Well, Well

Meanwhile, they can simply pamper you in a serene setting or provide alternative treatments that alone might help what ails you.

Operating on Faith

When I arrive at St. Joseph's, the receptionist suggests I might want to use the "dry hydrotherapy" machine. I climb aboard the bed-like apparatus, which moves heated water under pressure up and down the surface of the bed.

I lie down and soon feel some of the stress of driving three hours from Washington ooze from my body. This could change my life; I must have one. Campbell tells me they cost $21,000. Oh. Never mind.

I decide to take a walk on paths that meander through the wooded, 65-acre property and soon come upon a small outdoor amphitheater with rough wooden benches arranged around a little pond and fountain. St. Joseph's hosts conferences and corporate groups, and sometimes they meet here. Campbell plans to host concerts in the grove this summer and to build a labyrinth nearby in spring.

Further into the woods, I encounter a wooden chapel with a simple but elegant design that reminds me of something by Frank Lloyd Wright. The entire front is windows overlooking the woods.

Besides the name of the property and the statue of St. Joseph just inside the spa doors, the chapel is another glaring clue that the owners of St. Joseph's are Christian. But even the chapel is intended to be nondenominational, Sheetz says. It celebrates spirituality, and the oneness of all faiths, she says. Some guests might go inside to pray, others to meditate. Still others, like me, might find deer grazing outside the windows and find that peaceful and somehow restorative.

Although I've booked time in one of the spa's nine treatment rooms, I haven't chosen a therapy. I'd been thinking a pampering massage, but Sheetz suggests craniosacral evaluation and somato-emotional release. Okay.

After evaluating the fluid flow in my body and the six pulse points typically measured by Chinese doctors, Sheetz begins touching my back, chest, stomach. But I hardly notice what she's doing because I've begun to tell her about my life, every major heartache and trauma since childhood. I have a sudden realization and blurt out: "We're in a counseling session."

Turns out that in addition to being licensed to do a variety of massage therapies and in addition to being a nutritionist, Sheetz has a master's degree in counseling. Various parts of the body, she says, hold certain emotions. She says she can feel the tension easing as I talk and she touches.

There are entire books written on craniosacral therapy and somato-emotional release, and my paraphrasing of her off-the-cuff explanations is rough at best. All I can say is that when she is done, I feel as if I've had a terrific massage, even though I haven't had a massage at all.

Only thing is, when I stand up, I feel momentarily dizzy. Happens often, she says. Certain tissues in my body had felt twisted; the energy flow was impeded. Once everything is balanced, your body has to adjust, she says.

I don't get it, really, but then again, I'm usually operating on faith with doctors, too.