The Spa, ZEN and a Renaissance

So this weekend I indulged in some serious much needed TLC and treated myself (and my bestie) to a day at the Spa. We drove 90.8 miles North to the border of Sebastopol and Freestone to the Osmosis Day Spa. Apparently, it is among the top ten day Spas in Northern California. So we "trekked" this drive equipped with munchies and an I-pod of music - Hindi of course, unsure of what to expect or even where this place was. The drive turned out to become a great gossip session, much needed, and the view was simply spectacular. Yes, we complained because this Spa was seriously out in the boonies; I mean serious in the middle of no where. But the minute we saw extreme greenery, nature, horses, cows and sheep, we realized this was serious California.

We finally arrived the Osmosis Spa which we later found out was a house that had been converted and expanded into a spa. We were welcomed with a great cup of peppermint tea and told to get into a Japanese robe. Then began our exquisite treatment. We signed up for the Cedar Enzyme Bath. Basically you are put into a tub filled with dry cedar, rice bran and plant enzymes from Japan. The dry bath is about 120 degrees hot but you don't really feel it until you are completely covered in the moss for a few minutes. After you are pretty much covered from the neck down, you finally feel the heat and sweat nonstop. We were given an attendant who constantly came in every five minutes and lay cold towels on our heads while we sipped on cold water. After twenty minutes, and by this time you are pretty much a sweaty mess, you are taken out of the bath and made to shower up.

The point of this bath is to stimulate your senses, relax you, extract stress, cleanse and beautify your skin, reduce tension and fatigue amongst many. But the best part was yet to come. After a cold glass of electrolyte water, you are taken up to a room where you are asked to lay down, covered in a blanket and given 30 minutes of Hemi Sync. The music puts you in a complete state of relaxation; the music itself is meant to help with stress management, promote profound relaxation and help focus concentration. So I lay there unsure of how I would react to this new way of relaxing. About two minutes of listening to the music, I found myself extremely relaxed; slowly I moved from a state of unsureness to of calmness. Before I knew it, my body had reached a heightened level of relaxation; not an inch moved. My mind had come to a complete standstill; no feelings, no emotions, no thoughts. I felt myself at a different level; as though my my soul was above my body. I had reached a state of Zen.

Thirty minutes later, I came out of my trance and found myself, well, enlightened. That one experience had officially changed my life. We decided to hang around the Spa for a bit and feel the incredible positive energy it possessed. As I breathed it all, I realized how this place held a strange energy; my karma, my body, my past had all been cleansed. It was an odd sense of liberation. And just when I thought that this experience couldn't get any better, I walked out into the lobby area and bang in front of me was the following plaque:


That evening, I came home and found myself unusually energized. How I used that energy was to clean. I took out my old suitcase I hadn't looked at in ages, threw out old photographs of people I didn't want to remember, old letters, memoirs and clutter that was holding me back. This morning, I cleared my closet and a bunch of drawers; ridding myself of any old dead and unneeded skeletons that were loitering around in my life. It was all gone. I was reborn.

Now I know that a major change is headed my way, all the subliminal signs are pointing in that direction; this was just one of many that have been reoccurring. And that's all it took, a day at the Spa.