The Medium is the Massage

By last winter, I'd already been hearing the rumblings for quite awhile: Everyone and her boss, it seemed, was heading for a spa. People were using spas as a respite from the workaday grind, and even organizations like Ernst & Young, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Coca-Cola were mixing business with pleasure by holding off-sites at spas.

"It's no accident that the spa movement has emerged just as we've all begun feeling as though things were moving too fast," says Joline Godfrey, CEO of Independent Means Inc., in Santa Barbara, California. (Before you ask, "What spa movement?" consider this: In 1987, there were 156 spas in the United States; by 1997, that number had reached 752.)

Godfrey herself has held several business retreats at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, in Ojai, California. "Human beings," she contends, "need great soil to grow in -- good light, soft music, time to think -- and spas provide that kind of great soil."

I decided to seek a patch of soil for myself. So, last January, I set off on a three-state odyssey through Spa Land. I wanted to find answers to some universal questions: Are spas overrun by rich, high-strung matrons? How enduring is the afterglow of a spa experience? Can you ever get away from New Age music? And isn't getting buck naked and being rubbed down by a total stranger excruciatingly awkward?

My quest for answers took me to three great spas -- including Green Valley Spa, in St. George, Utah, and the Miraval Life in Balance Resort, a 135-acre facility north of Tucson, Arizona. My experience was weirder, more varied, and more fun than I could possibly have imagined. The trip featured close encounters with freeze-dried seaweed and crushed pearls, a sprinkling of psychics, an acupuncturist's needles, a disturbingly flatulent horse, and a Shirodhara specialist who was determined to open my third eye. Here's how this particular spa trek unfolded.

Day One, 4:45 p.m. Massage Therapy.

I arrive at Green Valley, located in the southwest corner of Utah. This 19-acre spa is known for its proximity to extensive golf and tennis facilities and to excellent hiking trails. (It's about 45 minutes from Zion National Park.) Green Valley is a family-run business, and the familial feeling extends to the clientele -- maybe because, at any given time, 30% to 40% of the guests are repeat visitors. All of which gives the place the feel of a grown-up slumber party.

My introduction to spa-style pampering comes minutes after my arrival. I find myself seated on a puffy white couch in the lobby, receiving a hand massage. My massage therapist, Christy (surnames are irrelevant in Spa Land), is outfitted in the kind of flowy white ensemble that is the spa attendant's uniform at Green Valley. As Christy kneels before me, I try really hard not to feel like the pope.

Christy explains that today is "blue day" at Green Valley: Tables are decorated with blue plants, blue scarves, and little pebbles of blue and green glass. It's all meant to foster a mood of introspection and relaxation. Tomorrow will be "yellow day." And that color, the spa's literature promises, will "lead us lightly along the sunny road of sweet beginning."

7 p.m. Astrology.

Green Valley hosts as many as 65 guests, but this is a slow week: There are only 19 women and just 1 man, so I get to know the other guests very quickly.

Tonight's after-dinner astrology session pulls in two-thirds of us. Our astrologer, Sue, offers to give us personal readings and begins by having us state our birth dates. My birth date elicits tittering: I'm the youngest, by at least 14 years. "The universe is balanced," Sue assures us. "If you come with a problem, you come with a solution." We all nod in agreement. Apparently, there are no skeptics in Spa Land.

Day Two, 1 p.m. Reiki.

Pronounced "ray-kee," Reiki is a Tibetan healing technique involving a practitioner who "reads" your energy by laying hands on you.

My practitioner, Linda, starts by laying her hands on my head and slowly moving them down my body. Then she begins "reading": I am so detail-oriented that I balance my checkbook to the penny, she tells me; I often get pain between my shoulders; my apartment has hardwood floors. I'm unnerved -- because she's right. Other things that she says unnerve me even more: "Two beings are holding your feet right now. They're helping you feel grounded, because what I'm telling you is freaking you out."