Vision Spa Retreat

Eco-spa-chefs: cooking up a better future for organic spa products

Before looking more closely at making spa treatment products on-site, I'd like to share the stories of some of the people who took this idea a step further in an attempt to demonstrate that products produced in line with a more environmentally conscious and sustainable model could still fit a vendor-type business.

Arcania Apothecary: Richard Howard

Just over 10 years ago, when I was manager of the Bath House Spa in Bath, UK, I met Richard Howard of Arcania Apothecary who created our aromatic massage oils. He'd gone on a Buddhist meditation retreat in Sri Lanka but spent most of his time in the kitchen, contemplating switching career to become a chef. 

Then he noticed that the women would also go out into the garden to gather fresh ingredients to make their face creams and mud packs along with their curries.  When he got back to England he started making super-fresh body products with very short shelf-lives, and his company still makes small-batch bespoke ranges.

Richard was often talking about sustainability - in terms of the environment but also social responsibility.  His company supports - via very hands-on ethical trading - a small village in India and farms in Sri Lanka for herbs and spices, as well as several hundred families in Ghana supplying organic shea butter.

'My focus has always been to create for the individual, and not for a market, says Richard. The beauty industry has been driven by an illusion for the past 70 years. But just as in the food industry, consumers are now being more conscientious and are asking what’s going into the product.'

Sensara: Norman and Premchit

Authentic and audacious certainly fits Richard's work.  It's interestingly synchronous then, that I've just made connection with Norman Jones of Sensara.  He emailed me that his company's mantra for 2009 is  'Fortune favors the audacious'.

Sensara is currently launching 'an audacious initiative designed to assist hotels/ spas to secure their fortune during these challenging times'.  They  focus on creating custom brands of certified 100% natural organic skin care, spa treatment, and guest amenity products.

As of now they are offering their product creation, formulation, testing, and training services for free  which could encourage more spas to use location-unique products.  Norman also tells me they are considering developing a new line of environmentally safe cleaning products specifically for spas.

Like Richard, they make their body care products in small batches. A product that been formulated in Thailand where they are based, can be produced and delivered to a client from one of their regional centers worldwide they say, 'minimizing' delivery costs, delivery times, energy consumption, and carbon emissions.

Sourcing locally is really the best way to minimize these kinds of costs but that also depends on being able to find (or having the skills to create) what you are looking for locally.  Economic limitations may in the end encourage and favor those who have the foresight to think and act local ....

... and in doing so they could be contributing to a more sustainable world.

Norman and his partner Premchit do seem to be eminently qualified and authentic.  Their website says that Premchit's father learned traditional healing as a Buddhist monk and Premchit’s mother became a chef in the tradition of the Royal Cuisine of Thalang - Premchit learned  much about indigenous plants and healing from them.

Norman was born in southeast Australia, into a family who grew their own food.  His mother instilled in him an appreciation of alternative therapies.  Norman has a degree in agriculture and previously worked as an international agricultural commodity trader throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Arcania and Sensara would seem to be good considerations for a reasonably well-funded spa that didn't want to create their own products on site and from scratch but did want to be involved in the creative process and to support a product vendor that potentially fit their sustainability values.

Sensara says that their customized approach enables customers to 'achieve any practical budget, thereby allowing a client to specify and control the budget invested in a range'.  But some daring and sensible spas might still consider taking up the entrepreneurial gauntlet as eco-spa-chef themselves.

Inara: Anne Dolbeau

There are other specialized product makers who, like Richard of Arcania, were inspired to help disadvantaged communities.  Inara, a brand name for Wild Earth founded by Anne Dolbeau in order to support womens' cooperatives in a remote region of Brazil, has recently been widely profiled in the media.

I was sent some samples to try when the owner misunderstood a posting suggesting I had psoriasis (happily I don't but she was doing good marketing!). All of these used Inara's Enliven essential oils blend (grapefruit, rosemary, rose geranium, mandarin and sage) which I already knew I'd like and did in these richly creamy products.  

