Read Pluto Walks the Earth, Chapter 9: Rock and Rolfing
Lotus
I’m not going to judge. Mary Lou is a great healer and she was a decent boss and, imo, a nice lady. Not a bad businesswoman, either. When she started the store, where the old Goodwill had been, there were already six organic groceries in town, and the whole population of Santa Fe was like, I’m not even sure, but less than 75,000. And it wasn’t long before Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s set up shop, too, Yet Chakra ’n’ Awe kept on keeping on. I think maybe because it was authentic. I mean, just the smell of the place: the raw pine flooring and sawdust, the produce bins, the spices, the incense. It’s like hardware store meets perfume counter. Not saying Trader Joe’s isn’t nice, too, but all the hand-printed signs and stuff can’t camouflage how corporate it is, right? Mary Lou’s was kind of eccentric, kind of hippy dippy, and also definitely the hub of a community. Most of us working there were healers ourselves, or anyway on a journey of one kind or another. For a long time I was on that path, and I might be on it today if I hadn’t seen a little too much from a little too close.