Good vs. Bad TV

The other day I saw an ad for "The View," the daytime show hosted by a lineup of female hosts, their bios of which get less distinguished in direct relation to their age. (You're surely familiar with veteran Barbara Walters but who's Elisabeth Hasselbeck, exactly?)

The show, which aired on July 2, did not include Barbara Walters. Maybe she's no longer a host; I wouldn't know because I've never watched more than a snippet of it in passing. I DVR'd it because it featured the top-of-their-profession luminaries in enlightened circles: John Edward (clairvoyant), Dr. Brian Weiss (past life regression expert), Sandy Anastasi (tarot reader, psychic), and Joanne Reeves (astrology).

Now, you may or may not agree with my descriptions above--either of the gals on "The View" or my undeniable bias toward the guests. But this is my blog and I can do whatever I want on it, right? No one's paying me and I've never entered any journalistic pact with my readers to be fair and unbiased.

On the other hand, these woman are responsible for hosting a major ABC television show. Presumably, when you agree to invite guests on your show you will 1.) exercise due diligence by informing yourself on the work for which your your guests are known and, 2.) make a modicum of effort to stay balanced and neutral regardless of your personal feelings.

Now, I guess the conceit of the show is the hosts are supposed to be lady hell raisers. They've got opinions, informed by their age, color and religious orientation and goddamit they are going to tell you about them. I get that.

I also get that the folks invited to participate on the show are guests. I doubt that they were told in advance this was going to be a rather malicious feeding frenzy. If the ladies didn't like or approve or believe in what the guests do, DON'T HAVE THEM ON! Instead what the audience what subjected to was an exercise in intolerance and ignorance. These so-called pros were stunningly rude and downright cruel. They behaved like whining children in need of a timeout. One saving grace: You're familiar the hated Class Bully character? Each host, in her own inimitable way, came away looking like that while the guests stayed unspeakably gracious under fire.

You should see for yourself and if you agree.

Here are viewer responses to the show. I encourage you to first watch the episode. You may first have to sign up or "launch" something, though. Then let me know what you think.

This is not so much about beliefs; this is about BAD TELEVISION. Without getting all lecture-y about it, we've got a lot of garbage floating around under the guise of "media," and most thinking people agree. It'd be great if we took back medialand to a kinder, gentler and decidedly smarter time.

Rose

Body Brushing Redux

On yesterday’s post, I neglected to mention what might perhaps be for some the most important benefit of body brushing. For those of you who wax or shave various body parts, you know that those irritated and irritating red bumps are often the unfortunate cost of the clean-cut look.

In that case, we’re told this is the brush for you. You can purchase it at the Grass Roots Store.

Do report back.

Body Brushing, Aha, aha

I just had an Aha moment. Before the Aha moment, I decided to do a little research on body brushing because I keep hearing about it, that it’s supposed to be really great for everything from lymphatic draining to—and here comes the Aha moment—acne prevention.

So back up, Spadette.

Until six or so months ago my regular face-washing ablutions (I love that word) included the use of a face brush—I was a body brusher and didn't even realize it! It did take me awhile to grow accustomed to the brush because it felt pretty abrasive to my skin at first. But for some reason I stuck with it and got to the point where the brush felt like a nice face massage. And my skin looked great.

Then, again for no particular reason, I stopped using it. (Actually, it was because I attended the International Spa Association conference and came home with a bag full of products that beckoned to be sampled.) Not long after, I began noticing bumps on my face—like pimples that were not quite ready, if you catch my drift. It’s been a frustration ever since. What’s going on? No matter what pricey products I switched out for other pricy products my skin was not as clear as it used to be.

So after boning up on body brushing, starting today I’m pulling out my face brush and shall begin using it ASAP. I am also going to start making use of one of several body brushes I’ve owned for awhile. (Thank you again, ISPA.)

Body brushing—with a DRY brush— is just a full-body version of what I do to my face. Think about it: Our skin is our largest organ. As such, it acts as a shield of protection from the environment. Sloughing off dead skin cells for five minutes is a simple way to stay healthy and maintain that glow—even as the winter continues to press down upon some of us.

