Peace and Tranquility at Osmosis Day Spa

I have heard a lot about Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary but I’m a workaholic and I’d never made the time to go. It’s located in Freestone, CA which is just 20 minutes from where I live. The marketing manager, Melena Moore, and I have been running into each other at a variety of events for years but it wasn’t until a few months ago when she invited my friend and I to come out and have a cedar enzyme bath that I actually made it there. I can’t believe it took me this long. [See my Flickr photoset of the day.]

There was no cell reception! Score one for relaxation. Once you walk in, you see the resemblance to a Japanese tea garden, quiet and peaceful, with wood lined walls. We checked in for our enzyme baths and were brought into a ladies locker room. Clothes off, robes on, we had our own private tea garden to enjoy. We were served tea that helped digestion while we marveled at the beauty of the outdoor surroundings. I wandered out to enjoy myself and look around while we waited for our bath to be prepared.

The bath chamber was a rectangular box filled with wet cedar chips. There were two places scooped out for my friend and I to lay back in. The two of us were in the same box, which aren’t the easiest to get into, with a view out a big window. The room was steamy and humid. The enzyme chips felt and looked like soggy raisin bran. Imagine being folded into it like a bowl of ingredients, tucked in as if with a warm blanket. There is a moment of claustophobia but when you realize you can pull your arms and legs in and out as you see fit, it passes quickly. We giggled at the odd sensation but ultimately truly enjoyed the 20 minutes of humid warmth. The bath attendant regularly returns to wipe your face with cool cloths and hold a cup and straw up to your lips for drinking. When they help you out of the box, you brush your body free of wood chips with a large brush. The chips get everywhere. This visit I wore a bathing suit, next time I’ll go without. Outside there is a shower to rinse away the wood. I did a pretty thorough job, my friend struggled to get clean.

Next we were brought up to a relaxation room. Laying on pads, we put on headphones to listen to Metamusic® which helped us to further relax and balanced brain wave activity. I wanted to stay in that room all day. The word “peaceful” simply doesn’t do it justice.

We only had the one service so we donned our clothes and headed out onto the grounds to visit the Japanese mediation garden. If you’ve seen Osmosis, you really need to go all the way in because the front doesn’t tell the whole story. From hanging hammocks to the garden itself, the farther you walk, the more removed you become from your stressful life. I found out they have Dharma Morning Meditation where you bring your own cushion and join others in meditation (free of charge).

This peaceful location and the quiet that permeates the grounds was exactly the antidote to the stressful and fast paced life that I live. I want to thank Melena and owner Michael Stusser for hosting me and a friend to come enjoy this experience. In order for me to stay whole and healthy, I do believe that Osmosis may play a large part in it. [See another experience I had at Osmosis just a couple weeks later here.]

Agriculture Day for Leadership Santa Rosa Class 27

I’m involved in this great program called Leadership Santa Rosa run by the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce. All chambers have leadership programs but we are going into our 28th year, which I understand is the longest running of it’s kind in the U.S. I was in Class 26 and am the incoming President for the Alumni Association. There are many theme days: government, business, green issues, health & human services, media & marketing, justice, education, hospitality & tourism (watch for a blog on that one), and the most popular is agriculture. I was on the committee to produce Class 27’s Agriculture Day on 5/19/11. See my blog from last year’s Ag Day.

We visited the Rancho Laguna Dairy and heard from Art Lafranchi about the dairy business. What is amazing about this day is that it starts so early in the morning yet we are halfway through their workday by the time we arrive at the dairy. Last year when I went through the program compared to today were very different experiences. Since earlier this year, I have been flitting between being a vegan and a vegetarian. Those cows looked a lot different, let me tell you.

Flickr Photo Album

Tierra Vegetables is this wonderful CSA farm in Santa Rosa. Community supported agriculture, or CSA, is basically a membership to a farm. You pay a monthly cost to get a set amount of veggies either delivered for you or available for pickup. Evie & Wayne James gave us a lovely tour and the thing I noticed the most, next to the beautiful vegetation, was the fact that Wayne walked his land barefoot. I was blown away at the thought that he knew how his land felt through his entire body. Sounds silly but it’s a grounding concept. If you know of anyone that is stealing their produce, they’d greatly like it to stop.

There is a secret in Sonoma County. The Gourmet Mushroom Farm is this enclave of amazing foodstuffs in the form of fungi. The GMF doesn’t open their doors for anyone really. That’s the beauty of LSR. We get to go places no one else could get close to. Bob Engel gives us a tour every year and the idea that mushrooms can grow on wood always blows people away.

Most of the people traveling on that day were by bus, I drove my car because I had to leave early. This day is even more special because of the bonding that occurs on the bus.

