ome experiences change your outlook forever. Once you've dined at a Michelin three-star restaurant, you'll never again look at food the same way. I've had the good fortune to indulge myself at quite a number of them over the years, and while it doesn't exactly turn you off ordinary restaurant fare, it certainly makes you more discerning. Once you've seen what's possible in the culinary arts, eating at your average, pretentious North American 'fine dining' establishment and putting up with bush-league servers is like listening to Wayne Newton have a go at "Nessun Dorma."
These thoughts are prompted by a recent visit to a wellness spa that specializes in authentic Ayurvedic therapies, one of just a handful in North America. I know, I know—'Ayurvedic' massage is featured at most spas nowadays, along with tutti-frutti aromatherpy and Hawaiian hot rocks. As it happens, I've had such an "Ayurvedic" massage at a boutique spa in downtown Toronto: it amounted to a standard Swedish rubdown with scented oil and taped sitar music. No, I am speaking here of the real thing, the authentic therapeutic techniques developed over the five thousand years or so that Ayurvedic medicine has been practiced in India, and dispensed by trained Ayurvedic physicians from Bombay.
The true Ayurvedic experience became available for the first time to southern Ontario and upstate New York late in 2003 when Elemental Embrace opened the doors to a twenty-thousand-square-foot wellness retreat and destination spa set in thirty acres of wooded hills near the resort town of Brighton, Ontario, about an hour and a half east of Toronto via Highway 401. It is the project of an Indo-Canadian family of hoteliers and entrepreneurs. Mother Begum Teja has a long background in Ayurvedic massage and medicine; sons Jazir and Muqit have degrees in marketing and accounting, respectively.
As a system of medicine—probably the world's oldest—Ayurveda offers a full range of treatments for what ails you, and as clinical procedure enjoys much the same status in India as acupuncture in China or shiatsu in Japan: in each country these ancient therapies are taught in universities and practiced in hospitals alongside Western medicine. But Ayurveda, the "science of life" in Sanskrit, is more than medicine. It is a roadmap to a "good" life in every sense of the word. Ayurvedic physicians, called vaidyas, go through four years of post-secondary schooling and follow that with a year's internship, usually in a rural clinic.
If you book in to Elemental Embrace for Ayurvedic treatments and a consultation, you can expect to be quizzed by one of the doctors about your medical history, living habits, tastes, dreams, food preferences, propensity to perspire, bowel movements, and a hundred other things... information the practitioners need to identify your general dasha, or physiological and mental makeup. The idea is that everyone has a blend of vata (air and space, representing, roughly, the nervous system), pitta (fire and water—the enzyme system in modern Western terms), and kapha (water and earth, approximating the nutritive/digestive system).
The goal of Ayurvedic medicine is to achieve a three-way balance, which is the key to good health, serene spirits, and long life. On the basis of their consultation, the doctors can identify which of the elements is out of whack and recommend dietary and lifestyle changes, herbal remedies and massage. And they can tailor your therapy sessions specifically to you, right down to the herbs used in the warmed sesame oil (both imported from India).
Detoxification is a key concept at Elemental Embrace, and it can involve anything from a day visit to a week-long stay in one of the spa's twelve guest rooms or two suites, each decorated differently in a serene palate and natural fibres. (The remarkably comfortable mattresses on the California king and twin beds—your choice—are specially made in India of a coconut fibre and foam sandwich.)
The detox process aims to rid the body of chemical toxins and cleanse the mind of stress, while re-balancing the dasha. It centers on alternating daily Abhyanga Mardana and Shirodhara massage treatments supplemented by other specialized treatments as recommended by the Ayurvedic physicians. These extras can include everything from colonic hydrotherapy to a dozen specialized massages using herbed ghee (clarified butter) or sesame oil, to herbal steam baths. Guests undergoing a detoxification program are fully monitored by the Ayurvedic doctors, at least one of whom is on call at all times. Resident guests typically opt for a two-or three-day destressor package.
If this is beginning to sound too much like a visit to clinic and not enough like a spa experience, don't be misled. A few days at Elemental Embrace would make a great start to a honeymoon Ayurvedic massage is as hedonistic as it is therapeutic. The Abhyanga Mardana is done by two therapists working in unison on either side of your body using long, sweeping strokes and precise pressure, and what seems like about a litre of warmed, herbed, sesame oil. The table on which you lie naked or nearly so, comfortably bolstered with rolled towels, is a massive teak plank, channeled along its edges like a carving board to catch the excess oil. The light is very dim and the music is Indian and hypnotic.
