The Light Between Worlds

In a converted house on a busy corner, enchantment survives—part ritual, part market, part firelight where people burn their burdens and call in the new.

On full-moon nights, the house at the intersection looks like it’s bracing against the noise. Strings of bulbs loop through an oak tree, casting a faint halo over a parking lot too small for the cars it attracts. Overflow spills into neighboring businesses, who tolerate the trespass with a kind of bemused indulgence. Out on the street, traffic idles at the light; horns sound, firetrucks scream past, rattling the windows.

And still, people gather.

Candles flicker in jars along the grass. Musicians tune guitars, drummers test their palms against stretched skin. Vendors arrange tables of jewelry, teas, paintings, carved wands—their faces set in the hopeful expressions of people who know the difference between a good night and a wasted one. A woman in a shawl sways to the rhythm as it builds. A man presses a crystal to his forehead. Near the hedges, someone gasps: a flicker of light, quick and sharp. “Faeries,” she insists. A man in a ball cap shakes his head. “Headlights,” he mutters, but without conviction.

This is the Full Moon gathering at Maven’s Moon Apothecary, a metaphysical shop that was once a house and, in some ways, still is.

The House

Inside, the past lingers. The kitchen is now a wall of herbs in glass jars, though the tiled backsplash remains. The living room holds meditation cushions, faint scorch marks from incense that burned too hot. The bedrooms are crowded with painted figurines: gods and dragons stacked shoulder to shoulder, indifferent to theological mismatching.

Stevo, who paints them in his shop-within-a-shop, Altar Egos, shrugs when asked about the juxtapositions. “They get along fine,” he says, his fingers permanently streaked with blue and gold. His hands carry the marks of hours bent over tiny brushes, and customers sometimes leave with faint smudges on their shirts—fingerprints of Hera or Odin.

The animals are part of the atmosphere. An old black Labrador sprawls in the hallway, immovable. Mister Pumpkin Head, the orange cat, prowls the counters, scattering pens and flyers at will. Customers step around them without complaint.

Outside, the music grows louder, filling the rooms like a second heartbeat.

Lady Maven

The gatherings orbit Lady Maven, who reads tarot daily and leads meditations on Wednesdays and Thursdays. She insists the garden is never empty. The faeries, she says, live there—unseen, mercurial, quick to test, quick to bless.

“They remind us the world isn’t ours to package,” she explains, as if describing weather.

Some believe her outright. Others just like the atmosphere. “Faeries, imagination—it doesn’t matter,” a retiree says. “I walk out breathing easier.”

The Faery Cottage

The Faery Cottage hosts a rotation of practitioners. Jennifer Williams-Arriola runs Reiki, cacao, and breathwork sessions that leave clients looking rearranged, like furniture shifted in their interior rooms. Tandra Bailiff blends massage with shamanic practice, coaxing memories out of muscles. One man emerged blinking, saying, “She touched my back and I remembered twenty years of something I’d forgotten.” On Thursdays, Wendy of Artio Artisinals installs herself here, reading tarot, astrology, and runes with surgical precision. “She said the thing I didn’t want to hear,” a college student admitted afterward. “Now I can’t ignore it.”

The Garden: Arrival

By dusk, the garden has become a temporary village. Vendors fuss with folding tables, adjusting cloths, clicking on battery lanterns. A guitarist strums tentative notes, and the first singer begins—her voice carrying clear and low across the yard, enough to still the small crowd gathering near the tables. People pause, listen, then lean into the sound as if it were pulling them closer.

“It’s a good turnout,” one jeweler mutters. “But will they buy?”

The gatherings happen every month, each one tied to the lunar cycle. The next, the Corn Full Moon Gathering, will be held on Saturday, September 6, from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.—an evening when the garden will again be filled with vendors, candlelight, and music that lingers in the air long after it’s finished.

The Garden: Ceremony

Around 8:30, as the vendors settle and the music softens, Lady Maven steps into the circle at the garden’s center. A small fire is already burning there, its glow pulling eyes toward it like a magnet. She speaks quietly at first, but the crowd hushes quickly; it is clear this is the moment everyone has come for.

She casts her blessing, her gestures deliberate, her words carrying across the firelight. Then she asks the gathered to write down what they wish to release—habits, fears, disappointments—and to name what they hope to invite in their place. Slips of paper are folded, held tightly, then carried to the fire. One by one, they burn, the smoke rising into the night air. In that small circle, people quite literally burn their burdens, watching them vanish into sparks and ash.

