

It describes the excitement I'm experiencing about heading off to the Philippines early (too early) Sunday morning. I'm going to be attending the Wellness Summit, which is sponsored by Spa Asia, a group I've talked about before on this blog. It's three days of some of the biggest names in healers, spa experts, like Neil Jacobs, who I've also talked about on this blog, and other industry professionals who will be discussing the state of the industry and how we could be doing better—as well I'm sure about what we're already doing right—in the Land of Spa. I'm very excited to be invited to attend as a journalist and then to report about it in the International Spa Association's trade publication, Pulse.

I'll try to write from there but, alas, Mercury is again going retrograde. (It begins October 9 but I can already feel the strong slow-down energy taking hold, especially when I called to confirm my flight reservation and was told that the computer inexplicably dropped my reservation; it's fine now.) If I don't manage it, check back after October 12, my return date, when I hope to be brimming with new ideas that I learned along the way!

Until then,

Mabuti!

Point-illism

I found a blog the other day with a great name. It’s called Lazy yogi. (That’s a yogi after my own heart.) In it, the write talks about points. The points I’m referring to in this case, of course, have nothing to do with Seurat—though that’s not to say that these points are not in themselves a work of art. These are energy points, or junctures, in the body between which energy, or life force, flows, and they correspond to points on the body and the organs.

Most people are familiar with acupuncture points. Then there are reflexology points. But the Lazy Yogi talks about the lesser-known marma points used in Ayurveda. They’re said to house the three pillars of life, or doshas. Marma points massage is becoming more popular in spas.

The only other points I know about are used in Jin Shin Jyutsu. All of the points in Jin Shin Jyustu are in the hands, which are used as "jumper cables," to make contact with 26 "safety energy locks." These redirect, or unblock the flow of energy along its pathways.

I went to a Jin Shin Jyustu session once and we sat with a group for about an hour during which we were supposed to listen to energy pulses in our wrists and then work with the leader who talked us through the 26-point sequence, which was supposed to reharmonize and restore our energy blocks. Some people fell asleep but it seemed to be okay to do that.

That one session was not life transforming for me, but there Jin Shin Jyustu followers all over the world. The history is interesting. It’s an ancient Japanese practice that was rediscovered by Jiro Murai, a philosopher. He passed on this information to a contemporary woman named Mary Burmeister.

Any other points I’m missing?

Sinus Attack

On Thursday morning I woke up with a nasty sinus headache. I attributed it to the weather change—for the better, but change is change to my sinuses, and they react. Despite my healthy lifestyle philosophy, I wanted a quick fix so I took a couple of Benadryl. It occurred to me that I should have started a regimen of irrigation with warm water, salt and baking soda, but I felt lazy. With the pain masked, I took a long walk along the lake instead. During the course of the day if I felt the headache coming back I popped a couple more pills. I felt better, until I didn’t.

The next morning it was more of the same, except now I also felt tension in my shoulders and neck from the headache, and the Benadryl was no longer helping. So this time, after irrigating and feeling some relief, I called my massage therapist and got squeezed in for a 10am with him. He pulled out all the stops for me. Besides working on loosening my neck, shoulders and back muscles, he massaged my sinuses. He also introduced me to the “scaling” muscles in my neck, which he said were great for draining the mucous and lymph glands. These are the muscles used when singing, he told me, and if I really wanted to help myself I should go home and sing at the top of my lungs and that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do that on a regular basis. He wasn’t joking.

Next came some reflexology. The first two toes are related directly to the sinuses so he pressed hard on those points. It hurt. A lot. But not as much as the sooji hand needle. I wish that I could at least take credit for dreaming up the fake English translation for sooji: “90 days past due.” That credit probably goes to a bunch of acupuncture students (of which my therapist was once one), sitting around between patients while doing their required clinic hours, talking about their future careers.

I can, however, vouch for the pain that inspired it. The sooji hand needle looks like something the dentist would use to attack a bad case of tartar but it has a blunt tip, which could fool you into thinking it wouldn't hurt much. The sinus acupuncture points are on the tips of the middle fingers. the level of pain is directly related to the degree of blockage. I'd estimate that mine—blunt tip or not—must have been hovering, oh, around 99%.

I left feeling much better, though, just like I did after taking that first round of Benadryl. And later the pain came back, just like it did with the pill popping. It’s now Sunday and I’m finally starting to feel like whatever I had is on its way out; the body will heal itself eventually whether you help it or not. Had I gone the natural route from the beginning it would of course have been much better for my body. The problem with Benadryl is that it dries up the sinuses so much that it irritates them, thereby exacerbating headaches and creating a vicious circle. But it’s easy to pop pills. Not only isn't it easy to fit the more time-consuming route into your schedule or your budget, but you have to be committed to put aside time for regular irrigation, for loud singing and to have daily visits for rounds of torture by reflexology and acupuncture. It’s no wonder people pop pills.

And Speaking of Community . . .

