For an unusual and effective treatment, opt for tree therapy at Holtz Spa in Ottawa
Finding your roots through spa therapy at Holtz Spa in Ottawa
“Imagine your feet are roots going into the ground. Your hands are branches reaching into the sky,” says Christine, my massage therapist, her pale hair gleaming in the soft light.
Maybe it’s the New Age flute music, but I’m having a hard time becoming a tree. Maybe I need earthier music, like Wiccans chanting or wind-in-the-leaves sounds. As it is, I’m all too aware this isn’t a pine-filled forest but a treatment room in Ottawa’s Holtz Spa, a sleek urban day spa steps away from Rideau Shopping Centre and Parliament Hill.
Connecting through spa therapy
Still, I’m determined to connect. Energy therapies – treatments which work with energy fields in and around the body to remove blockages and restore balance – are one of 2009’s hottest spa trends and I need to de-stress. For the past three weeks, I’ve been in ‘moving hell,’ surrounded by boxes, suffocated by paint fumes and up to my ears in blinds installations and air con deliveries. This weekend in Ottawa is a much-needed break, and if renewal means channeling my inner tree, so be it.
Only in Canada
The Spirit of the Forest Experience is a uniquely Canadian treatment – rare in an industry obsessed with exotic traditions like Thai massage, Ayurveda and Hawaiian Lomi Lomi. Developed by Holtz Spa, it taps into the vibrational energy of various Canadian trees by using essences made from tree cuttings that are distilled down until only their imprint, i.e. their energy, remains.
It sounds a bit out there, but throughout history trees have been worshipped in one way or another. With roots that extend underground and branches that climb the sky, they were seen by pagans as connecting the mysterious realms of the underworld and the abode of the gods. For the Druids, particularly, they were sacred, sources of healing, magic and divination.
Ground yourself
Christine asks what I want from the experience. Rejecting fun things like untold riches and immortal beauty as too shallow, I opt for cleansing and detoxing.
After drinking a mixed essence of maple, yew and Douglas fir– the internal layer of the treatment – my body is dry brushed. Christine lightly massages me with essential oils and aromas of rose, geranium and tulip tree fill the air.
The flute music is driving me crazy.
I ask Christine to switch it off and immediately sink into that floaty spa Zen zone – the pampered girl’s version of meditation. Then suddenly I’m feeling so much energy it’s as if I’m sinking into a dark hole then expanding out into space.
It’s quite a trip, and I’m not sure what to make of it. After the treatment I slip on my robe and meet Christine in the hall. To my surprise she details my experience exactly as it was happening in my mind. “It really was as if you were the branches into the sky – your energy would soar out – and then you’d go deep in like the roots into the ground.”
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“I think you got out your negative energy.”
Spa therapy is a trip
It’s as if I’ve just been through some intense, yet nonverbal, psychoanalysis, and it takes a Rose Quartz Facial and some down-to-earth extractions from Buki, my Albanian facialist to bring me back to reality.
That night my tree therapy inadvertently continues as the entire wall facing my bed at the boutique Hotel Indigo is a mural of birch trees. Now I know how a wood nymph must feel when she wakes from her bed of moss.
Over breakfast the next morning it occurs to me I could take tree therapy one step further and get into some real woods. A 15-minute taxi ride takes me to the entrance of Gatineau Park in Quebec, where the outdoor Le Nordik Nature spa is a scattering of pools, waterfalls, Finnish sauna, steam bath, relaxation cabins and deck chairs in a forest of maple and oak.
After doing the sauna circuit I sit in the hot pool. Water cascades down the granite rock face behind me and the wind rustles through the leaves. Ah, this is the life. I’ve kicked out my negative energy and replaced it with a tree-inspired calm. Maybe now I can go home and tackle those unpacked boxes.
Travel tips for Ottawa and Holtz Spa
Where to Relax: Holtz Spa: 45 Rideau St. Tel: 1 877 241 8889
Le Nordik – Nature spa: 16, chemin Nordik, Chelsea, Québec. Tel: 1 866 575-3700 www.lenordik.com
Where to Eat: Graze through the small-plates menu at the trend-setting eatery Play Food & Wine in the ByWard Market at 1 York Street. Tel 613 667 9207 www.playfood.ca
For more information on Ottawa visit Ottawa Tourism www.ottawatourism.ca
Read more about spas in the Ottawa-Gatineau area – Nordik Spa Nature is now the largest day spa in North America.
Want more spa? Read more about Spa and Spa Travel
Leave a Reply