Vision Spa Retreat

Hot Springs, Arkansas: a spa visitor's crib sheet

This is the last in a series of six posts inspired by several visits to Hot Springs, Arkansas, once known as The American Spa.  I believe that much can be learned from the history and current state of the place for those of us who are interested in spa culture and the future of spa as a contributor to the health and vitality of both people and planet.  This post offers some suggestions for visiting this quintessential spa town in the middle of the continent.  By Sara Firman of Vision Spa Retreat.

Despite all its competing and sometimes conflicting histories and endeavors, the small town of Hot Springs in Arkansas does somehow conveys a distinct sense of peacefulness.  It is this that inspires me to believe that, with enough sensitive and creative and participatory imagination, our histories can be turned into healing stories.

In addition to the information shared in previous posts, here are some notes you might find helpful should you visit 'The American Spa' ...

To reach Hot Springs from the nearest airport at Little Rock, you'll drive along a beautiful winding stretch of well-managed forest. Not far from the town is the very wealthy community around Lake Hamilton where a local friend took a party of us out on his boat.  Lake Ouachita, in the State Park, remains wild and protected from developers.  Meanwhile, in the hills-and-hollers around the area life can be very tough indeed.

The waters of Hot Springs, Arkansas: hope for the future?

This is the fifth in a series of six posts inspired by several visits to Hot Springs, Arkansas, once known as The American Spa.  I believe that much can be learned from the history and current state of the place for those of us who are interested in spa culture and the future of spa as a contributor to the health  and vitality of both people and planet.  It has been a meandering journey, appropriate here since the essential subject is water.  This  post focuses on water.

Who owns water and who oversees its use and purity are becoming increasingly challenging topics the world over.  If spa is to include water in its ethos, it must also be concerned about and involved in how the use of water in its services impacts everyone who shares that water.  The issues will be different for different geographical areas and communities.  Water is valuable and vulnerable to misappropriation and misuse.

For some all this might be an argument for distancing spa from its original connection with water but for me that would be to lose an opportunity to deepen that connection.  This brief consideration of the National Park which was established to protect or control the thermal waters (depending on who you talk to), historic Hot Springs and the surrounding area, is presented to illustrate just how complex the issues around water can be.

The rate of flow of the springs in Hot Springs is not affected by fluctuations in the rainfall in the area; the thermal water comes from a deep source.  Most of the water is collected in a broad valley underlain by hard fractured rock with cracks and pores through which the water flows.  The waters used to discharge higher up the downtown hillside than they do now.  Over time, some channels ceased to flow while others revived.  Temperatures average 143 F and have declined about 5 F since records have been kept; it is uncertain why.

Some of the changes in water characteristics have been caused by human activity.  The valley floor has been filled in to make it flatter and wider.  Areas of tufa have been removed or covered.  Non-indigenous plant varieties have been introduced.  Most of the springs are covered over, and their water runs through underground pipes rather than filtering down the hillside.  The upper and lower springs are interconnected and in a delicate natural balance with each other, easily disturbed by human interventions.  More on the geology of the area.

[The creek you see in the mid-17th century painting above is now in a tunnel under Central Avenue.]

 

Fracking and Fluoride

Around the time of my most recent visit, two other water issues came up for the region. Just after I left town on 27 February 2011, a 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck the area.  The strongest in 30-40 years, USGS said it appeared to run along a previously unknown fault.  Its possible connection (a growing concern) with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) injection wells for oil and gas collection (north east of Hot Springs) was not ruled out. 

Fracking pumps water and chemicals into the ground to produce rock fractures.  Hydrofracking activity followed by earthquakes is repeated across the US, though the industry and the EPA deny correlation.  In 'Fracking the life out of Arkansas and beyond', Rady Ananda writes regards the concerns: 'it's not likely that Arkansas citizens will get much help from the federal government. Nor will they find a friend at the state level. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has so far been unwilling or unable to stop UMETCO ... from illegally dumping toxic chemicals into streams.'

Download Hydraulic Fracturing Two articles from JPT(Official Publication of The Society of Petroleum Engineers, Dec. 2010): History of an Enduring Technology; and The Fuss, the Facts, and the Future. 

