In a Native American parable, the Creator gathers all the animals and says:
“I want to hide something from humans until they are ready for it – the realization that they create their own reality.”
“Give it to me. I’ll fly it to the moon,” says the eagle..
“No, one day soon they will go there and find it.”
“How about at the bottom of the ocean?” asks the salmon.
“No, they will find it there too.”
“I will bury it in the great plains,” says the buffalo.
“They will soon dig and find it there.”
“Put it inside them,” says wise grandmother mole.
“Done,” says the Creator. “It is the last place they will look.”
One of the great wonders of travel is that a journey far from home can actually take us deep inside ourselves. When we surround ourselves with new locations, the dusty tangles of everyday worries and responsibilities drop away, and we see our lives in a new light. With this release, a vacation becomes much more than just “time off.” After all, the word vacation comes from the Latin word vacare, which means “to be empty or free.” A spa journey is the quickest, most effective – and if you choose, most luxurious – route to this very special kind of freedom. It not only offers an opportunity to “empty” yourself, but to fill up with more positive ways of being.
Linda Troeller, the photographer for Spa Journeys (PowerHouse Books, 2003), first visited a spa twenty years ago. “I was going through this awful breakup and I went to Mexico to do black-and-white photography – I was a student of Ansel Adams and that was what all the art photographers were doing at the time,” she says. Once there, Linda’s mind was still centered on her relationship, trying to fathom why it wasn’t working. “I met the great surrealist painter Leonora Carrington and she said to me, ‘You can’t be sad in Mexico. You should try some magic mushrooms or visit some hot springs.'” Linda decided to pass on the mushrooms, but she did go to a spa in Ixtapan, Mexico. There, a local Indian healer led her to a treatment room in which little jars of mud lined the walls. The healer told her to cover her body with the mud. “It will draw all your sins from you,” she said. “And the water from the hot springs will wash them all away.”
Linda bathed in the springs every day for a week, and copied the local Indians, taking the water in her cupped hands and pouring it over her heart. As the week passed, she had a few cries and plenty of rest. Her energy and optimism began to return and, with them, a renewed appetite for life. “I had been at a crossroads in my art, too,” she says. “But I saw new possibilities. I decided to learn more about hot springs and healing sites and capture them on film. When I got home, I was also able to face the end of my relationship with a little more peace. I was ready to let it go.” Like millions before her, Linda had discovered the rejuvenating power of spa life.
Many Americans still think of spas as places to go to have their toenails buffed, or their eyelids draped with cucumber slices, or to starve themselves into twigginess on a diet of steamed lettuce leaves. Personally, I’ve never encountered a facialist holding anything resembling a cucumber (though I have seen the vegetable used in foot baths), and most spa food is anything but Spartan nowadays. You can begin the day with stuffed French toast and end it with a chocolate napoleon dessert. A spa journey has become about much more than shedding fat and getting a good massage. In this day and age, everyone knows that dieting is not the answer to a weight problem. Losing weight and keeping it off requires a change in lifestyle.
In the last two decades, millions of people have become interested in self-improvement and transformation, and have recognized that spas are among the best places to make progress in these pursuits. Spas have become like academies, where visitors train themselves in the art of living. At many, wherever you turn, there is a yoga or meditation class, a seminar on the latest relaxation techniques, or a lecture from a renowned mind-body expert. You can even star in your own private Oprah or Dr. Phil show and hash out problems that have plagued you for years.
When I began writing about spas almost ten years ago, I had never had a massage or a facial. At first I found these treatments a little boring, and I hated the phrases “let go” and “take a deep breath.” Nor did I like the idea of people covering my body with gunk, whether it be crushed pineapple, Dead Sea mud, or melted chocolate. I started writing about spas because I loved travel as a means of escape and insight. Entering a new culture is as dramatic as stepping inside a movie screen. Suddenly, one becomes part of a new world of flavors, colors, and customs. Every detail of life, from ordering breakfast to walking down the street, becomes an adventure. At its best, travel is not only a diversion from our everyday lives, but an intensification of life itself, enhancing our appreciation of the world around us, opening our minds to new perspectives.
– Annette Foglino
Excerpt and photography from Spa Journeys with permision from Powerhouse books.March/April 2004
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