Earth Spririts Apothecary in Old Sturbridge Village

I made my way from Boston Airport to the magical site of my next booksigning.

Sturbridge Village draws visitors interested in buying antiques and appreciating quaint buildings. The herb shop, then, fits into the landscape as a relic of a quaint medicine rather than as evidence of hippies in town. Both curious visiting antique collectors and grateful local consumers of herbal medicine and literature frequent the shop.

Spiritual emanations from the apothecary shingle

Herb garden in front of the store

Stepping stone in the herb garden

Inside Earth Spirits Apothecary

I am welcomed by Diane Nuckles, proprietoress of the apothecary.

As frequently happens in a small store that has its own following, a cosy group gathered in the classroom at the back of the store for my stories and music...

Friends of the Earth Spirits Apothecary

...and I gave them my best.

I loved meeting Diane's family: son, Justin, and husband, Perry.
Perry found he had more work than he could handle after leaving the fiber optics business
of his native Southbridge, where he had been downsized after working years as an engineer,
and took up restoring historic stone walls. He greatly prefers outdoor physical work
to computer at a desk, anyway, he tells me happily. All of them practice an esoteric
healing technique called therapeutic drumming, which Perry demonstrated for me.
The drum looks more like a tea tray--a wide head and no body--and is resonated
a few inches away from the body along line of the chakras.

Diane planted another herb garden in front of her home.

When I came over to their home to take a shower, I noticed
a design worth sharing:
Perry and Diane hung a multiple towel bar made of a
hinged clothes drying rack on the wall above the radiator
so that they have warm dry towels all winter long.