Vision Spa Retreat

A New Year for Vision Spa Retreat

Aqua est Animus, Animus est Bonus (Water is life, life is good)

What if we considered retreat in natural surroundings, immersion in beauty and art, intensive personal attention, valuing dreams, visions and encounters with spirit, as our birthright?

From this soulful connection with self we might then experience a more sacred connection with nature that could inspire us to support it's preservation and healing also.  What if water were the medium?

Back at the start of this century, I set out on a quest for the wisdom of water that led me to establish a small spa-retreat that I called Aquaest, a combination of Aqua and Quest.  The phrase is also Latin for 'water is' and for me 'water is ... everything'.   That first spa-retreat is no longer but my quest continues.

During 2008, I have endeavored to reach out to people who share my interest in 'water consciousness for personal and planetary health'.  I'm especially inspired by the concept of spa-retreat as a means for restoring soulful and sustainable ways of living.

To begin, I decided to create three interlinked and interrelated weblogs that each focused on my particular areas of interest (spa culture, aquatic bodywork, and creative expression respectively), and through which I could share my ideas, receive feedback, and maybe inspire cooperative ventures.

Just after the recent election of the new US president Barack Obama, Change.org proposed that members of this innovative social network put forward ideas for positive change in no more than 250 words, and vote on these to discover the best from around the country (US). I drafted mine but didn't have the audacity to post it.

As 2009 opens and I am considering how I'd like my work to develop during the coming year, it seems appropriate to share this summary of my 'dream for change' here.  Below it, I will outline how the ancient healing tradition of Asclepius might inform, and be adapted to serve, our modern world to some benefit.

Why spa-retreat?

How does spa-retreat fit this ancient healing model? The word hospital has the same root as hospitality.  Both mean being welcoming and generous to guests.  Spa culture has it's roots in sacred healing traditions, just as retreat has been associated with spiritual seeking.  Spa-retreat combines health and hosting.

Many people are dissatisfied with fundamental issues such as quality of life, the search for health and meaning, care of the planet and its residents, and the absence of the sacred in nearly everything we do.  We need to envision a future that encompasses all these and is available to everyone.

Here is my dream for change:

This vision of spa-retreat as a cultural concept has the potential to bring about real change in personal and planetary health. It arises from a belief that it is possible, necessary, and effective to integrate self-care, self-development, and self-expression with environmental concerns such as water quality and conservation.

The concept incorporates the idea of taking sabbaticals of at least three-months from everyday concerns in order to focus on one's own well-being and that of the planet. An inspiring model for this is the ancient Asclepian sanctuaries to which people went to seek healing from troubles of body, mind, and spirit.

Those returning from these retreats or sabbaticals would bring back with them insights and actions of value not only to themselves but to the whole (much as Native American vision quests are intended to do). These places of seeking-and-support would be free, and free of any doctrine.

Many people are attracted to the images of health and reinvigoration associated with spa-retreat. However, the underlying essential value and role of our physical and social environments is often overlooked. Spa - sanus per agua (health throught water) - should not be a luxury commodity.

Water as an indicator of health and also a tool for health, is central to the spa-retreat offering. Water, as a metaphor, provides many insights into human behavior and human potential, as the Taoists knew well. Water and humans need to be free and to have depth and clarity to thrive.

Season's Greetings 2008-2009

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and
next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
T.S. Eliot

In the writing of Missouri-born poet, T. S. Eliot, Water often appears. 

From a warm haven in a silent and water-bound forest in the Missouri Ozarks,  I want to mark the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 with two quotes from T.S. Eliot's work. 

I hope they will inspire you too.

I'd like to thank all those who have supported my quest for soul this year and in previous years. 

I am posting this on a new website - one of three rivers of words with which I'm endeavoring to celebrate and support Water.

Please take a moment to view the trailer for a forthcoming film about Water from the Healing Water Institute, New Zealand.

 As I cannot thank all of you adequately and individually this year, I will be making a donation to this project as a gesture of gratitude to you and to Water.

Divine Water is an inspiring film intended to 'show the world what water really is ... how water is really like a human being.....or really how human beings are like water'. 

I support these concepts wholeheartedly! 

Whether  you came to this post via a notice from me, or have found it serendipitously, please consider yourself welcome to the Water. 

I invite you to sign my Guest Book by leaving a short comment below. 

If you'd like to follow my writing on water, please do subscribe (see below).

