Coastal Traveler - Fall 2007 - (Page 38)

coastaltraveler My body and I have a tenuous relationship. I feed it, clothe it, clean it, and occasionally take it out for walks, but for the most part, my body is often overlooked in the day to day chaos of my life. So after years of ignoring it, I took my body to Osmosis Spa, in the tiny town of Freestone on the Bohemian Highway near Occidental, which has the country’s only cedar enzyme bath. Osmosis’s exterior looks like an oldfashioned wooden building; it could have been a general store or saloon where miners parked their horses and started drunken brawls during the Gold Rush. But Osmosis began in 1985, not in 1849 like the facade would suggest, after founder Michael Stusser discovered the cedar enzyme bath while studying Zen gardening in Japan. The bath promises relief from joint and muscle aches and pains, reduced tension and fatigue, stress reduction, calming of the nerves, beautification of the skin, detoxification and improved digestion. Inside, I am given a cup of warm and minty peach elixir while I wait. The spa’s waiting room, which sells gifts like candles, dragon shaped teapots, incense, and many Buddha statues of varying sizes, is exemplary of the Zen and Eastern style that I will find throughout Osmosis. I am then taken to a dressing room where I put belongings into a locker, and dress in a blue kimono robe printed with Japanese flowers. My bath attendant, Kirana, meets me in a small room with sliding doors that look out onto a tea garden, lush and green with water flowing over moss covered rocks. She brings a tray of enzyme tea and says it will promote healthy digestion and help speed up my metabolism. The enzyme bath is not really a bath at all if you associate the word “bath” with water. It consists of cedar and douglas fir chips, rice bran and a small amount of water. The mix creates heat from fermentation. It’s a fancy compost pile. Kirana had made an indentation for my body out of the fragrant concoction. I disrobe and climb in. Kirana rakes the mixture over my naked body. My senses are overwhelmed by the scratchy chips, the heat, and the smell: woody and musty like a forest after an autumn rain. As I look through the window out onto the Zen garden, I imagine the enzymes penetrating my pores and doing battle with the many toxins that have barricaded themselves in my cells. Every five minutes, Kirana comes in with a cool compress to dab my sweaty forehead. The bath takes twenty minutes, and even though the heat is intense, I am able to relax and almost feel myself drifting off to sleep. Kirana then tells me it’s time to get out. Like a newborn leatherback tortoise, coastalspa: the Osmosis o By Samantha Gilweit 38 coastaltraveler fall

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Coastal Traveler - Fall 2007 Coastal Contents Coastal Connoisseur Coastal Picks Coastal Hotel Coastal Reader Coastal Rider Coastal Spa Santa Barbara Pismo & Avila San Luis Obispo Big Sur Carmel Monterey Santa Cruz San Francisco Sausalito Mill Valley Stinson Beach Bolinas Olema Point Reyes Station San Geronimo Fairfax Inverness Marshall, Tomales Sebastopol Petuluma Sonoma Coast Redwood Coast Napa Map

Coastal Traveler - Fall 2007

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