the purple house

The Labyrinth Metaphysical shop has met spiritual needs for 15 years

Pull up to the purple house on Bell Avenue, a block off Lower Greenville, and warylooking cats peer from atop a car, where they’re sunning themselves. Step out of the car to the scent of incense and through the screen door into Labyrinth Metaphysical Herbal Apothecary. This is a witches’ den, a shop for everything from trinkets such as inexpensive sterling silver jewelry to “magically blessed and blended” water sprays. Cerina Wrye and Unarei Saldana opened the shop in 1997, and they draw loyal clientele from all over North Texas. Wrye is a psychic who offers readings at the shop. Saldana is a healer, who implements reiki, which is also known as “hands-on healing.” Her bio includes the designations high priestess, shaman medicine woman and ordained minister. Wrye also does reiki, but she says she prefers palm reading. “We’ve definitely touched a lot of people,” Saldana says. The Labyrinth is part gift shop, part herbal pharmacy. The back room houses shelf after shelf of jars containing dried herbs. Many of them are things one could find at Whole Foods — star anise, allspice, cayenne pepper. Others are more exotic — marshmallow root, slippery elm, neem leaf. Wrye and Saldana also make bath salts, candles and salves. They say they love their little shop and the work they do. “The people who come in here are looking for something, and usually they find it,” Wrye says. “And they leave feeling a little more fulfilled.” —Rachel