They came in a simple rough woven sack with the Inara name brand, and the product style had an appropriately indigenous feel to it.  These '100% certified organic' body care products are promoted as being fair trade, socially responsible, and containing rare Babassu palm nut oil harvested by the women.

As a member of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), Wild Earth is clearly demonstrating it's market focus. OTA is a business association for the organic industry in North America which says that it 'aims to promote and protect organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public, and the economy'. 

Over 60% of members are small businesses in food, fiber/textiles, and personal care products. However, a very detailed article on the Organic Consumer Association (OCA) website about the web of effort and intrigue surrounding claims of organic qualities in body products states that:

...the personal care sector believes it has exempted itself from the NOP [USDA,National Organic Program] final rule via the fiat power of its trade group - the personal care task force of the Organic Trade Association (OTA). Some manufacturers even seem unaware that there is a difference between the regulatory body overseeing organics and the OTA.

I am not in any way implying that Inara is one of these unaware businesses, and in fact I think it very important that producers get involved in trade organizations so long as they never lose sight of being consumers and dwellers on a fragile planet themselves.

What are we feeding our skin?

For body care products, the issues of fair trade and social responsibility regards ingredients sourced in foreign countries may well pale by comparison to those surrounding what is organic and what is not.  In addition, in our love of the exotic and rare, we may have long-since lost sight of our social and environmental responsibilities locally.

Finding the divine: spiritual spa retreats

Phil Stone is one of those rare and special people who truly walks his talk.  He writes on one of his websites:

As a retreat leader and facilitator myself, I am sensitive to the challenges faced by retreat centers to market their planned events. Our objective is to help retreat centers, churches, retreat leaders and groups to market their events with the use of Internet technology.

As a recipient on several occasions now of Phil's help, I want to share with you two valuable services for those seeking and offering retreat services:

FindtheDivine & SeekaRetreat

for

Spiritual Retreats... Retreat Calendar...over 1,700 Retreat Centers... over 1,200 Conference Centers... over 300 Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders. An information source and directory for retreat centers, spiritual workshops, spiritual conference centers, camps, retreat centers for sale, retreat events, retreat leaders & spiritual direction.

See Vision Spa Retreat on FindtheDivine and SeekaRetreat.

Thank you Phil!

Quote: Money is like water

From Lynne Twist's website The Soul of Money

We now have the opportunity to live the most meaningful lives any generation of humankind has ever lived.



The halls of power have managed thus far to keep the climate change crisis at bay, the species extinction crisis at arms length, and the social justice crisis as an afterthought. Now we can see that the financial crisis is dramatically different. It is lodged in the hearts and minds of citizens, and is in the face of leaders in all sectors of society.

The opportunity in this global economic crisis is that it's forcing us to rethink our relationship to money and life, and to confront not only the financial crisis, but also all other crises which stem from the same root - Scarcity.


How can you use this financial crisis/opportunity as an impetus to live the most meaningful life of any generation?

• Each of us can begin by saying 'no' to the toxic lies of scarcity and choosing instead to live in the radical, surprising truth of sufficiency.

• Each of us can decide to treat this economic recession as the 'recess from excess' that is long overdue.

Follow this link to see more on The Soul of Money

Spa treatment menus: authenticity and audacity

Food cooked and presented with love has always been appreciated.  Spa treatments conducted and presented with heart are no different.  And these things tend to be home-grown and timeless.  They don't depend on ethnic or exotic imports but rather on creative and caring aspects of human community.

I'm not suggesting that experiencing the arts, healing methods, foods and traditions of different cultures isn't enlightening and life-expanding.  I'm talking more about being aware of what we are really seeking when we try, for example, a Turkish hamam, a Native American sweat lodge, or a Finnish sauna* (I can't resist a watery example here). 

Once we know this, the underlying elements can be appropriately and effectively adapted to suit and enhance whatever setting a spa is in.  Including locally grown ingredients, local suppliers, and local flavor in spa offerings will likely blend these treatments more naturally with a particular setting than if we outsource them.

