Power to the Positive: Herbs & Arts
Simply walking into Herbs & Arts is a spiritual experience. The smells of incense, oils, and candles mingles in the air, and the store is full of warmth and compassion. As co-owner Kaewyn put it, “The store is a living, breathing, beautiful being.” Herbs & Arts is a metaphysical store on East Colfax, and the feeling you get upon entering is intentional. It’s their mission to be a healing, safe place where those from all walks of life can feel welcome.
Kaewyn and her business partner John intentionally have a diverse group of employees—they represent various faiths, ages, sexual orientations, and astrological signs. Kaewyn and John want the Denver community to be able to come into the store and relate to the people there. The staff at Herbs & Arts get all sorts of visitors, ranging anywhere from people in extreme distress seeking faith and spiritual counseling to someone like me who just popped in to buy her girlfriend some sage to smudge her new apartment.
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To hear Kaewyn tell it, she came across Herbs & Arts almost by accident when she was 23. At the advice of a sage-burning shop-owner from down the street, she wandered into Herbs & Arts one afternoon and asked if they were hiring. She recalls being immediately greeted by a feeling of warmth and lightness.
The feeling turned to awe when she saw the “BFW (Big Fucking Witch)”—her words, not mine—called Morning Glory. Now retired, Morning Glory founded the store in 1993, hoping to better the world by spreading compassion. She was part of the rebirth of the feminist Goddess movement, and she is also a high priestess, herbal healer, and astrologist, among many, many other things. For Kaewyn, she’s a life coach.
A self-proclaimed “people-lover,” Kaewyn sees the good in everyone and believes it is her gift to reflect their beauty back to them. “People are divine beings of light,” she said, and that shows in how she makes you feel: important, understood, and loved.
One day, amidst the phone calls and customers, a woman came in, intensely disillusioned with life ever since a tragedy had struck her family. Kaewyn walked her through a meditation, and she recounted to me the visual of the woman’s body physically changing as she was able to release and forgive. This healing exercise revolves around loving yourself, something Kaewyn is able to illicit in her sessions because she embodies it. “I beam people with love,” she said. “That’s my superpower.”
She draws on this ability by providing counseling services, sometimes informal mini-sessions at the front desk and sometimes formal aromatherapy sessions. Other employees have specializations in areas like herbalism, reiki, crystals, and tarot reading, combining to give the store a “collective wisdom,” as Kaewyn put it.
Anyone is welcome to learn from these talents by going to the store and asking questions or attending one of their frequent classes and workshops. The classes and workshops are open to people of all ages and backgrounds. Some of the classes they offer are Healing Ancestral Lines, Rattle Making and Maintaining your Home’s Sacred Space.
Customers are encouraged to come in and just chat or look around at the vast collection of tinctures, incense, candles, books, and other treasures housed in the shop. Kaewyn, John, and their employees make many of the products they sell, always in accordance with the astrological calendar, keeping in mind harmonious energies and vibrational frequencies. Each product is created with intention and meaning.
It’s no wonder I felt so much power upon crossing the threshold into Herbs & Arts. It’s a space set apart from the spilled beer and lone bike parts of Colfax. It’s a space where the bottom line is, “Care for each other; care for the Earth.”