There was a story in the New York Times travel section, in their special Hotel and Spa issue, about how offering wi-fi is popping up in spas, a practice designed for the spa goer who is ostensibly there to relax but is unable to if he or she cannot stay connected. This is just so weird to me. The reason I’d like to see the practice banished before it gets out of control is the cell phone.


Though the article clearly states that cell phones are still verboten in the spa environment, I liken allowing people to plug in while in the spa to cell phone use in public, which is hands down out of control. Ha! I think I just made a pun.

People noodling on their gadgets, whether it’s blackberries, lap tops or cell phones, are not engaged in their environment, they are inward focused, not participating, present members of a community. This can further create rude behavior and missteps—even if it’s unintentional—not to mention, in the case of cell phones, serious accidents. You’ve seen them on streets, on trains, or worst of all in cars, users so immersed in conversation that they lose all sense of boundaries and treat public space like it’s their personal living room. Or bedroom. (Yuck.)

If being plugged in proliferates as a practice in spas, it will not only cramp others’ relaxation, but in a sense it will be catering to the lowest common denominator—something that politicians do brilliantly. So let’s keep politics out of the spa environment and we’ll all be better people for it.

More on Bathhouses

The commenter of my Hot Springs post prompted today’s post. She compares those bathhouses to hammams, which she rightly notes are now being offered on modern spa menus.

According to some of the reading I’ve done, hammams originated in northern Africa and date back to the 1500s. Though modeled on the old European and Middle Eastern traditions, the similarities between the Hot Springs bathhouses in Arkansas versus those ancient practices around the world, seems to center on intent: health versus relaxation. Which, by the way, regarding the spa experience, Americans today still seem on the fence about whether it should be one or the other. It’s a conundrum because the vast majority of treatments on modern spa menus derive almost exclusively from ancient practices, which have therapeutic value.

Oddly, in the case of bathhouses versus hammams, things are flipped. Hammams are and were a social hub, communal places to go to relax and hang out with friends and make friends with strangers, as you took your ablutions, steamed, purified and replenished your body and capped the experience with a massage. This was the therapy as relaxation and a great way to start or end any day, not to mention as a midday booster.

Not so in the case in the bathhouses, such as the one I visited in Hot Springs. Those existed to provide therapeutic relief for sick people. They called it “the water cure” your visit was solely intended to improve, or hopefully vanquish, your existing diseases, by giving in to the 4,000 year-old thermal waters believed to have properties. The environment of the bathhouse was clinical, stark and very very serious. In many cases I’m sure people benefited greatly. But these places were the haunts for the likes of the health crusader John Harvey Kellogg of Corn Flakes
cereal fame. It’s said he was a great surgeon, but for every good idea he had (vegetarianism, inventing the electric blanket) he had his share of bad ones (the female orgasm was abnormal but nothing a good hit of carbolic acid couldn’t rectify).

Though a couple of old Turkish baths have recently reopened in Chicago, I haven't gathered my flip flops and taken the plunge. The closest I’ve come to a hammam in the Midwest is actually a Korean bathhouse called Paradise. It’s a blast, a real scene and strongholf for the Asian community in Chicago's Albany Park. But you can't be faint of heart if you want to hold your own to the Korean women who frequent the place; they take their relaxation seriously so it’s not for the squeamish. But the prices can’t be beat—$20, massages are extra.

In fact, now that I think about it, I may have visited Paradise with the commenter who prompted this post, and who, by the way, happens to be my friend.

I’d love to hear more comments about other hydrotherapies you have known and loved so don’t be a stranger.

The photo, top left, comes courtesy of cyberbohemia.com

Last train to Hot Springs

When I was 19 my sister and I took a side trip around the island of Sicily during a two-month family stay in my mom’s home town of Sant’ Ambrogio on Sicily’s northern coast, just an hour or so from Palermo. Sant’ Ambrogio has a population of about 200 but a mere seven kilometer drive will land you in Cefalù, which has become wildly popular since those visits of my youth. It was already well on its way to being a vacation hotspot—I recall it swarming with mostly German tourists—but now I wouldn’t consider going there in July and August, which were our usual vacation months.

That summer we took a train around the periphery of the island, stopping to stay where the spirit moved us. I don’t remember how it happened—I think we just followed the crowds—but one day we found ourselves hopping a ferry headed for Lipari, one of what is usually referred to as the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Some of us went for the scenery and to have a new experience, but the older people were looking to bask in the healing mud baths, the source of which was the volcanic pumice quarry.

As soon as we debarked, people began peeling off their clothes and wading into the chalky waters. It didn’t take much before my sister and I started slathering ourselves with mud. Oh, if I could only upload those photos! But it was long before the digital age. Each time we’d look at each other we’d guffaw and slather some more. The whole place smelled of matchsticks and for a solid week, no matter how many times we washed ourselves, as soon as our skin dried it turned the same pale white of the mud.