Update: 28 March 2011, Arkansas earthquakes decline after 'fracking' injection well closures.

Risks from fracking aside, natural deep-sourced thermal waters seems to be relatively safe from adulteration. Surface waters on the otherhand, in addition to risk from pollution, can contain natural disease-causing organisms, for example  Legionnaires' disease, cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis in the US.  Piped city drinking waters are treated to eliminate these.  For another more controversial 'health' reason, city water is frequently supplemented with artificial fluoride though some have fought long and hard against this. In Arkansas, that battle has just been lost.

On March 2, 2011, Arkansas state representatives voted in favor of a bill requiring fluoride be added to public drinking water systems serving 5000 or more people.  That will include 32 communities, like Hot Springs, that to date have not added fluoride to their drinking water. Opponents have argued that communities should be able to control their water supplies, and others that fluoride is insidiously toxic. It's a subject rife with controversy and adds another important thread that involves water to the health history of our modern world.

Here is an extract from a Wikipedia entry that is slanted toward fluoridation but does present the other side:

Like vaccination and food fortification, fluoridation presents a conflict between benefiting the common good and infringing on individual rights.  Fluoridation can be viewed as a violation of ethical or legal rules that prohibit medical treatment without medical supervision or informed consent, and that prohibit administration of unlicensed medical substances. It can also be viewed as a public intervention to replicate the benefits of naturally fluoridated water in order to free people from the misery of toothache and dental work, with greatest benefit to those least able to help themselves, and where it would be unethical to withhold such treatment.... Despite support by public health organizations and authorities, efforts to introduce water fluoridation have met considerable opposition. 

 

Our attitude towards natural mineral water

Returning to the healing qualities of natural mineral waters, it is notable that the National Park Service literature does not emphasize their current value or use in illness.  From NPS publication (Fire in Folded Rocks, 1980):

'The National Park Service does not claim the water is curative, but the park does certify that it is safe to drink. The water is colorless, odorless, and tasteless - it lacks much iron and sulphur. The federal government still protects the springs. The park's Water Quality Laboratory and state-certified analysts ensure that the water meets rigorous federal and state drinking water standards. The water is tested regularly at numerous sampling points.' ...
 
 'Individual springs began to gain a reputation for alleviating specific ills.... At one time or another, almost any of the open springs could have gone by the designation, 'Mud'.... Minor differences in the composition of the individual waters do exist but their overall similarity indicates common origin.  All of these waters are now mixed together, and a single supply goes to each bathhouse.'

There is also an interesting note of mild caution: 'The level of exposure to radiation (due mainly to dissolved radon gas and secondarily to radium - both considered to have curative properties in the past) that results from bathing appears to be similar to the level that would result from sitting in the sun for the same period.  A greater exposure may result from drinking the water, which is still considered well within safe limits.  Other natural waters throughout the world have similar levels of activity.'

The National Park Service leaflet 'Drinking the Water' summarizes the mineral contents of the thermal water and the two cool water springs at Happy Hollow and Whittington Spring.  There is a useful map of the location of the nine fountains. The park provides spring water free of charge at all its jug fountains.  Private individuals are prohibited from selling the park's waters.

For those who advocate for the value of medical hydrotherapy (mainly through naturopathic medicine in the US, in European spa clinics and organizations, and elsewhere in the world), finding and sharing both experiential and scientific evidence for the beneficial effects of natural mineral waters is an important task if the subject is not to remain one of quaint history or quackery.  Waters may be both drunk and bathed in and these two uses have different, though related, practical (economic) and therapeutic implications. 

This history of using natural waters for specific medical ailments as opposed to relaxation (the modern spa emphasis) represents another important avenue by which we might help preserve and celebrate the value of water through spa endeavors. I suggested at the start of this series on Hot Springs, Arkansas, that in reviewing the ideologies behind spa or spa culture, we have an opportunity to heal or at least recognize  some historical ills.  I suspect that our attitude toward water holds the key to this healing.

