Vision Spa Retreat

Season's Greetings 2011-2012

 

Vision Spa Retreat wishes all readers and visitors a peaceful and healthful holiday season. Thank you for reading!

I'll be back with fresh posts in the new year:

•  Exploring the role of spa-retreat in restoring human community and enhancing local landscapes

• Developing the concept of spa as culture before industry, and as more communal that commercial

• Promoting creative approaches to advancing the healing arts, critical thinking and honest science

• Highlighting the value of water as a therapeutic medium and the importance of its preservation

 

I welcome involvement in ventures that are committed to enhancing the health of both natural environment and human community.

This involvement may take many forms from help with early visioning, to concept creation, to manifestation, and promotion.

Contact me for more

 

If you have appreciated this web resource, and can afford to share the love, Vision Spa Retreat welcomes your gift contribution:
 

                                                        

Wellness within the spa: guest post by Kate Riley

 

I'm delighted to present Vision Spa Retreat's first guest post from Kate Riley. Kate is an Eco-Centered Spa Consultant and Therapist Educator and determined to 'raise the bar' in both arenas.  In her own healing work, she specializes in a sensitive approach to chronic pain relief.

Recently, Kate and I have been enjoying a flow of conversation about what it really takes to create a spa environment that epitomizes caring for people and planet.  Here, Kate turns the idea of offering wellness outside-in and looks at the wellness of the spa as reflected in its staff.

She suggests that weaving wellness into a spa means encouraging a real sense of synergy among spa staff, emphasizing sharing and service to create a flow of good energy that will be palpable to all those who visit. 

The article below was first published in July 2011 on The Riley School of Integrated Somatic Bodywork blog, and is reproduced here with kind permission of Kate Riley. For more about Kate, or to contact her directly, follow the links at the end.

Will spa take root in an ecological economy?

 

Vision Spa Retreat is a virtual think-tank aimed at inspiring cultural shape-shifters, nature-based visionaries, and free-thinking entrepreneurs who are interested in creating community-oriented spa retreat venues and providing locally sourced services in line with an authentic soulful ethic. Sara Firman

 

As Vision Spa Retreat approaches its third year online, I've been reviewing my original intent which was to develop a spa-retreat consultancy service.  First, I wanted to observe what was happening in the spa world and how this reflected (or not) shifts in business towards environmentally responsible practices and in health towards more holistic views of what this means to individuals. 

The findings shared have often been personal reflections on the schism taking place as the spa industry in general dissolved its connection with water and began favoring hard science and technological sophistication over intangibles like spirit and soul. I linked spa with retreat to emphasize the value of slowing down and taking time out to contemplate the pleasure and purpose of our lives.

When we are in peaceful surrounds that include water, fresh air and fresh food, doing simple activities that engage us with nature - and are sufficiently unplugged from the 'outside world' - our innate capacity for self-healing is stimulated, along with a sense of being nurtured by the planet upon which we depend.  An impulse to take care of our communities and our environment may naturally re-emerge.

Vision Spa Retreat supports values and practices that put planet and people first, before profit. As a communal and cultural concept, spa-retreat has the potential to effect positive change in personal and planetary health. It is possible, necessary, and effective to integrate spa-retreat specialties like self-care, self-development, and self-expression with environmental concerns.

Back to Eden: the water cure

An aquatics colleague writing about water's healing power, introduced me to a piece of American health history that I had missed, when she referenced the 1930s book below.  It would be a good read for anyone who wants to understand how some of the ideas still active in spas (especially under American influence) gained popularity. 

My partner had the 1975 (5th edition) of this book in his library, since it was a survival bible for many an Ozarks-bound back-to-the-lander.  It sounds as if it still is an important reference for health conscious people seeking self-sufficiency, though the language and some of the ideas are definitely those of the last century.

Back to Eden: The Classic Guide to Herbal Medicine, Natural Foods and Home Remedies by Jethro Kloss (original edition copyright 1939 Jethro Kloss.  Authentic Kloss Family Edition copyright the heir of Jethro Kloss 1975, 5th edn, Woodbridge Press Publishing Company).

Kloss was a staunch Christian - he believed that God gave health to the good and the sinful in equal measure, and that it is Nature that is the Grand and Great Healer.  Most of his book is devoted to herbal and dietary remedies emphasizing home self-care. He was associated with Seventh-Day-Adventist John Harvey Kellogg's Sanitarium at Battle Creek, Michigan, and followed very similar health practices.

Kellogg and Kloss both promoted the use of hydrotherapy. Their ideas were based on water cure (a synonym for hydropathy and later hydrotherapy) practices developed in the early 19th century in Europe, mostly involving cold water.  The Americans used both hot and cold treatments and combined hydrotherapy with other therapeutic modalities.

Read more on this Wikipedia link for Water Cure, which has many good references.

The most recent edition of Kloss' book is published by Lotus Press, 2004. A description on Amazon reads: 'Now in its expanded, updated revised edition, this is the original classic text (with more than 5-million copies sold) that helped create the natural foods industry. It remains today one of the major texts on herbs, natural diet and lifestyle and wholistic health.'

I haven't seen the latest edition so I'm not sure how 'original text' and 'updated/revised' can exist side by side.  I understand from the preface to volume I have, that there have been many unofficial copies of the original text which the Kloss family did not approve.  When it comes to using the remedies, check the information against your own commonsense and current medical understanding.