Five Questions with ... Ricky Williamson

WILLIAMSON

What started as a hobby ended up being a business for Ricky Williamson. The owner of The Crystal Spirit in Carbondale got his start making crystal-wrapped jewelry and then ventured into incense-making. These days, he offers a variety of items at his storefront at 28 S. Main St. Read on to find out more about what he offers and why.

Q: Why did you decide to open The Crystal Spirit?

A: The Crystal Spirit started in 2016 with a small booth in The Honesdale Marketplace. I had been making crystal-wrapped jewelry as a hobby, and noticed I had an abundance of jewelry made up and ran out of people to gift it to.

While at the marketplace, I decided I need more items to fill my space and took my fondness of incense to the handmade theme, I started hand dipping my own incense, Mr. Charlies Incense. When the marketplace closed, I took to music festivals at Mountain Sky, a local venue. My daughter Ariel and I had such a great time, we decided music festivals were the place to be. We met so many great people who really liked our products. We opened our selection of items to metaphysical and spiritual items like sage and resin incense and more items like that. The brick-and-mortar shop opened up kind of on a whim. It was December and a few months between festival season, I saw a for rent sign and said, let's try it.

Q: What do you offer?

A: We offer a variety of healing stones, metaphysical and spiritual items. Although we offer a lot of retail items, we also carry an assortment of handmade items like our moon water, sage water, black salt and a lot of our jewelry.

Our incense is also hand-dipped in shop. We also have an in-house tarot card reader, Lady Jenn. We’ve come a long way since our little flea market booth to where we are now.

Someone who has never been to our shop can expect a selection of healing stones, various types of sage and cleansing items, jewelry, incense and a happy greeting. We also have been adding oddities and curiosities to our shop for those interested

Q: I saw you’re offering special events? What kind of events do you offer?

A: We do have special events. Lady Jenn is available certain days for walk-in tarot readings. She also takes appointments on her Facebook page, facebook.com/ladyjenn73. We have Dungeons and Dragons nights every so often where the adventurer can play the game hosted by us. I am also working on a summer game program for kids of different ages to purchase a card and be able to come in and play board games when school is out.

Q: What would you say to people who are skeptical about stuff like healing crystals and other items you offer?

A: I am often asked about what makes crystal healing so special and to do talks about it. I’ve been interested in self healing for a while, and following a work injury that put me out of commission for a while, I was given the opportunity to talk a class in crystal healing. With that, I earned a certificate in crystal healing and was recognized by the International Alliance of Holistic Therapists. To sum up crystal healing in a short paragraph is tough to accomplish! All I can say is everything is made of energy. A person's energy changes constantly depending on environment, mood, health etc. A crystal's energy is a constant, so working with a particular stone balances those energies.

Q: When you’re not running Crystal Spirit, what are you doing?

A: When I’m not at the shop or at a festival, I enjoy just being home making more jewelry or different items for the shop. I like spending time with my family: wife, Christy; kids, Ariel and Ricky; and pets, including a dog and eight cats, especially Mr. Charlie, my orange tabby for which I named my incense. I enjoy camping, mostly when we go mining for Herkimer Diamonds at Crystal Grove Diamond Mine. By the way, Herkimers are the only stone in the shop that we mine ourselves.

For me, the best part of The Crystal Spirit that I have seen, is the amount of great people that I’ve met and the friends I have made.

WILLIAMSON