Caught up in the glamor of the spa trade, many spa ventures focus on popular trends whether these involve a particular kind of treatment (from ayurveda to hot stones to reiki) or a particular brand of product (from ubiquitous Pevonia on down).  Everywhere a spa customer goes, the same offerings may appear.

Though this might seem to offer spa clients something familiar and reliable, it can also highlight problems related to inappropriate or unskilled application of methods and materials that have been designed outside the context of a particular spa for a different client population, and just don't work in the adopted one. 

Recently, I listened in to a telephone seminar by a spa consultant/ therapist who was once a restaurateur.  Nicolay Kreidler of Spa College was talking with Christopher Brazy of Day Spa Owner about eco-centric spa treatments sourced locally and made on site.

It occurred to me that as a concept this offers a potentially effective and creative key to instilling and inspiring sustainability in spas.  Sustainability, for example, in terms of:

• sourcing safe and purpose-beneficial ingredients,

• supporting, not exploiting, those who supply them,

• making up small batches of fresh product for direct use,

• eliminating the need for packaging, transporting, and storing products.

Though healing waters may have been side-lined by some sectors of spa culture, body care products have not been.  They have proliferated along with the growing spa industry.   'Green' products have commanded a premium (and not always justifiable) market price.

With increasing evidence of green washing, body care product manufacturers face scrutiny from conscious consumers who also represent a significant percentage of spa consumers.  This in turn ought to encourage spa owners to examine their choices and offerings more closely. 

Kreidler's eco-centric model is to source local and to involve the community - from suppliers, to staff, to customers - in the creation of a unique and varied spa menu.  He gave a chef's image for this of the 'specials blackboard' vs the fixed menu card.  It can likely only be pulled off if you are both authentic and audacious.

I once served some spa-retreat guests a pasta sauce I made with tofu and lavender (from the retreat garden).  I had followed a recipe and they were polite enough to eat it .  But it would probably have made a better sunburn soothing mask in the spa - lavender is a well-known anti-inflammatory!

*Watery aside: Steam and heat sessions occur in many cultures as communal experiences and also as part of healing traditions that consider both physical and spiritual elements.  Something about the dark warmth of these spaces induces peace, relaxation, and sometimes a sense of spirit if conditions and setting are right.

This series of six related posts is about spa products and the powerful potential they have for enabling sustainable spa culture.

1. Spa treatment menus: authenticity and audacity
2. Eco-spa-chefs: cooking up a better future
3. Savvy and creative spas grow their own spa products
   
4. The value of growing and making your own spa products
5. Natural, organic? Spa products under scrutiny
6. How to make your own 'soulful and sustainable' spa products
   

Putting the water back into spa

Derived some claim from the Latin verb spargere, to pour forth or the acronym s.p.a., referring to salus per aqua (health through water), the historical association of spa with water is undeniable.  Sadly, over the years, the word spa has been slowly but surely separated from its connection with water. 

Spa now comes in many forms. The 2007 Global Spa Economy Report summarized the categories of spa as day/club/salon spas (63% of total spa types), hotel/resort spas (16%), other spas (13%), medical spas (11%), and destination/health resorts (1%). 

For the purposes of this economic report, spas were defined as establishments that 'promote wellness through the provision of therapeutic and other professional services aimed at renewing the body, mind and spirit' with no restriction on size or combination of treatments, as previously used for other surveys. 

No mention of water.

Of course, some spas (mostly in the lowest percentage category above) are naturally endowed with seemingly unlimited mineral waters because of their location.  But, for all spas (and all places where humans gather) water must be available.  It is an essential ingredient for life, yet we often don't give its source and flow a moment's consideration.

Spa, in its original water-based meaning, could help give us back our reverence for water.  Perhaps the dilution of this word is simply following suit with the loss of our appreciation and valuing of water.  Perhaps, by reversing this trend, we could help restore health to our water.