That was my first experience with man’s rush to yield to nature’s healing properties, even though I was thankfully free of desperation because at 19 nothing much ever hurts.

So last week I decided to spend a few days at the (relatively) nearby hot springs in Arkansas, to check out the old bathhouses on the strip located right across the street from Hot Springs National Park called Bathhouse Row. Most of those old bathhouses are closed down now, though not for long since they've been cleaned up. One is still operational; the Buckstaff, has been running steadily since 1912. I tried to get in for an old-time bathing experience but the lines were long and their hours are short.


So I went to one of the many others instead, the old Arlington Hotel bathhouse. Let’s just say it’s seen better days. Not much of an effort has been made to spiff up the place (unlike the Buckstaff, which has all the charm of an old bathhouse but none of the creeping inevitabilities that a facility regularly hitting steamy temps in excess of 100 degrees would have. I got dunked, scrubbed, wrapped and patted down just like the ladies before me did as long as 140 years ago. The rooms were clinical and stark and no creature-comfort efforts were made.

There are over 100 hot springs in the US alone, mostly on the coasts, and if you’ve never been I encourage you to visit one, just to see what counted as medicine to our forebears. It’s sobering, for sure. But guess what? The bathhouses are experiencing a resurgence of interest as we march willingly back to the days of natural remedies for preventive and disease care.

Franchising Spas

Like most wellness practices, many more of us would partake regularly if the hefty prices didn’t give us big knots in our shoulders or otherwise stress us out. Staying well should not do that. Someone needed to fill the schism between a healthy body and bank account and for now it seems to be the unfortunately named spa franchise, Massage Envy. (Freud anyone?)

The founder, who is not surprisingly male, seems to be doing a bang-up job of filling the vacuum. John Leonesio started out in the health club industry, and for 30 years he did it well. So he took the health club membership model and has applied it to his new venture. It varies from location to location but generally goes like this: Fifty-nine dollar monthly fee gets you a one-hour massage each month. After that you’ll pay around $40 or so for each additional massage. Non-members would pay about $80, which is just about the going rate of an owner-run spa. The ambience will be spa-y but cookie cutter and it will likely be located in a strip mall. (Many are.)

Help me out to understand something here. Yes, there are savings in those figures and yes, our mantra is Bring wellness to the people. Actually, it wasn’t but I’m hereby proclaiming that to be the mantra until further notice. But! But! But! (As the great PeeWee Herman once said, Why do all my friends have such big buts?) Is this really the way to go?

So many thoughts, questions and concerns swirl I can barely get hold of them all without hurting myself. The first question that comes to mind is, What does this mean for the individually owned spas that go out to search for and hire therapists who are the most seasoned and professional and have nurturing dispositions? And what of the struggling mom and pop one-table operations? If they had to match those prices it would mean taking food off the table. So how do all those skilled, healing hands compete?

I heard Leonesio speak and he comes across like a kind and rational man—a businessMan, that is—but he demands that his franchisees share his mindset. One of the most troubling comments he made was that he tells potential franchisees "right off," whom he puts through a rigorous vetting process to make sure they know their way around a spread sheet, that they “are not in the massage business.” The therapists are, he says somewhat unhelpfully.

Leonesio goes out searching for people whose skill sets are strong in marketing, sales and management. Most of them, he says, come from corporate America “looking for a change.” I apologize in advance for my cynicism, but I read this as burnt-out people, who don’t want to compromise the lifestyle to which they’ve grown accustomed, looking to capitalize on the next growth industry. One that allows them to trade in their suits for a statue of Shiva.

Meow.

The biggest question that comes to mind is how are those business brainiacs going to manage massage therapists, who are practically by definition constitutionally anathema to bottomline concerns? Shouldn’t they be just sorta kinda familiar with their therapists’ needs? And after franchiser and franchisee get their cut what, exactly, is left for them? Leonesio says he recruits therapists from massage schools so the therapists will be green and hungry and grateful for the work. But it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be good massage therapists. It will remain to be seen how long they stick around before they too start looking for a kinder, gentler industry to enter—and how long Massage Envy does, too, for that matter.

The franchise has already identified about 1200 locations targeted for opening. I think they’re about a third of the way there.

I don’t think I’m done with this topic yet. So perhaps the next related topic I should explore is elitism in the Land of Spa and me.

Almond Eyes, Lotus Feet

I’ve heard it said by other spa cognoscenti that most spa goers really don’t care about the origins of their spa treatments—the hows and whys of the benefits—that they don’t have the time and all they care a hoot about is that they leave feeling good.

I tend to disagree. I think the advantages of being enlightened to the sometimes spiritual/mystical/magical bases for treatments can be compared to the Slow Food or eating-locally movements whose missions—I’m paraphrasing liberally here—are knowing where your food came from as a deeper way of enjoying it. As in: I raised this cow, I slaughtered this cow and I will now eat this cow.

