GODSTUFF

MY AURA’S BIGGER THAN YOUR AURA: FAT AND HAPPY

Most women never want to hear that something they possess is “huge.”

Their tush, for instance, or thighs, upper arms, ankles or credit card bill.

So, I wasn’t quite sure how to react when the spa technician looked at a photograph of my aura he’d just taken and exclaimed, “It’s huge! I’ve never seen one so big. I couldn’t even fit it all in the frame.”

Awesome, I thought. Even my aura needs to go on a diet.

I had this photograph — “aura imaging,” it was called — taken at the Grove Park Inn Spa in Asheville, N.C., recently while I was staying at the world-class retreat in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains for a religious conference.

The spa, often ranked among the very best in the country, deserves the honor and accolades. It’s over-the-top beautiful. It’s an oasis of huge rough-hewn rocks and running water, with soft lighting, softer robes and a menu of services that outshined any other spa I’ve had the pleasure of visiting (and I’ve been blessed to have visited a few of the best in the world).

When I noticed a gap of four hours in the conference schedule that happened to coincide with my birthday, I decided to spend the free time indulgently, in the spa.

I chose two treatments (because, hey, it was my birthday). First was the mountain honey wrap, which involved a full-body scrub of lavender-scented mountain honey and an oatmeal-like exfoliant, followed by a healthy slathering of warm hemp-seed butter where I was wrapped up like a human gyros sandwich, unwrapped and given a half hour massage. Heaven. They had to pour me into the next treatment room.

The second treatment was an 80-minute arnica and hot-towel massage, where the therapist used an energizing combination of arnica, clove, peppermint and eucalyptus essential oils and then wrapped hot towels around each area after he was done kneading them into submission.

After nearly three hours of body treatment, I was thoroughly blissed out.

But I wasn’t quite done.

When I had perused the spa menu earlier, I spotted something I’d never seen offered before: aura imaging. For a smallish fee (at least compared with the pricey body treatments), a technician would take a photograph of my aura before and after my treatments to see whether and how it would change.

The Grove Park Inn Spa takes about 15 aura photographs each month and has offered the aura imaging service since the spa opened in 2001, said Marie Tracy, the spa’s lead massage therapist.

An aura is, for those who believe in such things, a visual manifestation of the energy our bodies give off — spiritual energy. Auras have colors and the colors, according to the folks who have studied such things, have different meanings and correspond to the energy centers — some call them “chakras” — that run vertically from our feet to our head.

I couldn’t resist the chance to try this unique service. I mean, when I visit a spa, I usually leave feeling different and better than when I arrived. But it’s difficult to quantify that kind of progress or change, and nearly impossible to “show” anyone how I’ve been transformed by a few hours of pampering and body work.

When the technician took my photo before the mountain honey wrap, he looked startled when the photograph — made with a special Polaroid camera called the Coggins AuraCam 6000 — developed, and it was, as he said, “HUGE!”

It was difficult to see me in the photograph, which was almost entirely dominated by a bright, crimson red blur.

“Often people that are kind of stressed out or on the go or really active having a lot going on, you’ll often see a lot of red” in their auras, Tracy said.

Well, that’s me. On the go. Stressed out. At least most of the time, lately.

An enormous aura can indicate someone who has a big personality, a big energy, someone who is extroverted, she said. The smaller the aura — the closer the color cloud stays to a person’s head — the more introverted the person tends to be.

The second aura photo I had taken after almost three hours of treatments indicated that some kind of transformation had indeed taken place. The aura got even bigger, but the color was muted: Peachy orange and warm yellows replaced crimson, and a light red arc appeared above my head.

Orange indicates creativity, ambition and independence, Tracy explained. Yellow represents the solar plexus chakra, she said, which indicates your self-esteem. It’s the center vibration of a person’s being, and when it’s bright, you’ve probably learned something about your personal power. Or so said some literature I’ve since read about the AuraCam.

The arc above my head indicates what’s going on in the present, what’s on my mind. It was still red, but not as intense. I was still aware of all I had to do and what I’m trying to accomplish, but it was a gentler awareness.

“Sounds like in your later picture, after the treatments, you had more balance in your aura,” Tracy said.

I had arrived with my huge, angry red aura and a knot in my shoulders the size of a baseball.

A few hours later, after giving up the stress and working out the kinks (in my shoulders and in my spirit), I left with my fat-and-happy aura and the conviction that sometimes bigger really is better.