A message about water on Vision Spa  Retreat

Posts in this series:

• The American Spa: a salutary history
• Competing histories of Hot Springs, AR: fact or fiction
• Place of Peace: Native Americans and Hot Springs, AR
• Waves of change in the bathing industry of Hot Springs, AR
• The waters of Hot Springs, AR: hope for the future?
• Hot Springs, AR: a visitor's crib sheet

Waves of change in the bathing industry of Hot Springs, AR

This is the fourth in a series of six posts inspired by several visits to Hot Springs, Arkansas, once known as The American Spa.  Here we take a look at Hot Springs bathing industry from the Civil War to the present and examine some contrasting impressions. See the end for links to other posts. Sara Firman.

In the previous three posts, I outlined the complex strands of cultural history that contribute to Hot Springs' story - from the initial presence of American Indians, to discovery in the early 1800s by European explorers, the treaty conveying Quapaw tribal lands to the US in 1818, and the establishment of federal control of the waters in 1832.  Included in this story is that of African Americans who served the early bathing industry.

A fascinating account of the gradual development of Hot Springs' bathing facilities and their use - from the  crude huts of the early 1800s that were operating well into the late 19th century, to the elite architecture of the later buildings around Bathhouse Row - can be read in the National Park Service publication 'Bathhouses of Hot Springs'.  Here are some extracts describing the use European settlers made of the waters over time.

In the early days, 'wooden troughs carried water from the springs to a tank. The bather could then manipulate the cold and hot water by pulling a rope. Afterwards, the bather went to a special vapor room (a room over a thermal spring with cracks around two inches apart in the floor to allow vapor to rise). Following the vapor, the bather received a dousing of cold water before dressing. This was usually repeated several times a day.'

As the 19th century came in, the 'federal government added drinking fountains and drinking niches, shrubbery, comfortable seats, bandstand pavilions, bronze eagles, etc.' and the 'bathhouse owners added additional types of treatments in order for their bathhouses to be considered “different,” including massages ... electrotherapy, beauty parlors, and mechanotherapy.' 

The park superintendent 'put his energy into maintaining the bathing facilities and improving services. For example, all towels and robes were to be sterilized for guests, and bathhouses were to be fire resistant'.

The town saw the first marked decline in its bathing population with the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.  After the War, extensive rebuilding of bathhouses and hotels took place: the population soared from around 200 in 1862 to 1200 inhabitants by 1870; by 1873 bathhouses and hotels and boardinghouses crowded around the springs.  (As mentioned in the previous post the population now stands at over 35 000.)

During the 'Golden Age of Bathing' in Hot Springs over a million visitors annually immersed themselves in the waters.  The period 1927-1947 saw  the largest illegal gambling operation in the US at the time. Hotels advertised prostitutes and off-track booking was available for any horse race in the country.  Horse-racing is still a popular draw, bringing a set of visitors to the town who may have no direct interest in spa.  Hot Springs' gangster history is something I have not yet explored, though it is a proud feature of the town.

On both my first visits to the town I bathed at the  Libby Memorial Physical Medical Center and Health Spa on Reserve Avenue east of the famous Bathhouse Row - regrettably it is now closed.  In 2003 it was seriously the worse for wear but the communal bathing pools, frequented mainly by European immigrant locals it seemed, had an atmosphere of warm camaraderie and ownership.  The only other public bathing available was in the individual bath services of the Buckstaff or some hotels - for tourists. 

(See the previous post on the new Quapaw spa for the current availability of co-ed bathing.)

I believe the Libby was once the location of the Government Free Bathhouse (1922-1948) where the Public Health Service operated a venereal disease clinic, which fact one of the local ladies delighted in telling me as she walked up and down the exercise track in the old 'syphilis' pool.   I visited the  Libby with a spa friend who saw the potential for a dose of athletes' foot there and soon retreated to rooms at the towering Embassy Suites.

The thoroughly modern Embassy Suites was built next to the enormous Hot Springs Convention Center,  and features a small generic spa with no natural mineral water.  The hotel atrium, rising to over seven floors, is festooned with plastic hanging gardens falling to a lounge area circumscribed by a running water channel.  I was struck by the sheer contrast between this out-of-place building and the rundown but somehow far more charming little clapboard houses of the old town that sprawls around it.

