— By GISELLE GOODMAN

Staff Writer

LEBANON -- Mary Lavoie believes in magic.

Not the Harry Potter or David Copperfield kind of magic, but the sort of magic that happens "when you watch your children play or sit quietly in a garden," she said. "Anything that makes you feel good is magic. I don't believe it's a scary thing."

And she hopes her store Crescent Moon Herbals, on Center Road, conveys that belief.

It is a place where cooking spices, like salt and cinnamon, are sold alongside crystals and cauldrons. Yes, there are many items in her store that seem out of the ordinary -- swords, broomsticks, rune stones, pentagrams and gathering bags. But Lavoie doesn't want them to give the wrong impression. Everything in the store is designed for healing and communing with nature, not for harming.

"People who come in here on a nature-based path will know this is their shop," she said.

Just for clarification: Nature-based means a religion where spirituality is discovered through nature and the Earth, instead of through church.

Lavoie grew up around such religions. She hails from Beverly, Mass., where she grew up next door to Salem, the witch city. She was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools but was always curious about alternative religions. As a youth, she liked to poke around the cemeteries, old churches and metaphysical shops that are found in old Salem.

Her curiosity turned into something more in 2004, when she and a friend, just for fun, set up a "shop" at the Maine Renaissance Faire, selling herbs, teas and candles. The fair, now defunct, was held down the street from Lavoie's Lebanon home.

"We went over there with the intent that we were just going to play for two weeks," she said.

She hasn't closed the shop since. She moved it from the fair to her home, in a space that was once her husband's workshop.

Most of the "herbs" she sells are organic cooking spices that she sells inexpensively in bulk. An ounce of allspice costs 75 cents; rosemary, 45 cents. And she carries hard-to-find things, like Sarsaparilla root, Sassafras and Dragon's Blood Resin (derived from a tree and used to make incense).

The jars of herbs and spices are nearly too many to count. They take up three walls of the shop. One wall is dedicated entirely to loose-cut teas.

And, on the other side of the room, on a much smaller wall, are the "magical herbs" -- things like mandrake root, mistletoe cuttings, sea salts and Bat's Head Root. Note to Shakespearians: There is no "eye of newt" or "toe of frog."

Lavoie admits she is not an herbalist. She does not know how to use most of the unusual herbs she sells for healing, wellness or witchcraft.

Which is why Crescent Moon Herbals also offers classes, taught by people more skilled in "natural-based paths" than she.

There are the everyday classes, from self-defense classes for women to meditation, to magical classes, such as tarot card readings and an introduction to Wicca.

The schedule of classes, as well as a complete list of products, can be found at www.crescentmoonherbals.com.

Whether visitors believe in magic, or not, Lavoie said they should come by anyway, sit in the garden a spell and come see what her store is all about.

"You can get some awesome gifts here," she said. "Stuff you won't find at Wal-Mart. You might find a little country doll or you will find a pentacle apron."



Staff Writer Giselle Goodman can be contacted at 791-6382 or at:

ggoodman@pressherald.com