Little shop of auras
Spirit visits, card readings, healings and herbal remedies are at hand at an unusual store on Hanley Road.
By JACKIE RIPLEY
Published July 23, 2006
A cockatiel named Don Juan flirts shamelessly with customers. Ethereal strains of New Age music fill sandalwood-scented air. And an elderly man peruses a batch of bat head root and wolf eye.
You've just entered Sacred Heart Botanica & Spiritual Gift Shoppe. But don't expect your typical shopping experience. This is a store that caters to the arcane, traffics with the otherworldly and adds a bit of mystery to the landscape.
"I use sandlewood and cologne to prepare myself," said Eve Garcia, owner of the botanica, and medium-in-residence. "In between readings I do cleansings to get rid of negativity. I bless the table with holy water and prepare for the next person."
Garcia opened this little shop of curiosities eight months ago. Sandwiched between a nail salon and a Hispanic bakery, it's not exactly your typical suburban storefront. But it's fast becoming a neighborhood favorite.
"I felt so relaxed after I talked to her the first time," said Mona Ferrer, 46. "She read my palm, did the cards. It was awesome."
Ferrer lives in Woodbridge and has become a frequent visitor to this unusual retail space that most recently housed a Brazilian jeans shop. Had Garcia not convinced the building's owner otherwise, customers would be standing in line for empanadas and Cuban coffee instead of readings and talismans.
"I was a lost soul," said Coretta Chianetta, a frequent client of Garcia's. "In the reading she told me everything was going to be all right, then she took me in her arms and said, 'I'm here. I'm going to help you.' I broke down in tears."
The store attracts all sorts, from curiosity seekers to serious practitioners of the arcane arts. Because of that, it stocks the accoutrements needed for the practice of everything from Santeria to witchcraft.
Garcia, though, describes herself as a spiritualist, a healer and a teacher.
"People come here for answers, for hope," she said. "You can take the right path or the hard path."
So on any given day customers might find Garcia explaining the rudiments of natural herbal remedies and supplements. Or they might find her in the small room at the back of her shop communing with her spirit guides - one of whom was her grandmother, she says.
"You can always tell when my grandmother is here by the smell of cigar smoke," said Garcia, who said that her grandmother, when alive, used the smoke to help bridge the gap between this world and the next. "The tobacco helps provide energy for the spirit to come down."
Garcia, a single mother of four, has worked as a practical nurse and as a teacher. She only recently made the decision to follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother, both spiritualists and healers.
"It was a big leap, but I knew I had the gift since I was young," said Garcia, 36, who was brought up Catholic and still attends Incarnation Church in Town 'N Country.
Church officials, she concedes, would most likely take issue with her beliefs, but she doesn't see that much difference between what she believes and what the church teaches.
"Catholicism is the most ritualistic of religions," Garcia argues. "Look at all the colors, the candles, the saints. God gave us these tools."
Though Garcia has always burned candles, used prayer and taken note of her dreams, she decided to open her own botanica only about three years ago. She started by visualizing the shop she would one day own. She visited other botanicas to get an idea of what she would need. Then she refinanced her home, using the money to make her dream a reality.
"I had a friend who said, 'Why go to someone who reads your palm?' " said Wahn Strouf, another client of Garcia's. "I told them, 'Because when you hear the truth, you face reality and you have to do something about it.' "
Garcia charges $30 for a 60-minute card reading. She also teaches classes on spiritualism on Friday evenings. Later in the evening another teacher holds a class on the Wiccan religion.
She also does a booming business on Valentine's Day, when people come in for gift baskets to enhance their love lives. And no botanica would be complete without gold and silver dust to attract money, floor wash to repel evil, and oils to attract luck.
"Some people go for entertainment purposes," Strouf said, "but some of us feel we need the guidance. She reinforces what we know. We face our own truths and decide what to do about it."
Jackie Ripley can be reached at ripley@sptimes.com or (813) 269-5308.