“It’s not the flame that changes things,” Lady Maven says, watching the sparks drift upward, “it’s your willingness to let go.” People nod, some with eyes closed, some whispering their intentions as the paper turns to ash.

The ceremony ends with a quiet stillness, the kind that feels heavier than silence. Then the music begins again, and the evening carries forward, charged with something more than candlelight.

The Garden: Peak

By nine, the garden is alive. Candles glow, chants rise. The rhythm of instruments overtakes even skeptics. Someone gasps at a flicker near the hedge. “Faeries,” she declares. A man chuckles, “Fireflies.” She ignores him.

The singer’s voice arcs over it all—clear, luminous, impossible to ignore. It drifts above the crowd and hangs in the warm night air, giving the gathering a kind of gravity. Even those who aren’t swayed by talk of faeries pause to listen, drawn in by the beauty of it.

At the vendor tables, sales are modest. A tea seller sighs. “Not a buying night.” A jeweler, counting two necklaces sold, shrugs: “At least it covers gas. Part of gas.” Vendors smile anyway, the way you do when the ritual of showing up matters more than the receipts.

The Neighbors We Can’t Quite See

Across cultures, the idea of unseen neighbors endures. Ireland reroutes roads around faery forts. In Iceland, construction halts for huldufólk, the “hidden people.” In Mexico, children are warned of duendes; in Japan, kami inhabit stones and rivers, equal parts guardians and tricksters.

What links them is not certainty but pragmatism. You don’t need to prove faeries exist to act as if they might. Maven’s Moon’s garden belongs to that lineage, improbable as it may seem against the backdrop of sirens and traffic.

The Economics of Enchantment

Belief doesn’t pay the bills. Herbs and incense sell steadily; crystals move slowly. Figurines are admired more than purchased. Classes fill some weeks, sit half-empty others.

Full Moon gatherings bring people through the door, but not always through the register. “I made twenty bucks,” one vendor mutters while packing up. “That doesn’t cover gas.” Another shrugs: “Sometimes the energy’s for music, not for money.”

A storm last summer ruined one event, scattering candles and sending vendors home damp. “The faeries must’ve wanted it that way,” Lady Maven said afterward, smiling. Whether it was faith or resignation was unclear.

Across the U.S., shops like this face the same precarity. Online giants undercut prices; Etsy siphons loyalists. A few urban stores thrive on tourists. Most survive on loyalty—regulars who treat their purchases as tithe, benefactors who quietly subsidize. The faeries may be mercurial, but the utility company is not.

The Garden: Dispersal

By 11, the rhythm collapses. Instruments trail into silence. Vendors fold tables, stacking unsold wares into bins. Friends hug, promising to return at the next moon. “I don’t believe in any of this,” a man admits, “but I’ll be back. It’s cheaper than therapy.”

“They were here tonight,” a woman insists, pulling her shawl tight. Her companion shakes her head. “Or maybe it was just the lights.”

Inside, the Labrador stirs. Mister Pumpkin Head leaps down with a thud. Stevo bends over a figurine, paint still drying on his fingers. Lady Maven gathers candles in the kitchen, where the air smells of herbs and smoke.

In the garden, the small fire has burned low, but its ashes glow faintly, a reminder of the slips of paper that had carried people’s burdens into the night air. And though the music has ended, people walk away with the memory of the singer’s voice—clear, luminous, echoing as if it still hung in the dark.

Outside, cars surge forward, horns sound in the distance. Inside, sandalwood lingers.

The moon rises over the corner lot—steady, luminous, indifferent to sales, to skepticism, to faith. 🌽 Maven’s Moon Corn Full Moon Gathering 

🌕Saturday, September 6 | 6:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.📍 8341 White Settlement Road

Join us for an evening under the full moon at Maven’s Moon Apothecary. ✨

🛍️ Vendors & Artisans – Shop crystals, jewelry, teas, art, and more.🎶 Live Music – Featuring the beautiful voice of our guest singer.🔥 Full Moon Ceremony (8:30 p.m.) – Led by Lady Maven, with a blessing, intention writing, and a fire ritual to release and manifest.🌙 Community Gathering – A space for connection, reflection, and celebration.

Cover: $5 at the door.More info: mavensmoon.com

✨ Where Magic Lives ✨