First, set your intention.
What do you intend to feel today? What needs healing? Or as meditation practitioner Tara Brach queries often: “What inside you needs attention right now?”
If you don’t know yet … take your time. Sip mindfully on cucumber-steeped water; let eucalyptus-infused steam saunter through and open you up.
Breathe deeply.
Wait.
What you need will come to you.
You have all day.
“Plan to come early and leave late,” encourages the spa staff at Innisbrook Golf Resort and Spa, Tampa Bay. Their perceptiveness engenders instant affinity and bonding – a cornerstone of the Salamander experience that permeates throughout the Salamander brand. It’s newest destination – The Henderson: A Salamander Beach and Spa resort in Destin, Fla. promises the same. For guests and non-guests alike the spa’s philosophy is constant: A genuine holistic and therapeutic approach for healing and well-being. The treatments don’t just happen to you. Rather, you are setting everything in motion and being guided by holistic wellness experts along the way – complemented at every turn by sensory enhancements, with healthy food in the spa garden, meditative yoga and education about how the treatments — at the end of the day – will yield you your highest self.
Indeed, even if you can’t spend the entire day, you’ll want to. And that’s where it begins: Intention. Because all day is when, and how, the transformation at the Salamander Spa tends to unfold – just enough time to reactivate the communique between mind and body. It’s precisely what owner Sheila C. Johnson intended when she named the spa’s original iteration “Indaba.” A conceptual souvenir from her travels to South Africa, Indaba is a Zulu term meaning a meeting of minds and body for health and well-being. Each offering then, is custom-designed to catalyze this rudimentary connection. Take the day to decide and do just what your body wants to. Perfect Asanas on the private terrace, or take a restorative nap after Reiki therapy or a cashmere quench wrap and lime peel. Do you.
Salamander Spa crowned its expansive offerings with four new Signature treatments designed to energize, assimilate, focus and let go through the movement of fluids within the body in order to harmonize, fortify and heal. These 80-minute, multi-sensory treatments, were specifically formulated by the spa’s alchemist to utilize the finest essential oils in combination with a full body wellness experience. Each customized treatment includes a foot ritual, gentle skin exfoliation, nourishing scalp treatment, facial mask application and restorative massage techniques.
Balance ritual – intention: strength
Invigorate the body and release stored vitality through the use of bamboo. Bamboo provides strength, growth and support. This treatment helps release any frustrations and tension while balancing the emotions.
Reflection ritual – intention: fortitude
This revitalizing treatment focuses on reflection and restoring the body and mind with the sole purpose of recovery. This ritual includes a skin brushing and detoxifying body mask, plus a replenishing Hot Stone massage using a blend of juniper, lime, rosemary and sage. A gentle anointing and fragrant mist concludes this ritual.
Clearing ritual – intention: perseverance
The focus is on detoxification, moving stagnant energy and bringing warmth while your mind is cleared and the heart reengages. This treatment is about letting go of anything that troubles you either physical, emotional or energetic. A targeted restorative application to the spine and lower back with hot stones concludes with an anointing oil to overcome fear and to increase determination.
Grounding ritual – courage
Balance, calm and clarity to the mind; grounding the body and an opening of the lungs is the focus through a targeted scalp and foot massage. The Ayurvedic foot treatment uses an artisan crafted metal healing wand for revitalizing the feet; easing pain and tension. An anointing blend of essential oils for courage concludes with a mood spritz of orange blossom.
At day’s end, mind-body balance is restored and good intentions affirmed.
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