Here is a familiar final stanza from Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding, ... final stanza

Wishing us all and our blue planet a hopeful and happy future. 

Sara Firman and Vision Spa Retreat

My other water-related blogs (find subscription boxes on each of them):

Aquapoetics: Creative Aquatic Bodywork

Diving Deeper: An Adventure inspired by Water

Don't forget to leave your message below - Thank you!

Spa culture: timely opportunity for a paradigm shift

This image shows two deer stranded in a river while the forest burns around them.  For me, it conveys well the current challenges we face in deciding how best to survive economic and environmental crises. These deer know that the water may save them.  Could a new vision of spa play its part in helping us to survive?

Recently I received an e-newsletter from a spa industry leader who was addressing, like so many are, the issue of the current economic drama and how it will affect business as usual.  The argument put forward was inspired by the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, written 70 years ago when some still thought that the planet could keep supplying our needs. 

The spa expert says that time is our limiting factor, not resources, and that by saving time by spending money, you will increase your wealth. It's the paradigm that led to mass production of products and mass servicing of people's needs.  And it persists still in the drive behind the burgeoning spa resort business.

We have created a culture in which we apparently spend less time on the daily tasks of living and more time on what?  The newsletter writer insists that by saving time you have more time to create wealth; and I guess more time to enjoy spending that wealth at places designed to give you the experience of being at leisure. 

But exactly what do we believe these two things - wealth and time - to be.  Or, to put it another way, what is it we value them for?  What do they mean to the customers who visit spa retreats or resorts, and to those who create and service these places.  Would a deeper examination change our perception of how we use our time and money?

Here's the advice of the author of the e-newsletter: 'If you ask most people how they’re handling rising prices in today’s tough economy, most will rattle off a list of the ways they are economizing; they are driving less to save on gasoline, cutting back on meals out, doing things themselves that they once paid others to do — and patting themselves on the back for their frugality ....

'Most people spend time trying to save money. The wealthy do the exact opposite; they spend money in order to save time. And with the time saved they work on more productive ways of creating wealth than they would have by washing the car, or mowing the lawn or driving someplace to find a sale. If you want to be wealthy that’s what you have to do too.'  I do hope this view is not widely shared.

Economic blues: asking deeper questions

 

We live on a planet that's 2/3 water and we don't have gills; we live on a planet full of consumer choices and we don't yet have the faculties to choose well.

   Adam Werbach

 

 

This week's Splash e-newsletter for the aquatics industry addressed the topic of 'Attracting Patients in a Down Economy' and suggested that it would be beneficial to look at how other aquatic disciplines are approaching this concern.  Particular reference was made to the spa industry and a recent blog post from Susie Ellis (spa guru) of Spa Finder giving her top 10 list of new spa trends for 2009.  I too had seen the list and have been thinking about what it might mean in the context of 'economy' and 'choice'.  What might spas and aquatic therapy clinics, both service-oriented, have in common when it comes to attracting custom?

As a member of the professional social network LinkedIn where I belong to a number of groups concerned with spa and the health marketing community, I have been following the discussions about the economic situation there too.  I've come to the conclusion that many people are still holding on to a familiar paradigm that is dependent on a consumerist culture.  The greater part of the spa industry seems fully invested in this, as reflected in the tendency to seek to wrap the same concepts in ever more enticing or intriguing packages.  Top spas continue to boast of 11 000 square foot of high-technology treatment options.

Simple and sustainable

How many ways can you cook an egg?  How many ways can you wrap a body?  How many ways can you spend a health dollar? What if such an approach only takes you further away from the fundamental needs people are seeking to meet?  Sometimes simple is best and small is beautiful.  When I was establishing my first spa-retreat, I looked at what the most popular treatments offered by spas were, and noticed that by a long streak this was plain old massage. But I wanted to focus on aquatic bodywork and to show people that this had value too.  So I decided to offer table massage and aquatic bodywork, and keep the 'menu' at that. 

A stay at our retreat always included both land and water sessions in the daily rate in such a way that people could decide how they wanted to combine them, when, and with which practitioner.  Simplicity and flexibility.  No-one ever asked why we didn't have more options or more staff or more rooms.  The treatments offered were assessed top rate, and each guest got personal and individualized attention.  I came to the conclusion that what people truly want is something that, with little fuss and trouble, takes their particular needs into careful consideration, and then makes use of a few simple, appropriate, and flexible tools to meet that well. 