With spas, I think that the more we’re groomed to appreciate the ritual aspects as part of the inherent healing process, the better each new treatment will help us to develop a more highly attuned sense of how our bodies are responding or what they need—not to mention learning to recognize when we’re getting a quality treatment vs. a hack job. It will also raise our body awareness such that we will grow into partnership with our practitioners. No more handing ourselves over like a slab of meat.

Here ancient cultures have it over Westerners. To that end, I'm recommending a book that has not yet even hit the bookstores in the US, but has been a bestseller in India, called “Almond Eyes, Lotus Feet,” by Sharanda Dwivedi and Shalini Devi Holkar, both from Mumbai. (The latter is a princess through marriage. How's that for magical thinking?) The book, a fictional memoir, weaves the stories of one Indian princess and her beauty secrets with cultural insights and, as only India can depict, colorful photos. The book shares ancient remedies for keeping your hair shiny, skin soft and even includes a glossary of all the plants, spices and herbs to get you from teenage acne (papaya-mint tea) to post-natal strength (cress and rosewater) to menopause. (Though I'm not sure Indian women get the sorts of menopausal symptoms Western women fall prey to and I suspect diet and natural remedies may have something to do with that.)

Why this book? For Indian women, beauty is tradition. Even in the poorest parts of India as they work the fields or carry heavy burdens—real and psychic—women wear beautiful bangles and bright colors and have shiny shiny hair. Their hands are hennaed and their faces dance with splashes of color. Is this inner beauty penetrating outward or vice versa? Either way, I think we have much to learn from them.

"Almond Eyes, Lotus Fee" will be in stores this month. In fact, as I write this, according to Harper Collins website, the countdown is exactly 12 days, 10 hours, 34 minutes and 23. . .22. . .21 second away.

Laboring to Find a Good Day Spa

For non-US readers, today is just an ordinary Friday. But here the weekend has already begun—a long holiday weekend in honor of Labor Day. Many either have a short work day or none at all. (Freelancers must ride the wave of our editors’ vacay plans. We have become maddeningly accustomed to our schedules either grinding to a halt days before the holiday and stretching days beyond it, or being pushed double time for copy delivery, like, yesterday.)

Before leaving for work today my partner, who will only be working until noon, announced that he would love for both of us to a massage. Surprise. Surprise. I’m always game and I love it when he is. My job was to find a place that was a) good, b) had two openings at the same time on such short notice, and c) fit our plans, which included lunch, which further included a place that had good French fries (but that was for my partner to find) and some shopping.

I love this kind of challenge.

I called Spa Nordstrom first. Does it sound strange to say that my favorite local spa is a chain? For me, Spa Nordstrom has consistently offered the best services at a decent price. And I love the ambience: just the right balance of mind-traveling serenity with the right touch exoticism. Alas, they had no openings today. (Had they, I would have gone for the abhyanga massage. It’s an Ayurvedic treatment and thoroughly blissful.)

This, I thought, is the perfect opportunity to try out a new spa that I'd heard about. The day spa, called Silken Tent, is surprisingly located in a rather bland suburb, a negative for sure. But the offerings are expansive (ambitious?) beyond bodywork and treatments, and include yoga to wellness counseling, a cafe to retreats. I figured since they’ve only been open for a week they’ll likely be able to accommodate us. But when I checked out their menu online I gasped at the prices. The services were all a good 20% higher than the going rate of most local spas I have been to with excellent reputations. For an unknown quantity, this really bothered me. I feel the client is being asked to cover their overhead without their having proven they’re worth it.

I also felt they may be a little off the mark. Didn’t we just hear that due to an industry glut day spa revenues are going down, not up?

If we can make the times work (4:30pm), we’re going to opt for Kaya Day Spa. Kaya, which is much more centrally located and has a first-rate reputation for quality services, has better prices and, I’m thinking, their finger more firmly on the pulse of the industry. They are offering 15% off coupons for first-time clients and generous (up to 30%) coupons for many other treatments.

Have a great holiday.

A Case for Virginity

While doing research on a spa in the Philippines called Farm at San Benito, I noticed that they promote coconut oil’s health benefits—or rather Virgin Coconut Oil, because like olive oil apparently they’re not all created equal. This is scandalous by some standards. Didn’t we swear off fats, trans or otherwise, ages ago? Because some brands are recommended over others, at first I thought that, like Xango and Goji juice, it was another one of those multilevel marketing scams. I don't think it is.

Yet I still don’t know how I feel about the fact that it’s being touted to prevent heart disease, as the only fat that diabetics can safely consume, great for weight loss and loads of other miraculous-sounding claims, but apparently there are some altmed studies indicating that it’s very high in antioxidants. And if nothing else, they say it’s a good cooking oil because unlike vegetable oils, including olive, it’s resistant to oxidative rancidity. (Though I can’t help but think its powerful flavor has got to be a drawback those times you just don't fancy coconut flavor, and it wouldn’t work for non-Asian cuisines.) It’s also said to be good for the skin and hair, which sounds right.