On to Shone Farm, the botanical educational laboratory for the JC agriculture, viticulture, and culinary courses. Leonard Diggs is a farmer through and through. The beauty here is striking. The students that get to learn about animals, farming, vineyard work, winemaking, the culinary arts, as well as having a location for large events within the horse arena in the Dutton Pavilion. Last year we were there during tomato season and got to taste some 🙂

We had a great panel of speakers to speak on Emerging Trends & Challenges of Agriculture. They were: Lex McCorvey, Sonoma County Farm Bureau; Dave Whitmer, Napa County Agriculture Commission & Interim Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner; Joe Pozzi, Pozzi Ranch Lamb; and Clark Wolf, Clark Wolf Company.

The day ended at DeLoach Vineyards with a panel on the Sonoma County Wine Industry with Brian Maloney of DeLoach Vineyards; Rhonda Smith of UC Cooperative Extension; and Nick Frey of Sonoma Winegrape Commission. There was a tasting but I’m sad to have missed that part of the day. The gardens, bees, vineyards, guesthouse, and pool were phenomenal.

Thanks to all the great hosts, speakers, and locations that are made available to this amazing program. We couldn’t do it without all of you!

Nature in the Neighborhood

Particulars:
Saturday July 10, 2010
Bayer Neighborhood Park & Gardens
1550 West Ave., Santa Rosa
(view my Flickr photo album)

I am a fairly new member of Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West and my club does something special. The club has for the last two years provided new members or “Red Badge-r”s the opportunity to take a $1000 stipend and either donate it to a cause or turn it into something more. The first year this was done an event to fundraise for a program called Dogs for Diabetics. (I will talk more about their upcoming July 17 soon). My team has decided to support the Bayer Neighborhood Park & Gardens which is commonly known as Bayer Farm. We visited the site to get a better feel for what they do. (stay tuned for an announcement of the way my Red Badge team will support the farm)

Community gardeners, currently 37 families, maintain 34 plots as well as the common land. It sits on City of Santa Rosa land and will eventually be turned into a public park. The city provides the water and compost setup while LandPaths is the organization that operates the endeavor. The main goal is providing a chance for urban families to experience nature by maintaining their own gardens, education, and supporting the neighborhood.

Community gardeners must agree to perform a predetermined amount of volunteer hours before being assigned a plot, pay $20 per year as an honorarium, and continue to participate in maintaining the community grounds. There is a waiting list but thankfully it isn’t too long.

Redwood Empire Food Bank runs a Free Summer Lunch Program Monday-Friday 11:30-1pm in the summer, feeding an average of 80 children a day.

It has a teaching & demonstration garden and workshops are taught where one can learn various things like how to plant a winter garden (upcoming Aug. 21 and I WILL be attending). The cost for the workshops are on a sliding scale, approx. $20 at the top end. They are hoping to incorporate cooking classes soon. The produce that is a result of the teaching garden is sold at the Bayer Farmstand right on site August-October.

Friday events are a community party. Aztec drummers, food, families, pumpkin carving in season, puppet shows and more. They partnered with KRCB on Tom Sawyer Day with many small town activities for the kids including a treasure hunt and three legged races.

Several nearby schools have educational relationships with the farm. Curriculum has been developed and provided to teachers so that they can bring their classes to the farm on their own, if desired. Educators are also encouraged to use the farm for lessons other than gardening. If they can think of ways to teach math, science, languages and more using the space, bring it! The Girl Scouts and 4H have many days spent in the sun, working on the land. 4H is donating the produce from their plot to the farmstand. High school kids are able to log in their required volunteer hours working at Bayer. Social Advocates for Youth (SAY) even get their kids that are staying in the shelter out of the house and into the therapeutic work of gardening in their plot.

The greatest need Bayer Farm has is the money to pay for the operating costs of the program as well as the salaries for the employees it takes to make everything run. They also have something unique, Magdalena, LandPaths’ Bayer Farm Outreach Coordinator. She is bilingual and that is absolutely necessary in the neighborhood that Bayer is located in.

If you have a recession/victory garden, are part of the slow food movement, love sustainability, your community, are locally minded, want to fight obesity, raise awareness about the importance of getting back to the land and feeding our brothers good food, please visit Bayer Farm. You will fall in love and want to romp the grounds like a little kid. And I promise I won’t tell anyone if you climb the big tree.

The Big Tree-the first some kids have ever climbed

Quiet in Armstrong Woods

You know quiet? No, real quiet. Nature quiet. Sure I hear can hear other people when I’m hiking in Armstrong Woods but the ambient noise is deep. It’s full of damp, decay, moss, wood, insects….life.

No electronic hum. No traffic.

Life.

Quiet deeper than you can imagine

Russian River Waiting

All this summer I talked and talked about how I had to get to the river. I wanted to wade up to my knees and relax in the warm summer sun. I’ll give you one guess as to whether or not I made it out there.

Anyways, my aunt and uncle (brother and sister) bought themselves a quirky little house in Monte Rio just a few weeks ago. This morning my daughter and I went out to take a look at the new place. Cold and damp it was but as I stood on the enclosed sunporch I spotted the river, visible from where I stood. I promised that water that I would be there when the sun warmed it up. This summer is the summer of wading! Of sun. Of my daughter getting one step closer to the real world and away from that which distracts us.

To the river!