Here’s how to do it: Get a soft-to-moderate natural-bristled brush. (It is said that the stiffer the bristles, the better lymphatic circulation you’ll generate, but speaking from experience you’ll want to start soft and build to the harder bristles.) A brush with a long handle will help for those hard-to-reach spots.

Here’s what it will help:

+ Body brushing allows nutrients and oxygen to come to the surface of the outer layers of your skin, thereby increasing blood circulation. Great if you are prone to cold hands or feet.

+Brushing the chest promotes lymphatic drainage to release body toxins, which takes the load off of large organs so they don’t have to work so hard.

+Body brushing promotes collagen and elastin production, which is great for keeping cellulite at bay and generally for healthy skin tone.

+By keeping it optimally healthy, the skin becomes an immune-system support, so you’re less likely to be at the mercy of colds and infection.

+Don’t forget the benefit of muscle relaxation as you gently massage your skin.

+And, when you think about it, since you’re increasing oxygen flow, it’s got to affect the brain for improved focus and clarity.

Start gently and build to short, brisk strokes. Watch dead winter skin fall away. Now take a warm bath.

Aaaha.

Touch Yourself This Valentine’s Day

Not having a partner shouldn’t exclude you from getting your fair share of The Touch. Strong, able hands are available to soothe your aches and pains as well your heart. For that matter being strapped for cash shouldn’t be a deal breaker either.

I’m talking here about massage, but in this case it’s self-massage and I'm not the only one advocating it.

People tend to get all stressed out about what to do on Valentine’s Day, and non-partnered people tend to get a double dose of that stress. Hooked up or not, it’s enough to make you need a massage.

The inspiration for this blog is a neighbor I had years ago. He was single—and a little creepily, he was always looking for sympathy because of it. But there was this one thing that he did that I came to believe was a sign of healthy self-nurturing: he’d give himself massages. I thought it was weird at first but then I tried it myself. He’d cross his left arm over his torso to his right and begin kneading the side of his neck. Then he would move down to the always-knotty shoulder muscles and focus there. He could easily manage deltoids, bi- and triceps, the forearms and hands. And then he’d do it all over on the other side.

Legs and feet are easy to get to too. And who can’t do with a good belly massage after a meal? It’s a great aid for good digestion.

The thing about self-massage is that you’re in complete control of the amount of pressure you receive. You also know how to zero in on the exact spot that needs the most attention. You can use classic Swedish style or incorporate some shiatsu or acupressure.

There are lots of props you can use, too. I’m sure you’ve seen those self-massagers made of wood. They resemble a three-dimensional image of planet constellations a là your high school science project. Do they work? I find them a little cumbersome but you may not.

Tennis balls, for the bottoms of your feet are great. Just have a seat and roll that puppy under the sole of your foot. Be careful not to apply too much pressure and that you don’t do it too long. I got a foot cramp once. Tennis balls are also great for neck massages. Just put one inside a regular gym sock, place it on the floor and then carefully position the center of your neck over it. Now roll it around. Feels great.

Feel free to pass on any self-massage tips that work for you. And have a happy, stress-free Valentine’s Day!

Spa Trends 2008

As soon as the calendar flipped to 2008, spa publications and other experts began rolling out their predictions of what spa goers would be asking for in the upcoming year. (But as these things go, what they are really doing is telling spa goers what the industry is telling them they should be asking for.)

Within the various lists there was some overlap, but also striking opposites.

One prediction said we’d see more luxury spas with designer “labels.” There is now an Armani-branded spa in Tokyo and the Versace empire has a spa in Australia. Bulgari, Prada, they’ve all entered spa land. Is cross marketing the term for this? (Yes, yes, there are other names for it, too.)

On the other end of the spectrum, and perhaps a proletariat pushback of sorts, young people, they say, are beginning to seek out places of relaxation before spa was spa as we now know it—ethnic bathhouses, saunas and mineral springs that were once all the rage. They fell into disrepair when painkillers, being a much more expedient way to deal with arthritis, etc., were developed.

