The newly painted electric blue walls of the former carpet shop are testament to the transformation that is taking place inside the modest retail space in downtown Vashon.
For the last month, a group of women has been networking, dreaming, cleaning and painting in preparation for their new endeavor, a cooperative they call Vashon Intuitive Arts (VIA).
“We want it to be a spiritual home for people to come and feel safe,” said Lorna Cunningham, one of the main organizers and visionaries for the new project.
That “home” they hope to create, with its roots in the metaphysical world, will offer a retail space in the front, where members can sell crystals, art, jewelry, drums, handmade tarot cards and skin-care products.
Two large meeting rooms to host classes — from dream interpretation to Feng Shui — will be available, as will a treatment room with a massage table and a lending library for members, according to Cunningham.
There will also be “divination” cards for each of the practitioners, and if someone wants to see a practitioner there but is not sure who, the visitor can select a card and let the universe assist in the choosing, according to Cunningham.
No date has been set yet for opening, said friend of the project, Carol Lutra-Johns, but they expect the door will be open by Earth Day, April 22.
Cunningham, a lifelong Islander, works at Pacific Research and as a real estate agent for Winterbrook Realty.
Many of her interests, however, lie in the area of spirituality — she was the organizer who staged Inner Twinings, a spiritual festival, last August.
After the festival, she said, several people approached her, wanting her to offer more along the same lines.
“So many people said, ‘You have to do this more than once a year,’” she recalled.
With some inspiration from a friend in West Seattle, who owns the Emerald Spiral, a spiritual and artistic cooperative there, Cunningham called together a group to brainstorm how Vashon might offer something similar.
Throughout the fall and winter an evolving group of like-minded Islanders — massage therapists, dream interpreters, tarot readers, Reiki practitioners and intuitives — gathered together and envisioned the cooperative.
In March, Cunningham and Susan Pitiger, a nurse who organized Earth Fair for several years, and massage therapist Dianna Ammon, signed a six-month lease on the space, which shares a building with Vashon Tech Support.
The group has plans for several events open to the community: a Reiki jam, a shamanic drum journey, a goddess dance, tarot readings and more.
“We have big plans,” Cunningham said.