Neither gentrification (Victorian or contemporary) nor fact (scientific or historical) do justice to the heart of Hot Springs.  On my most recent visit in February, I stayed in a tiny room at the Alpine Inn, a good walk along Park Avenue.  Returning from downtown, I went past the burned-out shell of the (once) Majestic Hotel where security guards sit watching the action,  past a church house where that week's charitable message was 'Laundry detergent give-away', and then past a peaceful gathering of people who'd clearly seen hard times. 

They were outside The Master's Table, a tidy-looking house that feeds 500 people every Saturday for free.   It is the give-away service of the Rodgers who have been successful in local real estate.  This is another side of Hot Springs today that serves as a reminder of ever-present paradoxes.   A few days around this town can provide a varied view of American history right up until the present, and of the cultural shifts and changes in attitudes to health across the social spectrum. 

The once-thriving health-based bathing industry in Hot Springs declined seriously after World War II (1944-45) when thousands of soldiers were rehabilitated there.  By the 1950s changes in medicine led to a denegrating disinterest in the use of water therapies and one by one the bathhouses began to close.  John Lund notes, also, that after the war:

'the US did not have the government, trade unions, social security and a national health insurance program to support these developments [of spas with natural thermal waters]. Thus, in spite of the benefits of spa therapy that had been proven successful in Europe and elsewhere in the world, the US lagged behind in the development of these mineral springs even though some [like Hot Springs] were acquired by state and the federal government.' John Lund: Balneological use of geothermal waters
 
Despite the more recent renewed interest in spas as places of leisure and pleasure, there continues to be a general rejection of the formalized spa medical treatment developed in Europe and still practiced in some mineral water spas there. Lund continues: 'In fact, the average person in the United States knows little of spa therapy and its advantages as many of the medical claims have been outlawed in the US, and the natural waters have required chlorination or other chemical treatment.'

The definition of spa is nowadays a hotly discussed topic (see two earlier posts: 2009, 2010).  There are those who, like me, associate spa with water and ideally with natural mineral waters.  Then there is a dominant movement of those that associate spa with general wellness programs, and more recently with the possibility of an alliance with global medical tourism (see posts in a recent series on Vision Spa Retreat). 

A new definition has recently come to my attention in a report of the US Green Spa Network's last congress (Fall 2009): 'Definition of Spas Coming Full Circle; for Personal & Planetary Health | Spas Need to be Vitality Centers for Community and Global Resilience'.  As this series on Hot Springs shows, this approach to spa is one that I feel very much allied with.

What direction spa takes in the popular imagination remains to be seen.  I am hoping that it will involve a recognition of the importance of place and community, as opposed to the industry's seeming preference for the globalization of spa services and products.  The result of this latter trend might be a watered down and devitalized commercial enterprise, compared with the richness to be found in locally and creatively generated culture. 

Posts in this series:
The American Spa: a salutary history
Competing histories of Hot Springs, AR: fact or fiction
Place of Peace: Native Americans and Hot Springs, AR
Waves of change in the bathing industry of Hot Springs, AR

To come
The waters of Hot Springs, AR: hope for the future?
Hot Springs, AR: a visitor's crib sheet

The bathing pool: rituals

 

Recently, a dear friend, Diana Mihajlova (artist and chess player extraordinaire), who lives in Budapest wrote asking: 'Would you  be able to advise how best to use the time when I go and spend a day in the hot baths in Budapest in order to relax, and de-stress the best? '

Her request reminded me of a short article I wrote on the topic for a community newsletter a few years back, and a ritual I developed for guests at my previous spa-retreat venue. 

Below you'll find updated versions of these (the second one is offered in audio also), which can be adapted for use at home, in nature, or in Budapest!  I'd love to hear of your experiences (comment below).

Harbin Hot Springs: quintessential spa-retreat

The focus of this blog is to envision a manifestation of spa-retreat that enhances our appreciation of soul (as in the deeper, wilder life) and of water (as in this life-giving, essential element); and through this (plus a variety of other helpful additions), our sense of wellbeing.  Every so often, I will review places that meet (or in some cases fail to meet) that ideal.  What I want to convey is that it is not the glamor but the spirit of the place that matters.