But I believe young people have been long onto these “best-kept secret” spots because of their retro feel. In Chicago there’s a Korean bathhouse called Paradise. My friends and I discovered it about 15 years ago. It’s on a sleepy (though used to be sleepier) stretch of Montrose Avenue and it’s the real deal. You have sauna, steam, hot and cold baths. But there are also massage therapists on hand, a restaurant and even a quiet zone with reclining chairs and television. The cost is well under twenty bucks and for westerners it used to be a spectacular portal into the traditional Korean spa experience. I don’t think they liked having us around, though I can’t be sure because there was not much English spoken on the premises.

Last year I had another old-time spa experience that I still think of fondly. Hot Springs, Arkansas used to be the water cure destination of choice for 19th and early 20th century seekers. People flocked. Bathhouse Row, as it’s called, is now making a comeback. Grand, free-standing buildings tricked out in beautiful mosaics and porcelain everything. I had my traditional spa day at the Arlington Hotel, though the Buckstaff is also a good choice. The Arlington was once the poshest of hotels but not much has been done to update its look. Original signs still announcing crazy-cheap prices hang and everything is musty and saggy and a bit dingey because of the high humidity levels and the absence of a fresh coat of paint.

But prices are still cheap by modern-day standards and there are lots of elderly regulars who have been going weekly for years. In fact I was told the Buckstaff frequently has a line of locals waiting. (If they are put off by the onslaught of newcomer tourist types pushing their way in they won’t be able to hide it behind a foreign language.)

Don’t expect much TLC. This was the era when clinically speaking bodies were slabs of meat—which I suspect had as much to do with the era being more rough-and-tumble as it did with ye olde Protestant ethic. That’s right, no co-ed experiences here. There is a lady's side and the men’s side and never the two shall meet. I was scrubbed and slapped and kneaded and talked to in assembly-line tones by gritty gals who’ve been doing this work for years. . . having taken over from their moms before them! I kept pretending it was 1800 something and I'd crossed the country by rail to heal my lumbago. It was just great.

Everyone should check out one of these throwback spas if only for a basis for comparison. And, after all, the spa experts say, you know you want to!

Here’s a fine photo of me wrapped in steamy hot-springs-water-soaked towels.

Is the Personal Massage Heading Into the Toilet?

Kind of looks like a giant commode, doesn’t it?

Wipe that thought clean out of your head.

It’s called a Spa Capsule and it’s surely something the Jetsons would have owned had massage been popular in the early 60s. One of these babies can be in your home tomorrow, just pony up for what it would cost you to buy a new Honda Accord—about $30,000.

It reminds me of that time, not so long ago, when people started realizing they didn’t have to go to the gym to use a motorized exercise machine. Now they could purchase one, throw it in a big room (and therein lies the rub: who’s got the space?) and you’re good to go. Some collected dust while others allowed people to never step foot in a sweaty gym again. Depends on your personality.

Home spa-ing is not new. We've all read the stories—heck, some of us have even pitched and written them—on how to spa up your home. It’s just that now it’s been elevated to new heights— and widths, in this case.

The concept was created by doctors and comes equipped with aromatherapy and an audio-video system with Bose speakers, all controlled by a touch screen, and . . . a dry water massage! What’s that? I hear you ask. The water pulsates over your body but it’s circulating inside a silky-comfy sheet so you never get wet. And your head stays outside the toilet—er, capsule—the whole time, so claustrophobia, they say, is kept at bay.

Cost aside, what do you think? Are you willing to give those human healing hands up for a revved-up automated de-stressor?

Hopping the Wellness Train

I’ve been feeling kind of medical minded these days. I guess that’s not so surprising since, individually, as a group and out of necessity we’ve been slowly shifting the paradigm from treating disease to the much more optimistic model of staying healthy to begin with. Hence the birth of wellness centers and integrative medicine, which makes use of the best practices from the west and east.

So again I draw your attention to two items from one of my daily resources for what the heck is going on in the world, the New York Times.

