a. Do I have to take my clothes off or can I wear a swim suit?

This is usually the first question people ask, since most of us are not used to nudity with strangers. Of course, anyone can wear a swimsuit, but be warned: 99% of the women who say "there's NO way I will ever be naked in front of a bunch of people" usually are soaking in the hot water in their birthday suits by the end of their first weekend, sometimes by the end of the first day. The usual response is "I had no idea how comfortable this would be. It's just not a big deal." Exactly. The bottom line is … everyone's comfort zone will be respected.

b. Does everyone run around naked?

Most people soak in the hot water nude. A few enjoy lounging on the lawn in front of the lodge shirtless. You are free to go without a shirt (clothes must be worn at mealtimes) but the majority of the campers wear clothes except when they're soaking.

c. What is there to do and what the hell is an unstructured event?

The SWAT Team believes that most of us lead fairly structured lives - by clocks, alarms, calendars and schedules. At Women in the Woods we get a welcome relief from all that, although some women find the fluidity and spontaneity of the "unstructuredness" uncomfortable and unfamiliar. We would urge everyone to give it a try - it is a wonderful exercise in Living In The Moment.

The only structured parts of WIW are Thursday night orientation (especially important for first-timers) and the Saturday night talent/no talent show. The rest of the workshops and discussions groups are created by the participants throughout the weekend. For example, if you want to talk with other women about getting over a failed relationship, just pick a location, a time, and write it on the schedule (there's that ugly word again). Other women who are interested in talking about failed relationships will show up at the time and place and voilá - you have a workshop. Or say, on Saturday afternoon two of you are sitting in the meadow pool discussing age differences in relationships and one of you says, "Hey, I wonder if there are other women here who have input about that, or want to talk about it?" When you leave the meadow pool, you walk to the schedule hanging in the lodge and pick a place and a time and write your interest on it. At your appointed time and place, you may have 1 woman show up, none, or 30. The KEY to this system is that it is wise for everyone to check the list in the lodge frequently - after a hike, a trip to Devil's Hole, a nap, or a soak. You never know what will have appeared on the schedule since you last looked. It may be your pet peeve and you'd love to have a safe place to vent, a passion like writing poetry or life drawing, an AA or NA meeting, or yoga. The impromptu discussion about lesbian sex drew a huge crowd.

If anyone is still unclear about how this works, ask a SWAT team member and we'll be glad to talk with you more about it.