This post celebrates one of my favorite places - Harbin Hot Springs in northern California.  If you share that sentiment or have any constructive view on what you read here, please feel welcome to comment below.

In times of rapid change, it can be hard to find places that do not disappoint good memories.  Remote  places may have more chance of this, but less and less so with the relative ease of travel and trendsetting communications.   Places where people gather, especially the popular ones, seem to be subject to even more of an erosion of character.  Sometimes, it is better not to go back to the scene of love for fear that it turn into a scene of crime.

Finding the divine: spiritual spa retreats

Phil Stone is one of those rare and special people who truly walks his talk.  He writes on one of his websites:

As a retreat leader and facilitator myself, I am sensitive to the challenges faced by retreat centers to market their planned events. Our objective is to help retreat centers, churches, retreat leaders and groups to market their events with the use of Internet technology.

As a recipient on several occasions now of Phil's help, I want to share with you two valuable services for those seeking and offering retreat services:

FindtheDivine & SeekaRetreat

for

Spiritual Retreats... Retreat Calendar...over 1,700 Retreat Centers... over 1,200 Conference Centers... over 300 Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders. An information source and directory for retreat centers, spiritual workshops, spiritual conference centers, camps, retreat centers for sale, retreat events, retreat leaders & spiritual direction.

See Vision Spa Retreat on FindtheDivine and SeekaRetreat.

Thank you Phil!

A new online spa magazine launches with 'World class spas in Costa Rica at eco-friendly jungle resorts'

SpaFinder has just launched a web-based spa magazine called SpaFinder Lifestyle. The earlier bright-green announcement logo was very promising and I look forward to seeing how they promote green issues in the new magazine.

The first issue covers (in the Escapes section) three spas in Costa Rica.  They are described as being 'small-footprint spas', 'tiny-footprint resorts', 'light footprint' and 'eco-friendly' all in the same breath. 

This is a good example of the challenge of defining green, something that interests and concerns Vision Spa Retreat.

Here's a link to the magazine feature on SpaFinder Lifestyle (Tabacon looks especially promising to me):

World class spas in Costa Rica at eco-friendly jungle resorts with a light footprint at SpaFinder

Tell us what you think, and what you'd like to see more of on this issue of the 'greening of spa'.

Goethe's legacy for water and spa

On the rural landscape of Bad Sulza a spaceship has landed in the form of Toskana Therme, and it is not out of place. The ultramodern architecture of the spa could just as well be compared to the microscopic details of a form sculpted by nature. It all depends on how you choose to see things.

Goethe believed that a human being, making full use of all the senses, is the most exact physical measuring apparatus possible. I'm sure he would thoroughly approve of the way in which the sanatorium he once suggested be built at Bad Sulza has evolved into a multisensory experiment in both the social and medical arenas.

I also expect that the skilled people who created and now manage this innovative spa would agree that all this amazing technology is nothing without the human instrument of reception -- our bodies. The place exemplifies Goethe's view that humans need an approach to rediscovering nature that is stimulating intellectually and satisfying emotionally and spiritually.

My visit to Toskana Therme in 2001 marked a significant turning point in my view of the potential of spa. It led to an ongoing friendship with one of the owners, Marion Schneider, whose courage to be herself and make a difference inspires me greatly. The text above is an excerpt from an article I wrote in August 2003, titled 'Between two Waves of the Sea' after a line from a poem by T. S. Eliot (included in the piece).

You can read an updated version by following the link below. The article makes a bold leap in connecting the Missouri Ozarks with Goethe's German home state Thuringia in a bid for social-economic-health revival. I was inspired to envisage the concept of 'vision spas' as venues for exploring alternative and positive futures, as well as for relaxing and revitalizing.

I throughly recommend a visit to Toskana Therme spa in Bad Sulza, Germany. It has a fascinating history: one that American spa entrepreneurs might pay some attention to. If you have been there yourself, please leave a comment.

Click here to read more of Between Two Waves of the Sea.