In yesterday’s paper, in the Science Times (my, how I love that section), Jane E. Brody’s column was about how we can cut unnecessary deaths during one routine hospital procedure: IV insertions. People die unnecessarily of infection all the time! A physician and researcher at Johns Hopkins named Dr. Peter Pronovost came up with a simple five-point checklist that, when used, not only reduced patient death by infection to zero but also saved billions of dollars in Michigan hospitals where the checklist was put into place. These are points about as elemental as they get: first point on the checklist? Wash your hands.

And if that’s not staggering enough, though Pronovost has proposed implementing the checklist universally in our country. . . yep, you guessed it, he’s gotten nothing but resistance. Spain, however, approached him and is going to implement it.

It should be mentioned that Brody got this story from my favorite doctor/author Atul Gawande. He and Pronovost recommend writing members of Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Do it!

Second item needs way less exposition. The story made the front page. Here’s the headline: High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi Sold in Manhattan.


Ugh. If it happens so rampantly there, please don’t be eating sushi in Kansas City.

Reggae Spa?

It seems Bob Marley's family has opened a spa in Nassau, Bahamas. It's called Natural Mystic Spa and will use a fusion of African, Asian and Caribbean beauty treatments. The website, however, does not indicate any details about spa offerings; it's focus is mostly on accommodations. Hopefully, they'll include more information about the offerings at the three treatment rooms. Other facilities will include a tea lounge, and a limestone steam room. Stay tuned. Or please share any information you might dig up.

Not Clear on the Concept?

It seems that athletes participating in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will not be allowed to be treated with Chinese herbs. This, they say, is “in order to avoid doping problems.” Acupuncture and any other “non-drug” traditional treatments will be allowed, however.

As I try to process my sentiments on this ruling, I'm wondering if others have thoughts on this?

Aura Cleansing

Feeling stuck and on the treadmill of old patterns and behaviors, revisiting them again and again though you no longer want to own them? Here's a recipe--given to me by one super-duper talented tarot card reader and numerologist. It's a bath and it's to be done once a week for 6 weeks.

1 small unopened box, the entire contents
1 cup from an unopened box Epsom salts. You can use sea salts but she likes the simple and beneficial properties of Epsom. (It's important that the seals not be broken on the boxes. Since you're trying to remove psychic matter that's attached to you, you don't want to anything that's been exposed to the elements. That's her theory.)

You should soak for about 20 minutes, making sure that you wet all seven chakras. The crown, third eye and the throat chakras are hardest to get to. It's best to submerge into the tub but if you're not inclined, make sure that you wet them.

As you're doing the soak, first invoke Archangel Michael and ask him to clear your field, your home and all aspects of your life.

Next pull in Archangel Rafael. Since your auras have now been cleared, empty spaces that are vulnerable remain. Ask him to fill them with his golden light.

Finally, grab Archangel Gabriel and ask him to fill you with white light of clarity.

Do this once a week for six weeks—it gets a smidge costly but only with the Epsom salt. I did find 16 oz boxes, which means you can use half per bath. That size costs 99 cents and baking soda costs about that too. So total price is about $12.

Out with the old and in with the new you.

Good luck.

The Unbearable Lightness of Spa Writing

Bear with me. I promise I will soon come round to discussing spa, the theme of this blog.

The other day I saw a most original documentary called "Helvetica." It’s a thoroughly entertaining feature-length film about the font. That’s right. The filmmakers took a subject that just as easily could have appealed to only a demographic sliver of geek designers and art snobs and turned it into an enlivening and playful pleasure. Plus I learned a lot. So, win-win!

While reading one of the many spa magazines that are spreading throughout the publishing landscape, that film popped into my head. I think it was somewhere in the midst of plaintively asking myself, Why is spa writing so boring? Am I right? Do mainstream spa publications put you into a soporific stupor like they do me, a reader who is really, truly interested, who wants to read about the topic? And many of the stories are delivered in dreaded first-person accounts—nothing looks more beige on the page than one person’s drained-of-all-signs-of-life spa experience.

How is this good for spa land?

