Khanya Spa Retreat

The seacoast with rocky shoreline





Beautiful African woman with facepaint pattern on her cheeks and forehead






lush palm-like trees against a brilliant blue sky






Golden sunset across a lake with palm trees silhouetted in foreground 		De-stress, restore, renew...
  • thoroughly restorative and rejuvenating
  • salt scrub, facial, and massage included
  • 2 + hours, with brief intermission
A spa-therapy experience comparable to a whole retreat right on the table, Khanya Spa Retreat is a holistic treatment that borrows from traditional African elements and ingredients. This total treatment combines a salt scrub, massage, energy balancing, and facial. Eastern, Western, and traditional African massage strokes are enhanced with the use of ritual, rattles, body painting, stones and crystals. This extended session is
  • ideal for anyone who feels tired, worn out, and in need of new energy and vitality.
  • a therapy of deep, sustained relaxation that is soothing and revitalizing at the same time.
  • an excellent thirst-quenching treatment for dry skin, winter or summer.

Khanya is a Xhosa word that means, "to let the light shine". The Khanya Spa Retreat enkindles the body's own energies to new life, helping them to flow and bringing them into harmony. The ingredients used are of the highest quality: pure sea salts are for health, life, and wellbeing, precious marula oil and active tea tree extracts balance, moisturize, and revitalize the skin, leaving it silky-soft. The facial products are a luxurious blend of natural ingredients that stimulate, regenerate, protect, moisturize and energize the skin. The salt scrub and facial parts of the treatment incorporate body painting (with sea salt) and face painting (with white clay) in symbolic patterns. White is for purity, freedom, success, and good fortune. Snake-like patterns are used to symbolize renewal and rebirth, circles are for wholeness and perfection, and a turtle pattern is for resilience, strength, and wisdom.

A three-part Umoya (Soul) Ritual, composed of three simple celebrations, is woven into the context of the session to address the belief that it is not only our bodies that are in need of renewal. The retreat begins with a Shangoni (Earth) Welcome, a special foot massage for grounding and connecting with the earth. The Thandi (Nourishing Love and Care) Celebration in the center of the session acknowledges the navel as the central point of a person where all life's energies meet, and where a person was once connected with the umbilical cord to the love and nourishment of the mother. The Hamba Kahle (Stay Healthy) Farewell concludes the session with rhythmically energizing vibrations from wooden rattles. A circle of protection is created with intention and rattles to ward off evil, danger, and illness. Traditionally the circle of protection is intended to ward off danger in the form of wild animals. It may be useful to us to think of warding off the "wild animals" in our own lives: busy-ness, self-criticism, guilt, stress, etc.

I have found that, done with intention, love, and care, the Khanya Spa Retreat is a powerfully renewing experience. This 2-hour+-spa therapy is available for $190 (as always, no gratuity expected). I highly recommend it as a gift to yourself, perhaps when your spirit is in need of deep renewal, or maybe at the change of seasons.
What clients are saying about Khanya Spa sessions:
"This is so much more than I expected. This is more than massage. This is sacred."
T.T. Cincinnati, Oh

"I think I should do this every season."
K.R. Park Hills, Ky

"I feel totally relaxed. I can't remember when I last felt this much at peace. Not since I was a child."
L.K. Dayton, Oh

"My skin felt silky smooth for days afterwards."
L.W. Florence, Ky.

"Everyone should take advantage of this, it is so tranquil – I feel like I’m still floating. I felt like a feather…. just drifting."
M.L. Cincinnati, OH

"I had a massage with a salt scrub on my recent cruise. The salt scrub was nice; the massage…. not so much…of course that was YOUR fault…. You have me spoiled now for any other therapist."
A.P. Union, Ky.

"The only thing that could possibly make this any better would be for me to walk out that door into a tropical rainforest and spend the rest of the day under a waterfall."
K.K., Crescent Springs, Ky

"I just returned from six days at a spa resort in Arizona. I left there feeling very lucky that I have Laura Lander right in my backyard. I mean those therapists are massaging everyone from rock stars to Oprah, but I was not impressed with their skill compared to what I get here."
L.M. Cincinnati, OH

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