For people like us, who truly ascribe to natural lifestyles and are considerate of what we put into our bodies, claims made for products like virgin coconut oil creates a mini crisis of belief. Just when we thought we had sufficiently beaten back the medical establishment’s fearmongering of anything not FDA and AMA approved, and after seeing—and experiencing for ourselves—how ancient cultures’ diets and natural healing traditions really do work, out comes a claim that sounds foreign to us and we’re all dubious again.

So I emailed my friend and steady source of medical advice, Dr. Stephen Devries. He’s a highly respected “integrative” cardiologist who’s breaking new ground by frequently prescribing alternative therapies, supplements and lifestyle changes instead of the usual regimen of drugs commonly prescribed but with deleterious side effects. I asked him what he thought about virgin coconut oil. He said he’s read the claims and can neither refute nor support them, which means either his Western creds are peaking though or he speaks like a true diplomat. But he didn’t blow it off either. So I’m not supporting virgin coconut oil here, necessarily. I found some websites of interest but nothing that I considered unbiased. This one, though still one-sided, lists several books and links to articles on the subject so you can make up your own mind.

Lost in Translation, or Color Me Pink

The other day I was scrambling to send samples of my writing work to a potentially new client. The pdf files of the articles I’d created were too big and in my infinite (or finite) techno-unsavvy wisdom I couldn’t figure out how to compress them. So I did a little self-googling, figuring surely I could come up with links to some of my online stories I could send.

And I did. But I got sidetracked from that task when I found a post by fellow a blogger named Cristel in which she comments enthusiastically on a story I’d written for Yoga Journal, a travel essay called “Horse Sense,” about an equine workshop I’d participated in called Dancing with Horses.

Cristel is a yoga and a horse enthusiast who lives in San Francisco but writes her entries in French. So I hit the translate button and, well, let's just say much got lost in translation—hysterically so. If you’ve read Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated,” imagines of the driver's botched English will come howling back. (Also reminds me of a Gary Trudeau faux interview in Time magazine with Madonna by an Eastern bloc journalist, which, if anyone can find that for me I’m willing to go lengths to get it from you.)

What follows is first the massacred English-translated commentary originally posted on Friday, April 6, 2007, which poor Cristel, through no fault of her own, has been has been subjected to—and proving once again that technology is not always our friend. After that, for context, is my original Yoga Journal piece.

Happy reading!

(Friday April 6, 2007)

Ref. article “Judicious Horse”

Ca makes one moment that I wanted to speak about an article which is appeared in the review Yoga Newspaper of last March. It was about the article “Horse Sense”. I have it find super interesting and especially it has inspires to me much. As a zootherapeute yogini cavaliere, Ca has speaks to me much! To tell the truth, with a few years in more parmis the horses, it is exactly the kind of program which I will have been able to make.

The auteure of the article, Pink Spinelli, has participle has a workshop gives has the ecrurie Equine Magic At Loghaven (close to Chicago). It was about a workshop entitles “dance hall with horses” or the person learned in 4 days has to return in contact with the horse, established a connection with the heart and especially to return from there in contact with her same. The horse is an extraordinary animal which can learn to us much on us same. I had some already speaks in a preceding post about aillor.

For me it is a very therapeutic approach which returns completely in what I learned in zootherapie and that I will like to implement one day (logistiquement difficult for the moment). But what I have especially find interesting it is that each day commencait by a meeting of yoga. Auteure explaining that the persons in charge for the program had additions that after having discovered that people opened more with the horses after a practice. Of aillor it describes very well the effect of the practice of yoga in its article while speaking about the conscience about the beauty about surrounding nature. There is also an effect “preparation physical” also interesting, same if it were not a question at all of assembling the horses here. Yoga has something indeed A brings in work or partnership with the horses. There is for me a connection which becomes increasingly obvious between yoga, spirituality and the horses.

All this encourages me much has continuous in the study of the horses and yoga.

Horse Sense
Yoga Journal March Issue
Travel Essay
by Rose Spinelli

BARS OF RAIN pelt my windshield, slowing traffic and making me fretful. I’m headed to an unusual horse stable—Equine Magic at Loghaven, 60 miles from my Chicago home—for a long-anticipated four-day getaway. But this sudden downpour threatens to make me late and jars my equanimity. The workshop I’m attending is called “Dancing with Horses,” which I’ve just this moment decided has a New Age ring that I don’t like.

Casting judgment is my fallback position when I’m confronted with comfort-zone challenges like the one I’m experiencing now. I catch myself this time, but then flip seamlessly to self-doubt: What if I can’t shake my creeping negativity? What if the horses take a dislike to me? What if four days in the country drives me bats? Thankfully, the day will begin with a yoga class. As fallbacks go, yoga is a more nourishing bet.