The Well of the Strong: Women and the Spa World

Water is the great nurturer and connector.  In its unique transformations it links the mundane with the mystical and lends meaning to life.  This description could just as well be applied to the feminine principle, intuitive mysteries embodied (at least potentially) by women.  Women and Water are profoundly linked.

In a few months I will turn 50 and I'm contemplating what this means to me personally and to the role I can now play in the wider world.  A few days ago, an older woman told me that her daughter (not much younger than me) is focused on remaining 'young', as she sees no alternative to her future marketability.

This woman, who works as a drug rep and supports a family as a single mother, expects to have to work long beyond 'retirement' age.  As a woman who has not had children, I respect her dilemma; I also feel concern about the way in which the old economic paradigm has so many people apparently entrapped.

So, this piece of writing is mainly for my water sisters - to encourage us to see our lives as something more than our youthful beauty or family bonds (not to discount the value of either at certain stages of our lives).  I believe there is something far more to be drawn up from the deep well of life - a more enduring health.

Read on to see what this might have to do with spa culture and water.  I need your help in creating a movement that supports and safeguards a truly soulful and sustainable spa culture; one that puts water back into center stage and sees itself as far more than an escape from difficult realities.

Women and water

From 2002 to 2007, I owned a small private spa-retreat in the Missouri Ozarks.  A few years in to the venture, I surveyed our visitors and found a clear predominance of women in their mid-forties to mid-fifties.   I asked myself what state of being or seeking the above age-group might represent.

(Women also make up about 75% of spa goers and the larger percentage of seekers of alternative lifestyles, in addition to predominating among those who make consumer decisions based on their concerns for the environment.) 

The climactric (menopause): a natural feminine season, presaging irrevocable change, new freedom and ancient wisdom.  As the flow of blood ceases,  these women might naturally seek out the flow of water to reinvigorate their transformed lives. 

Women, well-versed in the blood rites through their own bodies, are also increasingly wise to the overriding importance of water, especially insofar as it represents the mythical and natural realms, the ultimate force for life and meaning. 

This awareness may become even stronger as middle-aged women move into the 'change'.  For some, it's a scary time that sends them to estheticians for anti-aging treatments, to gyms for workout programs.  It's not that these are necessarily wrong but the motivation behind them may deny a greater power.

Standing for something: an acronym for Vision Spa Retreat

 
As I pursue my vision of a spa culture that is soulful and sustainable, my hope is to encourage a shared sense of purpose, and to establish a foundation of guiding values.  In my work and in my life, wherever and whenever I have the opportunity, I pledge to:

 

Value people and planet equally
 Inspire by example, not persuasion
  Share knowledge and skills freely
   Invite creative cooperation
    Offer help without expectation
     Nurture dreams and restore hope

 

Safeguard water in all its aspects
 Protect the health of people and planet
  Act with genuine care and consideration

 

Relax into the creative process
 Empty my heart of all past hurt
  Trust in the natural cycles of life
   Restore my faith in goodness
    Expect love and peace to prevail
     Act with integrity in all I do
      Take no more than I give

  

Sara Firman (Director)

Spa cultures, dreams and healing waters: a workshop at Toskana Therme

'Psyche in World Spa Cultures and Cosmos'

with Dr. Jonathan Paul DeVierville ( read more about him on Vision Spa Retreat)

July 21st - July 26th 2009

Toskana Therme, Bad Sulza, Germany

Throughout this website and the other two I write on, you'll find frequent references to an earlier presentation of this workshop that I was fortunate to attend in 2001.  I highly recommend this experience for anyone interested in spa culture, dreams and healing waters.

Below is a copy of the current program from the hosts at Toskanaworld (scroll to the bottom to find contact information).  If you are able to attend, or have been to past events, I invite you to post a review in the comment section that follows this post.

Related post: The age of dreaming has come by Sulis

........................................................................................................................................................


