By the time I’d reached New Orleans, I was at the final stop of a three-and-a-half-month book tour across the country, and I can honestly say I needed a massage. My novel Underjungle is a story about the flitting and prowling and surge and saturation at the ocean’s depths, and our deep connection to the water. Its main characters are sea creatures, but unlike them I had feet. And an aching back. And shoulders. I’d just flown overnight to NOLA for a four-day convention, after completing a three-day one in Hawaii. By now I thought I could use a little magic.
So I turned to the Voodoo Ritual at the Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans, whose 25,000-square-foot spa is the largest in the city, with 20 treatment rooms, plus a spa café and surprisingly sprawling, exceptionally well-appointed boutique—along with a 24-hour fitness center with a little pool, where I thought I could possibly commune with my characters or, at least, with some hotel guests.
But for now I started on a heated table with a dozen candles burning on the counters around me, while Haitian ceremonial chants with drums played over the room’s speakers. If there’d be any spirits to assist my masseuse, perhaps that could mean there’d be more hands.
But it turns out Star Gómez’s were enough. The ritual started a dozen years ago, which means it’s gone through a dozen years of refinement. As a lay on my stomach, the native New Orleanian lowered her hands to my nose, so I could breathe in the Niven Morgan Rue 1807 lotion whose fragrance would permeate my 80-minute treatment. It’s an earthy mix of absinthe, vetiver, bourbon, cypress, moss, and incense, produced by Louisiana-raised Niven Morgan, and inspired by the 19th-century love potions of Marie Laveau, the city’s most famous herbalist and voodoo priestess.
Then Gómez brought two fist-sized steamed muslin poultices of lemongrass and jasmine to my back, each with a handle, which she moved rhythmically across it, while maintaining her pressure. As she alternated between the poultices and her hands, the flow was reminiscent of a lomilomi massage, but more sports-oriented, with deep-tissue, Swedish, and Thai elements—and always with the heady smell of incense and the Voodoo drumming and chanting in my ears. Maybe the ocean’s surge and saturation wasn’t so far away. Because somehow it filled this modern, but just slightly mystical, room.
Naturally, I accepted the glass of champagne that was offered to me afterwards—in a city like New Orleans it seemed incongruous to say no—and I brought it with me into the sauna, where Underjungle’s sea creatures might not have felt comfortable, but I surely did. (The steam room, after that, was more their style.) Over the next several days, Bourbon Street’s live music and the impromptu processions of marching bands replaced my treatment’s chanting and drumming. Built in 1908, the Ritz-Carlton’s Beaux Arts building is in the French Quarter, and Bourbon Street’s just five minutes away. Instead of the Voodoo Ritual, I could have chosen a Mississippi Mud Detox or Southern Ceremony Citrus Scrub. Or I could have added an enhancement, focusing even more on my feet, hands, or back, or introducing a yoga balm, CBD oil, pain cream, scalp treatment, or a gemstone face mask. But the spell of relaxation lingered with me during my stay.
I’ll admit I never quite made it to the hotel’s spa café, where fruit plates, açai bowls, and salads dotted the menu. Instead, I finished my nights at the hotel’s Davenport Lounge, named for its in-house trumpeter and crooner, Jeremy Davenport, and his five-piece band. But I was also there for the Creole blue crab claws, boudin croquettes, powdered beignets, and Sazerac cocktails. Because all of those are New Orleans, too.
James Sturz is author of the novel Underjungle, set entirely underwater.