Low-budget operations have to do this of course but the outcome need not mean that the client or patient or guest loses out.  Perhaps it doesn't take a billion dollar renovation to provide the best of service.  Perhaps what it takes is our deepest and truest sense of our humanity and our connection with each other and with the planet upon whose resources we ultimately depend.  Spa and aquatic clinic visitors are seeking greater health and wellbeing.  In the long run, neither quality can exist independent of the community and environment in which we all live.  That is what a downturn reminds us about - sustainability for all is ideal.

The luxury market, as exemplified by spas, does not seem to be being slowed at all by the economic downturn.  However, these venues are for a small elite.  Relatively few people can afford the services of the ecoluxury destination spas springing up in exotic locations all over the globe now.  Many appear to be leading the way regards environmentally and socially conscious operations but they are still for the few, and their acquisition of prime land stands in danger of looking like a new form of colonialism. 

Could we look behind this to ask what people (rich or not) are really seeking and what is truly sustainable over time?

Seeking inspiration

I've just finished reading a controversial article by Adam Werbach called the 'Birth of Blue' in which he is making a case for a new marketing drive based on  'Blue' rather than 'Green'.  As a water-lover, the blue theme immediately attracted me to read on. Many of those who commented on the piece were suspicious of Werbach's motives since he was certainly not advocating the end of the shopper as we know him or her, and perhaps it was just a clever twist of novelty rhetoric.  However, within his argument was a clear recognition of needs and values that are worth taking into consideration.  Here's his rousing introduction:

As vast and common as the ocean, BLUE is a platform for sustainability that goes beyond the deep, beautiful green of environmentalism. Green puts the planet at the center of the dialogue. BLUE puts people at the center.... Green is the beating heart of the emerging BLUE movement. Green represents the simple and inarguable wisdom of ecology: that all things are connected. BLUE brings together a broader set of human concerns, from practice to price, from nature to society. BLUE integrates all four streams of sustainability: social, cultural, economic and environmental.

BLUE puts the way we treat ourselves and each other at the center of our focus.

That last line is a mantra for the healing professions too. Werbach contrasts the focus of conventional psychology on human maladies with the research in the field of positive psychology to establish positive interventions that would proactively make us happy rather than treat us when we are sad. The results showed that once basic needs are met, four things increase people's happiness: 

• being of service to something larger than ourselves;

• experiencing "flow," or full engagement, on a regular basis;

• showing gratitude to the people in our lives;

• having at least three people emotionally close enough to share our lives with. 

What might this mean for a service business?

 

Putting price in context

All four happiness factors would be appropriate foundations for making health service providers, like spas and aquatic clinics, more sustainable in terms of human satisfaction (that of the staff and that of the customers).  Werbach then talked of the economics of sustainability, and the need to replace the four Ps - Price, Product, Place and Promotion, as taught in most marketing classes, with three Ps - Price, Process and Purpose.  (I guess People is a given in this argument.) Like the happiness factors, consideration of these Ps in the context of your service organization might provide some valuable insights and ideas for action. 

In Werbach's words, the new Ps of economics ask us to consider this:

PRICE: First, we need to democratize sustainability and make it available to everyone. You shouldn't have to be rich to be sustainable.

PURPOSE: What's the purpose of what you're buying? First, do you need it? Does it fit into the healthy practices in your life?

PROCESS: What was the process to make the product? Was it energy intensive? Did it use pesticides or petroleum? Were the workers paid a fair wage? How will it be disposed of?

These are the deeper questions that lead to greater authenticity and transparency in practice. Perhaps the downturn in the economy is an opportunity to look far more closely, personally, and locally, at how and why we do our work whether as spas in the leisure sector or aquatic clinics in the medical sector.  To ask if we are really meeting the needs of those we hope to serve might just be key to our success.  And we may find that we can do less but do it better, spend less but spend more effectively. 

Are you meeting people's needs?

What can you do to work together with your staff and customers to improve the effectiveness and availability and sustainability of your services.  Or following the mantra I like to use for my vision of spa-retreat, what can you do to be more 'soulful and sustainable'. In the end it is not the words that matter - though they may help to inspire us - but what we actually do and what that conveys to those we want to serve.  People who are watching their health dollars want to know that their real needs will be met.

Vision Spa Retreat is linked with another weblog on aquatic therapy: for more on this please visit Aquapoetics: Creative Aquatic Bodywork.