Equine Magic is part of a nationwide movement of people who, drawing on years of equine expertise and a deep love of horses, teach a practice called Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning (EFEL). In it, working with horses seldom means riding them; instead, participants communicate through one-on-one contact in a pen. The Epona Approach to EFEL was developed by horse trainer and author Linda Kohanov, of Sonoita, Arizona, whose studies of the horse-human connection convinced her that horses make powerful teachers. Through simple nonverbal interactions, EFEL proponents say, horses can help us build self-confidence and explore buried feelings, which in turn can help us overcome career, relationship, and other difficulties. Kohanov’s theory is that horses resurrect dormant or lost parts of ourselves—intuition, and deep yin energy, for instance.

At Loghaven, the focus is on awakening the spirit and honing emotional skills. Eve Lee and her daughter Kathy Johnson work as a team. They added yoga to the program after they discovered that people opened up more to the horses after practice.

Each day begins with an hourlong yoga class and ends with an extended Savasana. Kathy is trained in the gentle Svaroopa method that uses modified traditional poses to support spinal opening. This is good news; the day before the workshop began, I muscled my way into Virabhadrasana III (Warrior III), exacerbating a niggling hip pain into serious discomfort and imbalance.

Yet more than my sacrum needs balancing. For some time I’ve had a vague notion that I need to take my power back. My sister seems to be projecting familial anger onto me, and a too-needy friend has been sapping my energy. It’s time to pull away a few protective layers and address these things. I need to learn to create boundaries while still connecting with my loved ones. I’m hoping that dancing with horses will help me do that.

Equine Magic sits on 17 acres just south of sacred Potawatami land, much of which is set aside for the horses to graze. For human grazing there is a large organic garden. Overhead, a sandhill crane occasionally sweeps across the sky. The Loghaven building, so named because Eve and her husband handcrafted it from logs and stone, is both cozy and airy.

Yoga classes meet on the lower level, where enormous windows frame the land outside. Inside, our connection to the Divine knows no devotional bias. Native American drums line the walls while a bronze statue of Shiva sits at the head of the class. After yoga—after Kathy has adjusted spines, cradled heads, and covered us with unspeakably soft blankets; after she leaves us with the day’s contemplation: Let your guard down; after we change into boots and denim and trek across a swath of green to the stable—though the air is still thick with moisture, the sky still ominous, I begin to open to the beauty that surrounds us.

Our group is small; in all, we are four women and a man. In a comfy room off the stable, we sit in a circle and Eve shares some basic horse sense: Respect the horses’ boundaries. If we need to, we’re to pick up the wand—basically a long riding crop—that’s always in the center of the pen, and hold it across our body. The horses will respect that.

Eve also shares EFEL fundamentals: Making a heart connection and showing your true self to the horse is the core of the work. If your outer behavior matches your inner emotions, she says, the horse will take you on your terms—even if your emotions are less than sunny. Put on a false self, and the horse will always find a way to let you know. We’ll have several opportunities to enter the pen of our chosen steed. The workshop will culminate in a final “dance,” an improvisational horse-human exchange of energy and free movement, set to music, courtesy of Kathy’s husband, James.

Meeting the herd for the first time is a lot like silent speed dating, and appearances can lead to huge assumptions. My eyes fall upon Ruby, a magnificent 11-yearold dun-colored mare, and I am smitten. As we all do, I share with the group my first impression: I love her and choose to work with her first. When it’s time for Eve to disclose the horses’ stories, she tells us that Ruby is the most volatile; her former name was Strike and Bite. Uh oh. But Ruby is a wise girl, too, Eve says, and I decide to stick with my choice, uncertain whether it’s hubris or instinct at work. Eve doesn’t discourage me; she and Kathy will keep me safe. Just give Ruby wide berth, she says, and remember to use the wand anytime I’m in trouble.

But I never do. Instead I view the wand as a sign of force, and I want to be nice. I misread Ruby’s signals, perceiving stillness as permission to advance. Eve senses Ruby’s nervousness as I close in. “Pick up the wand,” she tells me again and again. But I do nothing. Astonishingly, Ruby begins to nose it, as if to bring balance to our relationship. I understand all this later, but Ruby recognized what little access I had to my emotions right then, and she didn’t trust me.

The horses are masters at role-play, sometimes gentle, sometimes not. During
another session in the pen, Sir Celebrity, a 19-year-old gelding with a great sense of humor, head butts me, backing me up over the wand, which I still can’t seem to pick up. Set your boundaries already, he seems to say.

On our final day, the day we dance, each of us is to choose our partner. While some of us want partners we’ll feel safe with, others need to settle unfinished business. I choose Sir Celebrity. We’re all anxious about looking foolish, but Eve doesn’t judge. She shares with us the wise words of medicine man Rolling Thunder. I do not need to think that thought. “That’s all it takes,” she says. “It gets you out of hell.”

