It's International Women's Day and the Constant Shopper suggests a visit to the speciality bookshop WonderWorks as a means of celebrating all that is naturally and powerfully feminine.
I've long been a fan of this spiritual bookstore and meeting place on Harbord St. near Spadina. With a space in the back of the shop available for Goddess gatherings and healing seminars (see http://www.gowonderworks.com/workshops.html), the shop has become a resource on the subjects of creativity, spirituality and healing over the past 20 years, under the ownership of Mary Anderson.
Anderson recently sold the store to a new owner, and the Constant Shopper is excited about Rochelle Holt's plans for WonderWorks.
Holt, 40, will continue to stock the books, audio and video tools, and healing flower essences for which WonderWorks is known. But there will be some subtle and interesting changes.
With a degree in art history and a background as administrator in the local visual arts scene, Holt is poised to renovate the workshop space into an art gallery, and will show work that addresses ideas of spirituality.
It's a subject that has long been avoided in the art world, says Holt, who previously worked at A-Space, an artist-run centre that focuses on experimental work, and Leo Kamen gallery, a successful commercial gallery. She has always been attracted to works that examine the role of women and spirituality in the wider culture.
"In the '70s and '80s you had a huge outpouring of Goddess imagery. It was very important and very political. But we're moving to a more conceptual, challenging imagery around spirituality," she says, pointing to the first exhibition at the WonderWorks gallery, a video installation by local artist Deanna Bowen (http://www.deannabowen.ca) called (truth)seer, as an example of such challenging work. The show opens this summer.
Holt is also a practising Wiccan and she plans to expand the shop's selection of books, tools and accessories devoted to the pagan religion. Despite its ancient roots, Wicca is relevant to the lives of modern women, she says.
"It's an earth-based religion, and reverence for the earth is hugely important for us as humans, to understand that the earth is part of us and we are part of the earth," she says, explaining that environmental activism is a natural extension of Wiccan beliefs.
To fill the shelves with modern spiritual tools for pagan practitioners, Holt is planning a road trip, with a fellow Wiccan friend of hers, to Salem, Mass. The area is a pilgrimage for Wiccans, particularly at the spring equinox, and the shopping is said to be wicked. There, Holt will source modern Tarot cards, challices and swords — necessary tools for performing ancient pagan rituals.
The store has always been a resource for books and tools related to natural healing methods. Expanding on that focus, Holt plans to invite a Shiatsu practitioner to work at the store. And she wants to create an online shopping site devoted to flower essences, aiming to serve rural and suburban customers who can't buy the healing tinctures close to home.
She's also added a unique line of essences made from trees native to our forests. Formulated in Quebec, Canadian Forest Tree Essences are said to have a healing effect on the body, emotions and psyche. (For more info, see http://www.essences.ca.)
Holt's goal is to bring spirituality and contemporary culture together, she says, noting that WonderWorks customers aren't all new age hippies. Alternative practices have gone mainstream.
"You've got corporate types meditating and using flower essences and going back into a big meeting," she says. "We're really waking up to the body and waking up to the spirit. People are becoming aware of the need to integrate all of these levels of experience."
IN THE NEIGHBHOURHOOD: The strip of Harbord St. between Spadina and Bathurst is a shopping hot spot for women who love books. Visit the Toronto Women's Bookstore (73 Harbord St.) for a wide range of estro-charged books both fiction and non, Caversham Bookseller (98 Harbord St.) for self-help and psychology resources, Atticus Books (84 Harbord St.) for scholarly finds about anthropology, art history, philosophy and religion, and Good For Her (175 Harbord St.) for erotica.
Daphne Gordon's Constant Shopper column appears every Saturday in the Shopping section and Monday to Friday online at http://www.thestar.com/constantshopper. |
At WonderWorks we offer tools, both ancient and modern, to help people deepen their view into their own hearts and illuminate their path in the world. We specialize in books about spirituality, creativity, holistic health, and death and dying. At WonderWorks you can also find out about bodywork and Buddhism, tarot and tantra, goddesses and gardens.
