A New Wellness Series Is Kicking Off at This Gorgeous Fishtown Recording Studio
Spice House Sound is playing host to the first Women's Circle, a female-focused group that hopes to foster community through wellness offerings.
After publication, we received word that the venue for this event has changed. We’ve updated the story to reflect that.
If your Instagram feed isn’t filled with beautiful pictures of food, there’s a good chance it’s filled with beautiful pictures of interiors. (Can we just live in every clean-lined, plant-bedecked, impeccably decorated room Real Simple posts an image of?) That’s probably because we humans actually tend to be happier when we look at pretty things and live in pretty places.
It makes sense then that a wellness-themed event series might want to host its meetings in striking places. At least that’s the case for Women’s Circle, a Philly group aiming to foster connection between local ladies through a wellness — and spiritual — lens. Co-founders Nicolle Barrett and Ilia Stranko hope to meet in unique spaces that “people have clearly put a lot of love and energy into.” To wit: The first meeting will take place on February 24th from 3 to 5 p.m at Spice House Sound, a recording studio in Fishtown that makes us want to pick up a guitar and jam to some low-key tunes.
The idea behind Women’s Circle is to channel the zen environments around you to better experience everything from guided meditations and sound baths with Himalayan singing bowls to massages and a mantra and mudra tutorial. (A mantra is a word or phrase you repeat to center the mind during meditation, while a mudra is a hand gesture that’s supposed to concentrate your energy.) The schedule for the events will be loose, though, since Barrett and Stranko want to cater this “spiritual toolkit” to the women who are in the room that day. “When they come to the circle, we’ll be asking, ‘What brings you here? What is it you want to work on?’” says Stranko, a former social worker who now offers energy-based treatments such as sound therapy and reiki. “We can really customize it.”
And, of course, the ultimate goal is for attendees to form lasting friendships. Barrett was actually inspired by the women’s circles she attended in Bali and Thailand — talk about beautiful places — while living in southeast Asia for several years. Having grown up attending a competitive Catholic school where she and her classmates were often searching for identity and support, she didn’t feel truly supported or encouraged by the women around her until those female-centric gatherings in Asia. “For the first time, I felt like I was finally connecting with women authentically the way I’d always craved and desired and needed in my life,” Barrett says. The only down side: The ladies didn’t stay in touch once the enlightening events were over.
Barrett and Stranko plan to address that issue by creating an email chain for participants and offering discounts for continued treatments at Stranko’s private practice near Rittenhouse Square. And, if you attend this first event, you’ll be “grandmothered in” (aw!), so you can buy tickets for future Women’s Circles before the general public. Right now, the plan is to hold them bimonthly. No word on upcoming venues yet, but if they look anything like Spice House, we’re down to circle up.
Tickets for the first Women’s Circle are $70; register here.
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