As I watch as the others give in to the swelling music and exchange energy to energy, connect soul to soul, with creatures nearly 10 times their size, I indulge thoughts of giving up. During lunch, as James sets up the speakers and tests the music volume, my little toe somehow finds its way onto a bee, and I get stung. My foot is swollen and hot to the touch. The pain is excruciating. I do not need to think that thought. When my turn comes, I grit my teeth and pull on my boots. I limp to the pen, but once inside, I feel no pain. Time and space have no meaning. If Eve calls out to me, I do not hear. It’s just my horse and me and the warmth of the sun. The music begins, and this time I do not hesitate. I pick up the wand and we dance.

Inappropriate Yoga Guy

Have you seen The Inappropriate Yoga Guy on You Tube? Hilarious. It was made by an online comedy network called GoPotato.tv.

Do you know an Ogden?

The Way

Welcome back, Rose says to herself.

Okay, not being Queen Elizabeth or having the ego of a presidential candidate—who always to say “we” when the mean themselves—I’ll stop talking about myself in the third person. But I haven’t written in a while and this was a way of noting that fact to you, my imaginary reader, who are hopefully not so imaginary.

I’ve come across a Taoist healing practice that, as these things go, I struggle with addressing, as I want to do it justice and not just give a cursory description. This is especially the case since the word Tao means “the way” and it represents a Chinese philosophy and tradition that is well over two thousand years old. And you can’t sum up two thousand years in a blog post. Tao also means “path” —between humans and nature and to peace, compassion and emptiness, or nonattachment.

So I’ll try to stay unattached to how I do at explaining the Taoist healing practice called Chi Nei Tsang. It’s a method of internal organ massage that’s performed to eliminate digestion woes, to detoxify and even boost the immune system. During it, the abdomen is massaged. I suspect many people would find that a challenge our bellies are a most vulnerable spot. Think about when you’re about to give in to a good cover-your-ears-and-get-out-of-the-way sob. What do you do first? You grab your belly. The Chinese believe that our abdominal organs store much of our emotions, so massaging the area is a way of purging emotional charges. All that bound up rot that’s sitting rock-hard in your gut can represent your inability to stand up to your boss, or your mother or that overbearing friend.

What I find so useful about the movement towards wellness and mind-body awareness is that now there are non-threatening places—spas, the massage therapist’s table—where people can readily find relief from physical pains that originate from the stresses of modern life. Not many people—not that I know, anyway—are going to wake up one day, change their lives and hop on a Taoist path to enlightenment. But they can get tiny doses of healing in one-hour spurts. Which add up.

Spas: The State of the Union

I read some surprising news from the International Spa Association via spas.about.com
According to the 2007 state-of-the-industry study by the International SPA Association, though there are currently more day spas this year (775 to be exact), the industry generated more money last year. That means, it seems, that there isn’t enough business to go around. Specifically the spa industry, they say, lost over a billion dollars in revenue. The statistics refer only to day spas. Hotel and resort spas seem to not be affected. So is the medical spa industry. (Why are medspas counted as spas? They’re not spas at all; just well-appointed venues to have non-surgical and surgical beauty treatments.)

I look forward to what will probably be a lively discussion at this year’s ISPA conference, which will be held in Kissimmee, FL on Nov 11-15. But though I want the spa industry to remain healthy and thrive, maybe this is a signal that spa goers are becoming savvier and won’t roll over if they’re not getting the level of service they deserve. Maybe this just makes more room for the pure-of-heart spas to deliver their quality services without bottomliners muscling in to cash in.

Cellular Memory Through Hawaiian Eyes

It’s said that every thought, every trauma, every experience gets stored in your cellular muscle tissues. That means that without a means of release, each of us is potentially storing a buildup of feelings that block energy flow. Touch, in the form of massage and bodywork, aids the process of releasing negative emotional cellular memory lodged in the muscles. That’s why it’s so important to include regular bodywork into your lifestyle especially during challenging times—while experiencing a loss, during stressful work situations and relationship struggles.

Add that to the concept that we are all connected, one cosmic body consciousness representing the universe, and you can see that the wisdom of the universe relies on the well-being every single cell. When we lived fear-based lives those negative forces multiply and tragedies like war result.

So our job is to stay emotionally healthy and bodywork is one good avenue. That wellness practices are now shaping the fabric of our culture and have so linked us to ancient cultures means we have a desire to clear out and make room for a higher consciousness. Good for us.

The traditional Hawaiian Huna Massage philosophy says that. It’s called Kahuna bodywork. Kahuna priests, the keepers of the huna, which means “secret,” perform a massage technique called Lomi lomi, which also means “breaking up into small pieces.” (Got all that?)

The Kahuna believe that old patterns and beliefs stay in the body, awaiting release into heightened awareness, tolerance and compassion. By working with posture, motion and leverage they create a space within to bring about physical change that expands emotions and extend, they say, throughout the cosmos.

Next time you see it as a spa offering, check it out. In the meantime, here’s more information from Aloha International.

