The Alma Festival at Six Senses Ibiza
I clicked on the link that took me to the Alma Festival’s website, where a glossy video of beautifully fit young people played. Wearing wide-brimmed hats and drinking from oversized, unglazed ceramic chalices, they danced spasmodically, waving their arms above their heads like those wacky, inflatable tube guys in front of tire shops. The third-annual, four-day festival, which was to be held at Six Senses Ibiza, was described as a “blend of wellness workshops, insight-packed talks, and transformative healing sessions.” This would make for a really funny piece, I told my editors. It would be about the attendees, how new-agey and White Lotus-y this “festival of a different frequency” seemed.
Landing in Ibiza, I was eager to get to the resort but maybe more eager to confirm the proper pronunciation of “Ibiza.” In movies, fancy people pronounce it with a ‘th’ (ee-bee-tha). But my driver confirmed what I suspected, “Yes, this is how people say it, but they're wrong. It’s pronounced Ee-beats-a, with a double ‘z’ sound in the middle, like pizza.”
As I walked up to the oversized doors marking the entrance to Six Senses, Martina invited me to reconnect to the earth via my heart. She was barefoot and wearing a feather-armored breastplate. Everything, she assured me, was going to be okay. “Welcome home,” she concluded, as she placed a crystal necklace over my head.
The 20-acre property’s mountaintop lushness, teeming with rosemary bushes and olive trees, reminded me of a frittata recipe I had seen in The New York Times. Its suites are built into the cliffs of the northern tip of the Spanish island, depositing guests at the water’s edge, with panoramic views of Xarraca Bay. Specifically, my enormous one-bedroom suite looked like heaven: burrowed into the mountainside and flooded with light — an apt setting for a festival of spiritual enlightenment.
The transformation conversely started in the dark, with the low rumble of a gong prompting us to join what was billed as a post-dinner “Cosmic Meditation.” Even though it was dark, I could see enough to know that I was in trouble.There was a large fire burning on the deck just below The Orchard restaurant and everyone seemed to know what to do. Yusi, a dark-haired woman in a cowboy hat and fringed leather skirt told us that her voice was for healing and instructed us to dance. I did my best, but it wasn't exactly a dance — more of a slow shuffle coupled with some light flapping. I was struggling to be present, but when I closed my eyes I remembered unselfconsciously prancing around the empty dance floor of a girlfriend’s Sweet Sixteen party and started to cry.
The following morning, after a grueling gym session and a gorgeous merguez shakshuka breakfast at The Farmer’s Market cafe, I made my way to RoseBar. Six Senses Ibiza’s renowned “longevity club,” the clinic aims to activate your healing system and optimize vitality via a host of biohacking treatments, of which I was invited to take my pick. I chose an hour-long stint in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. It was like being buried alive with duck-down pillows and a hand-tufted memory foam mattress. But instead of dying, the opposite happened. In this six-and-a-half foot tube, I received 100% pure, medical-grade O2. The pressurized oxygen purportedly increases blood flow, promoting the growth of new blood vessels and resulting in, I believe, my ability to live forever.
Next came an event called “Your Sexual Energy is Medicine,” which I’d describe as part lecture, part orgy. Because I couldn't take notes, I don’t recall much more than within about 10 minutes I was dancing again — awkwardly stepping from side to side, toe to heel, with my hands up and out around my ears, as if I was attempting to surrender. I pushed myself to keep up, and when we were instructed to close our eyes I began to cry, again, as I nebulously thought about aging.
That evening, the opening slide at the “Science of Longevity” seminar prepared me for another doozy of an event: “The New Frontiers of Stem Cells” presented by Christian Drapeau, a Canadian neurophysiologist who has been at the forefront of stem cell research for the past 20 years. Drapeau projected a video featuring a dead grey mouse who’d been spatchcocked; its tiny, drab heart exposed. I watched, mouth open, as a god-like hand delicately reached into the cavity to administer some sort of life juice with a glass pipette: the liquid, we later learned, contained stem cells. Shortly after the dropper made contact with the miniature organ, it started beating again. I’m not a scientist but I have read Pet Cemetery, which is why I was left wondering how the experience might affect the creature’s personality, seeing as it was now, technically, a zombie.
Christian was clearly an expert. So when he informed us that anxiety is associated with just about every disease from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s, I considered abating some of my own anxiety by skipping tomorrow's big event: the Sanctum hike. However, the night before I had (through gritted teeth) promised Kat — a member of Sanctum, a self-defined mindful movement community — that I would not only to attend but also “let go” and give in to what the occasion offered. The Sanctum hike has been described as a sort of techno walk: a multidisciplinary, transformative movement experience designed to unlock human potential via personal isolation within a collective energy experience. For many, this was the highlight of the weekend. To me, it sounded like the stuff of nightmares.
Walking out of the lobby, I heard Luuk Melisse’s voice address me through glowing, sensory-deprivation Sanctum-branded headphones, which made us all look like participants in some sketchy Black Mirror episode, playing an ill-advised game of follow-the-leader. Melisse, Sanctum’s co-founder, was our guide for the hike. Talking over calming atmospheric music, he informed the 100-plus folks on this journey that he started Sanctum because “movement is his medicine.” “I had a lisp,” he said. “I couldn’t talk, but I could move.” I was crying, again.
Melisse ordered us to, “Follow the flow and get out of your fucking minds!”
I wanted to. I was really trying, but I couldn't stop thinking about … I'll call her Carla. She was a graduate of New York’s prestigious LaGuardia High School and, although we were dating when I knew her, I can say — in hindsight, with complete confidence — that she did not like me. This came to a head one night when I was at a party with her, dancing by myself. After the song ended, I made my way over to her, out of breath. “What was that?” she asked archly. “Um … dancing?” I replied. “But, you were all hunched over and sort of skipping backwards?” Even now, recalling this moment, I'm flooded with hot, burning dread.
“What do you want to leave behind today?” Melisse asked. So much, I thought.
At the end of the hike, we formed a circle around our guide and raised our hands in the air. We were one thing — a collective consciousness, a single cellular structure — and Melisse was the nucleus, not Carla. As instructed, we hugged whoever was standing next to us, promising to tell them the truth and even though we were lying, I felt fantastic.
The next day, on my way to the airport, I reflected on the festival and realized I had had it all wrong. I imagined a caustic, but funny piece about them. Little did I realize, it would be about me — how bound up and hyper critical I am, how I convert old slights into narratives, and how narratives become identity. This narrative was really about how hard it can be to let it all go. But, thanks to some new friends, and a clearer understanding of the value of my sexual currency, I was ready to reintegrate, to flow back into the general population knowing that just behind my eyebrows lies the intuition I’ll need to succeed.
At least that’s what Yusi told me.
It’s pronounced you-see.