An hour and a half of this leaves you feeling totally relaxed, energized and clear-headed all at the same time. Shirodhara involves an initial massage in similar style, followed by forty-five minutes of something that has to be experienced to be appreciated—as you lie on the teak table under warm towels, your eyes covered with a cotton cloth, warmed, herbed oil is trickled from a large copper urn back and forth across your forehead, back and forth, back and forth…until you lose track of time and everything else. The treatment ends with a few minutes in a steam cabinet with more herbs and finally a shower. "Blissful" is an overused adjective, but nothing else quite fits here.
Because I suffer from occasional migraines, I was prescribed a Nasya treatment, in which face, shoulders and chest are massaged with medicated oils before a few drops of an herbal infusion are placed into the nostrils, followed by a more massage around the nose, forehead and chest. I'm normally a little squeamish about things like this, but the atmosphere was so relaxing and the therapist so practiced and gentle that I found it entirely pleasurable. An Ayurvedic facial (called Ananabhyanga) was also recommended. It lasts three-quarters of an hour, and involves, once again, very specialized massage techniques and oils and creams infused with herbs selected for your particular dosha.
I can speak for the toning and rejuvenating effects of the facial, which are remarkable (I was pleasantly shocked when I looked at myself in the mirror), but whether the fact that I wasn't bothered by headaches for some time afterward can be attributed to the treatments or not, I can't say for certain based on my one experience. My strong suspicion is that the treatments do help, just as the detox therapies are said to help even cancer patients recovering from chemotherapy. This is real medicine (recognized by the World Health Organization), despite its gentle pleasures and the absence of side-effects.
Ayurveda can be a lifetime study, and frequently is in India, and a review like this one can do no more than provide the merest glimpse into what, for most Westerners, is another world of physical and spiritual experience. You can learn a bit more at the spa: the physicians provide evening lectures for interested guests.
And speaking of Westerners, if you prefer more conventional treatments in combination with Ayurveda, or on their own, Elemental Embrace offers a full spa menu from body wraps to Renaud facials and collagen veils, to aromatherapy and, yes, even Hawaiian hot stone massage. As it was explained to us, the intent is to provide "wellness in a spa atmosphere."
Treatment rooms are large, quiet and tastefully decorated. Facilities are rounded out with an indoor pool and hot tub, steam rooms and sauna, and a gym for those with the work-out habit. There's also a large, fully-equipped conference room for group meetings. Days are begun in a sunny yoga room overlooking the woods, with easy stretching poses demonstrated by one of the therapists. A long walk in the private woods is a fine way to work off lunch.
And you may need to do just that, because the food is irresistible. Jocular chef Scott Bond juggles special diets with general fare, one eye on calories and nutrition and the other on flavour and satisfaction, and manages to come up with fare that guests rave about. A representative dinner menu: foccaccia, apple-mushroom soup, seared salmon with a creole sauce, broccoli and wild rice with a layered saffron rice pudding and chocolate mousse dessert.
Lunch on our second day there was a lavish affair with seven individual curries served in little stainless-steel bowls along with sides of Indian flatbread, yoghurt and chutney. All meals (including late afternoon tea) are served in a wood-paneled dining room with fireplace and a deck, overlooking the grounds.
Elemental Embrace is a relatively new facility, but we think it's got its act together. The concept of authentic Ayurvedic wellness in a spa atmosphere with Indian-trained and qualified therapists is one that seems sure to catch on. The engaging and entrepreneurial Teja brothers have plans to expand into the U.S., but Brighton, they say, will always be special because it's where their mom intends to continue working and living, following the Ayurvedic path.
The day spa price of $195 includes lunch and a $120 credit for Ayurvedic and spa massages. A six-day custom pancha karama detox package (including room and board) can cost $2,500, depending on the nature of treatments prescribed by the resident viadyas. (Canadian dollars.) Check out their web site for a full listing of facilities, treatments, packages and prices.
Check them out online at www.ElementalEmbrace.com
Some experiences change your outlook forever. Once you've dined at a Michelin three-star restaurant, you'll never again look at food the same way. I've had the good fortune to indulge myself at quite a number of them over the years, and while it doesn't exactly turn you off ordinary restaurant fare, it certainly makes you more discerning. Once you've seen what's possible in the culinary arts, eating at your average, pretentious North American 'fine dining' establishment and putting up with bush-league servers is like listening to Wayne Newton have a go at "Nessun Dorma."
Global Spa Treatments
