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.