Dreamzzzz

I may be stretching the mission of my blog by writing about dream interpretation, but I don’t think so; many ancient healing traditions incorporate dreams. So it could be an excellent spa offering as long as it works to spas' strength and isn’t just a kitchen-sink type menu offering.

And as if this isn’t a long enough preamble to defend including it here, I’ll add that I am writing about dream interpretation today because I’m a) percolating on some bigger spa topics that are still a little gauzy and out of focus, and b) I really want to give a shout out to a fellow blogger. His name is Warren Brown, from the UK. His blog is Wordsmith.

Warren seems to have a variety of interests, and dream interpretation is just one of them. When I first stumbled on him I decided to write and tell him about a dream I had. He said he’d think about it and get back. Yeah, right. I thought. (Sorry, Warren.) Well, today he responded and I can tell you, without getting really personal, that he got it very correct. This is one of the things I love about blogging! Here's how the correspondence went.

Spadette:
Last night I dreamt I found a little bird. The thing I remember most was that I forgot to feed it, yet I found seeds tucked in corners all around. I also remember red dot he/she had on her body. What does it mean?

Wordsmith:
Hi, This post is regarding your dream about the bird. It is possible that there is someone at home who is not getting all the love and affection, which you need to give him or her. The red spot is a health warning sign or an old injury. Bye for now.

The WORLD of Spa

There is an organization under the umbrella name Wellness Media, which is initiating all kinds of endeavors to “bring industry experts, consumers and operators closer together.”

I recently submitted an article for their magazine called SpaAsia, Writer’s Award 2007 contest. (Winner receives a sizable cash prize and the opportunity to write a column for them for one year.) Their intention behind the contest initiative? “By unearthing new talents, the magazine is able to keep offering up fresh ideas and new perspectives to readers and industry operators. Spas are about more than just delivering feel-good factors.”

They further go on to say, “Scruples, or lack of these, can do much harm. It is with this view in mind that SpaAsia thought the rationale of casting the web wider to recruit more writers who can if they choose to become, the voice of conscience for the industry. Ultimately, the industry must deliver what it promises. And the question is: Is our industry mature enough to receive the voice of conscience?”

Some laudable components of their organization are the SpaAsia Foundation and Wellness Summit The Foundation was created to provide support and training for skilled but uncertified Asian practitioners through loans and training programs.

Wellness Summit gathers leading spa professionals to be a guiding voice " to persuade the industry to embrace the wellness industry with a conscience . . . that the collective wisdom of ancient traditions can only be honoured if it is delivered to the consumers with its due measure of integrity." There third summit will be in Manila in October.

I think this is all just so valuable. I’m glad they exist and are the gently policing the industry through education and dialogue!

Is Science of the Afterlife an Oxymoron?

In the West we worship science but love to dabble in the spiritual realm. We practice yoga and we seek out exotic spa treatments that spring from the sacred. We are fence sitters.

I just started reading a perfectly fabulous book called Spook, by Mary Roach. It and her previous book, called Stiff are both New York Times best sellers. While Stiff is a historical exploration of the human body and man’s weird postmordem adventures poking around in it, in Spook, Roach tackles the science of the afterlife.

Spook is filled with chapter titles like How to Weigh a Soul—something, I was fascinated to learn, has been an obsession through the ages for many a man of science. It’s a hoot to read about the lengths these earnest scientists have gone to get to the bottom of what happens after we die—with experiments that involve putting TB patients on the cusp of death on a scale to see if there is a drop in weight at the moment of death. A weight loss, they surmised, would indicate the soul has left the premises. But I also find the fact that these people consider it unacceptable that some things are unknowable kind of sad. I mean, really, why in the world would a soul, which has no matter, have weight?

Another chapter takes a look at reincarnation. Roach doesn’t hide her skepticism as she tromps around India with a reincarnation researcher whose life’s work is collecting copious data on people who claim to have reincarnated into another individual. More specifically, these are little children two- three- and four- year olds who spout intricate details about the dead individuals, details that only the dead person or his or her family would know.

In these case studies, the children, display remarkable “clairvoyant” abilities to, for example, “see” the spirits of dead relatives. The kids stop having abilities and visions at about five. Hmmm. Or could it be that by five kids know enough about flighty adults to wise up and shut up around them?

The Indian man Roach travels with is Dr. Kirti S. Rawat, a colleague of an American scientist named Dr. Ian Stevenson, a University of West Virginia professor on the paranormal. But that's an understatement. Stevenson, who died this year, has studied children for some 30 years and actually has the respect and attention of the scientific community. He has written case studies in academic publications such as JAMA, the basis of which is that souls often hop from body to body in families, so that a father, who passed last year, say, can now reside in the body of a daughter who was born this year. When that girl is old enough to speak she talks about her past life. Carol Bowman has picked up Stevenson’s work and has written widely on the subject as well, which began when one of her own children exhibited past-life memories.

What I found most interesting in all this is that in India, where reincarnation is accepted, there are loads of case studies, but it’s a lot rarer here in the West.