HADLEY - A new 'mind, body and spirit' shop plans to serve as
both a gift and supply store as well as a center for meditation, yoga
and massage.
Inspirit Common is located in an old home on Route 9 next to Hopkins Academy.
'We really built the business plan on the idea of having a community
space here,' said Emily Sparkle, who opened the store with her husband,
Bucky.
The Sparkles had been planning such an enterprise for about three years.
Though both spent several years living and working in Framingham and
Natick - Emily Sparkle as a Web site designer and marketer, Bucky
Sparkle as an architect - they had built up a large circle of friends
in western Massachusetts.
'We were being drawn out to this area,' Bucky Sparkle said.
Emily Sparkle had also worked at a store in Natick on which their store is modeled.
'Once it closed, we realized how important it was to us,' Bucky Sparkle said.
In starting up the business, the Sparkles abandoned the corporate world.
They moved to Hadley and found the site for the store in an antique
building in Hadley's historical district. The 4,000 square feet of
space includes a large retail area on the ground floor, two rooms
upstairs and a two-car garage that has been converted into a yoga
studio and display space for periodic art shows.
The items
within the store, which come from around the world, include wind chimes
and jewelry, essential oils produced in Northampton, and 150 types of
crystals and minerals, from the popular amethyst and rose quartz to the
more exotic kunzite and zincite.
Rarer items in the store are a
17th-century Tibetan singing bowl used in meditation practice. Statuary
from every major spiritual modality is available.
A metaphysical
bookstore, which the Sparkles compare to Northampton's former Beyond
Words Bookshop, though on a smaller scale, carries books on such New
Age topics as energetic healing and paganism.
'We'd like to have
this become a resource for people to learn things,' Emily Sparkle said.
'We want to be able to offer bits of wisdom.'
The two upstair
rooms will be ?sed for alternative health services such as reiki,
massage, craniosacral therapy, and couples massage. Bridge Massage, run
by Asherah Bridge in Northampton, is expected to move to the new space
in January.
During the first month, the Sparkles have hosted an
art show titled Fruition, which celebrated local artists and also
heralded their opening.
The work, from 11 artists, included Dana
Welch's mixed media portraits textiles, clothing by Twyla Reardon
Arthen and other work.
Yoga classes begin in January, with Bucky
Sparkle teaching svaroopa yoga, a relaxing yoga technique. They also
hope to offer other classes.
The Sparkles said they have
encountered a lot of generosity in the start-up of their own store, not
only from friends but from the proprietors of Crystal Essence, a
similar establishment in Great Barrington.
'One of the great things in being in the mind, body and spirit industry is everybody supports each other,' Bucky Sparkle said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
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