MAIN building of Orissa Garden of Wellness where the Five Elements Restaurant and treatment facilities are located. JUN MALIG
Along the eastern foot trails toward the “puting bato” (white rock) of Mt. Arayat in Pampanga is a 2.2-hectare property devoted to providing alternative forms of healing for the body and the spirit.
Upon entering the upland property in Barangay (village) Ayala in Magalang town, which provides a bird’s eye view of the western parts of Pampanga and Tarlac provinces, guests are greeted with an atmosphere of serenity, hearing nothing but the chirps of birds and the rustling of leaves amid a gentle breeze.
“This is a holistic health center; a sanctuary for those who need physical treatment, emotional balance and psychological calm,” says Riza Lim, 44, owner of Orissa Garden of Wellness.
Lim says she feels the presence of her mother whenever she treats other people at the wellness garden. Her mother died of cervical cancer in 1999.
“This is for my mom. I don’t really expect any return of investment. Healing people from their physical and emotional illnesses gives me sense of contentment and joy because I feel that my mom is always beside me helping others overcome their illnesses and conditions,” Lim says.
After her mother’s death, Lim got interested in alternative ways of healing.
Mystical
She attended various workshops, including the ones conducted by Baguio City-based faith healer Jun Labo and Inquirer columnist and parapsychologist Jaime Licauco. She also studied Reiki, the Japanese form of energy healing, and crystal healing, and had traveled to India and Tibet in search for knowledge that most people would describe as mystical.
OWNER Riza Lim at holistic health center’s vegetarian restaurant. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
She climbed Mt. Kailash in Tibet twice with Japanese friends and colleagues. The mountain is sacred to followers of Yungdrung Bon, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Lim took courses in herbology, clinical nutrition, kinesiology (human kinetics) and life coaching at Natural Healing Institute of Naturopathy, a premier holistic college in the coastal town of Encinitas in San Diego, California.
At Orissa Garden of Wellness, guests who avail themselves of its services receive various forms of alternative healing,
depending on their illnesses and severity of their conditions—from acupressure and Reiki to crystal healing, and from yoga meditation and organic diet program to detoxification sessions, such as colon, liver and kidney cleansing.
Lim says the wellness center is equipped with a German-made beam ray machine, which is being used in many parts of the world to kill cancer cells and other forms of disease-causing viruses and organisms.
Aside from the contentment she gets from helping others overcome their physical and psychological illnesses, Lim says she is glad to provide employment to 15 residents of Ayala village, who work as gardeners, caretakers and staff of the health center. Some are college students at nearby Pampanga State Agricultural University.
Every year, Orissa gives out some 5,000 food packs to poor residents in Pampanga and nearby provinces. It supports Home for Girls, a facility of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija province, that takes care and rehabilitates sexually abused girls.
Right balance
For Lim, the best way to have a good health is to maintain the right balance in life that one can sustain—from food intake to physical and mental activities. She believes that mainstream medicine and alternative healing complement each other.
“Some of our guests we treat here are medical doctors who agree to this [method],” she says.
Within the fenced area of Orissa are organically grown vegetable crops and mango and citrus fruits that are served at its Five Elements Restaurant where the “mock meat” vegetarian cuisines taste and look like real chicken, pork and beef.
Its spa offers antistress Namikoshi and different kinds of massage and scrubs, foot and hand reflexology, natural heat therapy, and “hilot,” a Filipino traditional method of healing the body’s stressed muscles.