EDUCATIONAL ADVENTURES
1
TAKE PART IN A MASTER-LED HEALING RETREAT IN THE MALDIVES
My body is melting into a puddle of gold. In reality, I’m lying on the floor in a timber-clad room suspended over a sparkling Indian Ocean lagoon. Both sound far-fetched, but I’m at a master- led healing retreat in the Maldives, and scenarios like this have become my new normal. I’ve travelled to The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands to
spend four days with Susy Markoe Schieffelin, an LA-based sound healer, kundalini yoga teacher and reiki master, who’s in residence at the hotel as part of its Masters of Crafts programme. Over a lunch of spicy tuna poke bowls, looking out across
a circular infinity pool, Susy explains the powerful healing qualities of sound. “As soothing frequencies created by the bowls wash over you, your brainwaves quickly and effortlessly shift into the deeply restorative alpha, theta or even delta states, similar to meditation or deep sleep,” she says. “This allows profound relaxation, emotional release and energetic realignment to happen effortlessly.” For Susy, years of suffering from anxiety, alcoholism
and addiction had driven her to hit rock bottom. A chance opportunity to attend a group sound bath quite literally changed the course of her life. She quit her job in luxury hospitality, trained as a reiki master and started leading her own sound- healing experiences soon after. Fast forward eight years and millions of people have
experienced her sound baths both online and in person. During the sessions, Susy uses her signature crystal bowls. “They’re made of 99.9% pure quartz crystal and infused with precious metals, gemstones and earth elements,” she tells me. “Each bowl creates frequencies that connect with either a chakra (an energy centre) or an endocrine gland, which produce hormones, supporting deep physical and emotional healing.” While most of her sessions are now held online, I get to enjoy the rare privilege of one-on-one time with Susy as part of my personalised retreat in the Maldives. This is how I end up making my way to the hotel’s halo-
shaped spa, located across a slim boardwalk leading out into the ocean. A ring of circular overwater villas wraps around it like a cocoon, a design devised by renowned Australian firm Kerry Hill Architects and one that looks like it’s been dropped from space. After a short meditation and intention-setting session, I lie
down on a mattress and Susy covers my eyes with a small pillow. As she starts to play her bowls, I quickly sink into a stupor, the
10
NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/TRAVEL
sound moving through me as if it’s massaging different parts of my body. I dip in and out of consciousness, unaware of time passing and unsure when Susy is playing the bowls or using the healing practice of reiki by moving her hands across my body. It’s as the sounds disappear into silence that my body melts to
gold, my mind a lake of iridescent calm. A twinkling bell brings me back to the real world and as I sit up, Susy invites me to pull an oracle card from her deck. When I turn it over and see the word ‘gold’ spelled out in capital letters and an image of a figure basking in it, goosebumps erupt up my arms and tears prick my eyes. After a few months bogged down by self-doubt, it’s the reassuring sign I’ve been searching for — a reminder that I’m on the right path. Cycling back along the boardwalk and looking out at the
translucent turquoise water that stretches out in every direction, I feel the lightest I have in months. I park my bike by my villa and plunge from its pontoon into the warm Maldivian waters before floating on my back beneath the vast bowl of periwinkle-blue sky. In between sessions with Susy, I experience other exclusive
wellness offerings including an energising one-on-one yoga class with the island’s in-house yoga teacher, Kadek Suyadnya, and a balancing treatment at the Bamford spa, which combines bamboo tapping, gua sha (a skin-scraping treatment) and a traditional massage. A snorkelling trip to a nearby reef with the resort’s naturalist Olivia Forster almost feels like a moving meditation. While a passing storm buckets down above us, underwater everything is at peace, and we float serenely alongside turtles and an array of rainbow-coloured fish. On my last evening, I join a group sound-healing session with a
difference. As opposed to the traditional approach of lying down, the nine of us are suspended in our own aerial yoga hammocks, strung from the ceiling of the fitness studio. In this cosy floating cocoon, I drop back into a similar restorative state to the one experienced in the individual session. The hour of sound passes in what feels like a flash and once again I leave feeling lighter and clearer, any creeping chatter in my mind washed away. On the plane back, I put my headphones in and listen to one
of Susy’s recorded sessions on Spotify. The sounds transport me back to those moments of complete calm — a piece of Maldives’ magic coming home with me. EB
HOW TO DO IT: Ocean Pool Villas at The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands start from US$1,520 (£1,124) per night.
ritzcarlton.com
Clockwise from top: The circular architecture of the Ritz-Carlton Maldives is inspired by the traditional Maldivian Beru drum; overwater infinity pools provide sweeping Indian Ocean views; Susy Markoe uses crystal bowls, sound healing and reiki Previous pages, clockwise from top left: The Ritz- Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands offers an array of wellness programmes; Adélie penguins are among the most common in Antarctica; foraging is a big part of Kitchen in the Wild’s trips in Kenya; Mexico’s storied streets are best discovered with a local guide; the sounds of the ocean mingle with those of crystal bowls in the Maldives; the courtyard at the Silk Road Slippers writing retreat in Morocco; chef Valentine Warner loves cooking with seafood; Portugal’s Algarve region provides a soothing setting for meditation
IMAGES: THE RITZ-CARLTON MALDIVES, FARI ISLANDS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260
