The Bookstore Saga: A Culmination of Loves in Namaste

I am a proud Aquarius. It may be some sort of placebo effect taking over, but I relate to almost every Aquarius horoscope I read. From my fondness of healing crystals to my possession of rock salt lamps, my Aquarius nature is the root of it all. I am also a proud fan of yoga. I have taken classes and lessons. I have teared up at the overwhelming sense of peace it gives me, I have sweated it out in hot yoga sessions and I have bleed from working a little too hard with Jillian Michael's yoga videos. But I still love it. I am also a proud meditator. I try ("try" being the operative word) to meditate for at least 5 minutes every morning before getting started with my day. I believe that taking even that small amount of time to center and focus myself before getting out of bed really helps the rest of my day. For my fourth bookstore visit, I was originally supposed to visit a bookstore specializing in drama and theatre (something else I'm fond of), but then, thanks to the magical Google Maps, I found a bookstore that combined my love of all things Aquarian, yoga, and meditation related.

I happened to be on Google Maps looking for directions somewhere else and stumbled upon this gem on the map. When I saw the words Namaste and Yoga together, my interest was instantly peaked. Conveniently enough, it is located along 14th street which is an area familiar to me. More specifically, it is located at 2 W 14th St and described, by Google, as a "Chill store selling Eastern philosophy & religion books, crystals, tarot cards & meditation needs." Seeing that the online, official description of the bookstore used the word "chill" made me fall in love immediately for some reason.

While it looked like there may have been an upper part of the building, the bottom half of the space looked small to me. Especially considering the amount of things this bookstore sells, from books (as the name suggests) to journals and calendars and crystals and candles and incense. I was impressed by the versatility. Matching the versatility of the items, the crowd also seemed to have a lot of different looks: some plainly blonde and others with hot pink mohawks. But everyone seemed super into the vibes of the store. 

The store was big on spirituality and peace and I liked it. A place where people from all walks of life could connect on their love of... spirituality? The occult? Being different? I'm not sure of the "correct" answer here, but I am sure that there was a sense of everyone being welcomed in a "Come as you are - whomever that may be" kind of way. I really appreciated that (especially because admitting to being into this brand of stuff can sometimes come with unfair judgements). While it was certainly crowded, it wasn't not too loud. I wonder if that had anything to do with the calm that is associated with yoga being associated with the store. Everyone kinda doing there own thing and not bothering anyone else. Living our individual life paths in the same space. Maybe not the place for me to do homework, but a cool place to show my friends who are into astrology and vibes and cool stuff like that (and I did just that when I came back the very next day to bring a fellow Aquarian friend with me so we could purchase crystals together).

And on that chill vibe, I conclude my bookstore saga (for now at least).