It doesn’t have to be that way, and "Helvetica" proves it. Many single-themed magazines, especially those that are wellness oriented, have somehow swapped out good and thoughtful writing for story copy that sounds like every other story copy and every other writer. It's the Spa Voice. I think they want us to think that the writing mirrors the peace and tranquility of the topic, but it doesn't; it's just sadly safe.

This, in fact, is how the documentary filmmakers entertainingly explore attitudes about the Swiss font. It's the story of how Helvetica quickly became all the rage in the design world because of its clean, modernist lines. Everyone went Helvetica crazy and fifty years later Helvetica is still used everywhere. Once you start looking for it you’ll see Helvetica is the font of choice for the majority of corporate behemoths—from the Gap to Crate & Barrel to IRS tax forms. It's sad and spooky. For many designers it’s become a symbol of the stupefying sameness of no-good corporate brainwashing that has infiltrated every aspect of our lives.

What are the ramifications of this corporate writing for spa land?

As a spa lover who wants spa to flourish and to truly be an instrument of positive change for healthier and more mindful living, I fear spa may have become co-opted by big business, with all the interesting edges rubbed out so that we think: spa = good so don't ask questions. If the mainstream writing about spa is any indication, it’s a bit worrisome for those in the wellness industry because they believe in healing the planet, not milking it.

See the movie for the fun of it, and think about what kind of spas you want to support next time you run across an article or a spa menu that’s so lightweight it practically floats out of your hands. That's not the kind of mind emptying we should be after.

P.S. I tried to write this post in Helvetica, but surprisingly Blogger doesn't include it as one of its eight options. So yay for Blogger.

On Nasal Irrigation and Living Spiritually in the 21st Century

Happy New Year to all.

A couple of items in the New York Times struck me:

The first was in the Styles section, a piece about neti pots, though according to the writer I think I’m behind the eight ball on this story. Oprah apparently talked about neti pots months ago, which sparked a spike in purchases, which prompted the NYT story. The gist of the story is that neti pots are very good for cleansing the sinuses, and they are. But for those who can’t seem to master the neti pot or are put off by the looks and bulk of it, I have a suggestion.

Instead of a neti pot, I use an item you can purchase at any drug store for a couple of bucks. In the infant section you’ll find something that looks like large eyedropper. (See photo.) It’s about five inches long and about ¾ inches in circumference. You can get the very same results with one of these. The amount of liquid that fits into such an eyedropper is a perfect fit for each nostril. Using it will help you feel much more control and eliminate that drowning feeling of the ongoing stream of the neti pot, which is what prevented me from using it for so long. If you have sinus issues, especially as a result of winter dryness or cold, a rinse is great way of alleviating pain.

The other item that struck me was on the cover of today’s NYT. It was about Alcides Moreno, the New Jersey window washer who made a miraculous recovery from a 47-story fall last year. The story describes the extreme lengths that emergency care doctors went to in order to save his life. The only other person to survive such a fall took a plunge from only half that height. Most die after a fall from a height of only a few stories.

The headline used the word “miracle,” and the word was repeated several times within the story, even from the doctors who worked on him. (some nine operations, and he faces several more.) But nothing about his survival, short of the fact that he lived at all, struck me as miraculous. Instead, it is testament to the technical advances of modern medicine.

I’m no philosopher but you don’t have to be one to feel a little queasy or questioning about this story and others like it. To me the miracle was that he survived‚—apparently he was even semi-conscious when the paramedics arrived, which is amazing—not how they were able to keep him alive using artificial, or man-made, means. That he stayed alive is something I wonder, even worry, about. Should he have? Was he supposed to? Spiritual thinkers talk about how difficult it is to live “mystically” in the 21st century. Our world is filled with distractions. Years ago if you wanted to get closer to God you went and lived in a monastery or cave and the more earthbound would take care of your worldly needs. Today we straddle our spiritual quests with modern day realities, like the need to go to work to afford health insurance. It’s much harder to understand where we fit into this scheme. If a loved one of mine survived such a devastating trauma, would I want such extreme measures to be taken on his poor racked body? It’s something to ponder.

To read a story on the paradoxical topic of medical advances and man, Atul Gawande wrote a fabulous piece in the New Yorker. Here’s the link.

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.