Dreams and Healing Waters: Psyche in World Spa Cultures & Cosmos is an eco-social-psi-dreaming field event and an in depth spa experience. An Experiential Dreaming Field & Float Time to work with historical, and/or spontaneously emerging cultural dream images and archetypal symbols, myths and metaphors associated with global issues and planetary themes. Participants experience an aquatic journey into their dreams, healing imagination, and cultural creativities through an exploration and revelation of ancient and avant-garde ways.

The working schedule includes an introduction to eco-social psi-cultural dreaming field, lectures and presentations, Aqua Wellness & Liquid Body Work with evening/late night Liquid Sound Temple , floats & deep flows, nights & mornings with time for deep sleeping, dreaming & healing and field trip visit(s) to Goseck, Nebra and the Jena Planetarium.

Dr. Jonathan Paul DeVierville PhD, LCSW, LPC, TRMT is Professor of The Humanities, History, Interdisciplinary & Global Studies at The St. Philip’s College in San Antonio, Texas his teaching and research interests are in the history of spa cultures, natural therapeutic health care systems, spa resort medicine, hydrotherapy and balneology and the new cosmology which he has taught at colleges, universities, spas and health resorts around the world.

Times, Topics and Working Schedule for Five (5) Nights & Four (4) Days in Bad Sulza, Germany

Spa culture meets corporate culture: a force for positive change

  

I've been thinking about how to present Vision Spa Retreat's ideas to a gathering for meeting planners who are interested in exploring ways in which the events they organize can support and promote care for the environment.  These professionals are special hosts who endeavor to provide settings and services for clients who are seeking to do 'good' business.

They create the background against which this can happen as smoothly, comfortably and effectively as possible.  In doing so they have the opportunity to influence the choices of their customers in the direction of consumption designed only to make an impression or to model more thoughtful approaches to providing health and hospitality that may influence the whole context of how we do business.

• Meeting and event organizers: what if you could bring people together to really make a difference?

• Business owners: are you looking for ways to integrate health and environmental concerns?

• Spa owners: are you looking for a life-sustaining vision that extends beyond the bottom-line?

Below, I argue for the positive potential in integrating spa culture and corporate culture.  From think-tanks to sabbaticals, we could make all our gatherings ones in which we are seeking to redress the imbalance that has become clear in ways of living and making a living.  The details (the what and how) are important but so also is having a vision of why.

Green: just a trend or a vision in action?

Green has become a buzz word in our culture, and in the world of spa it has been especially popular - ecoluxury destination spas are springing up all over the world and the US now has its own Green Spa Network.  Organic beauty products and nature-based images abound.  It has been reasonable to ask whether this is just another marketing trend or a real shift in values.

In the current economic climate, Green will become even more strongly linked with the need for Sustainability, and it is this that might help us make the transition to a more authentic and realistic expression of our ideals.  Even so, changing our culture's unsustainable habits is a challenge.  There is a wealth of information about what is wrong and what can be done to put it right. 

To carry this through we'll need an inspiring vision or mission, one that expresses values and needs that are aligned with and truly supportive of both personal and planetary health.  I believe that spa, in particular spa-retreat, has the potential to model this vision in action.  Historically spa culture and  human commerce (meeting for business purposes) have been strongly interlinked.

Long before colonization of the New World, Native Americans gathered at thermal mineral springs for physical health, spiritual, and social purposes.  In Europe, the Romans were cultivating spas as places for both play and politics.  And in ancient Greece, people went on spa sabbaticals to receive healing dreams from the gods that offered solutions to otherwise intractable problems.

Our own society is now recognizing the value of adding spa culture to its social and business settings, to meetings and events.  It's an interweaving that, if fully realized, could provide us with solutions to our own personal, social, and environmental issues by immersing us in an inclusive and informal setting where all three aspects of human life are recognized as being inseparable.

A contemporary spa industry is emerging that provides not only therapeutic treatments, but also a broad range of activities for relaxation and renewal. Considering spa as solely pampering or self-indulgent is to overlook its value as a regenerative and socially re-creative service. Meanwhile, new business management techniques are including spirituality and promoting wellbeing.