Tamare started the business in her home. Eventually, her home became too small to accommodate the people visiting regularly. That’s when she decided to rent a space in the core of Barrie’s downtown region.

She had to come up with a name for her business. Using her Medicine Cards, she was given a name. The cards referred to her son, Skylar, and her personal nature… earthy. Finally, the cards guided her to the connection between them. It made her think of a silly little thing she would say to Skylar, who has always been a little dreamy. She would say, “earth to SKY connection.”

That exact name was not perfect numerology-wise, so she checked, and the best energy would come from changing the name slightly. The word “to” was replaced with the word “and,” so with spirit’s direction, the shoppe was named! She thought it was perfect. Over the years, many have shortened the name to Earth and Sky, or The Spirit Shoppe

However, the “connection” part is the Bridge that we all need to travel on in order for us to know one another. Many of us are on one side or the other. Earthy or Sky. Like the differences in our personalities. Tamare feels if we all come to the bridge, we can let go of our preconceived opinions and judgments, flinging them into the abyss below the bridge!

This moment is when we learn to truly understand and accept one another without the need to convert or reject! So, Earth and Sky Connection was born and incorporated on January 17th, 1997…Tamare thanks the Great Spirit, as it was life-changing for both herself and her son.

The first shoppe was beside the old theatre at 55 1/2 Dunlop St W., Barrie, Ontario. Our grand opening was on Canada Day in 1997 in a 600 square foot space. The community had mixed feelings as it was the first multi-cultural spiritual and pagan store in Barrie, but for the most part, it was a good connection with the community! Tamare only had $5000- worth of handmade items, crystals, candles and incense to stock the store in the beginning.

She provided Psychic, Shamanic Healing Services & Esoteric Workshops. It was a perfect fit because once the winter hit, it was a difficult time for sales. The services and workshops almost compensated for the lost income in product sales and allowed the store to stay open. It was a tough first three years until the store was able to hold its own. In the midst of this, Tamare settled insurance claims due to health impacts from 2 car accidents. She decided to re-invest in the business and keep the faith. This investment brought Earth & Sky Connection to life.

After five years, the Shoppe became so full at the small location. We had no choice but to relocate. We moved to 5 points, the heart of Barrie, and opened at 9 Dunlop Street East in May 2002.

The store was a beautiful 1600 sq foot shoppe with a basement. By then, we had so many friends and loyal customers of Earth & Sky Connection. They all helped us with the packing, painting, moving and set up of the new shoppe. It was wonderful – filled with spirit and loving people!

Tamare met so many of my long-term friends while at this location and unfortunately lost those that could not handle the spiritual elevation that came with the changes! After some time, most returned with more love and much more kindness. It was interesting to see what happens when a business and someone becomes a community leader. There was a lot of envy, spitefulness, gossip, complete lies, twisted versions of truth and mean-spiritedness from those Tamare would never have expected it from. To top it off, she faced judgement from many about how a spiritual woman should live her life. Many thought they should be in the position she was gifted with by the Creator. It was hard on Tamare, but it gave her so many valuable lessons about herself and the overall human experience.

Today, she describes this period as totally invaluable and enlightening. And without such hardships, she may never have gone in the direction she eventually went, so she is grateful to all those adversaries, with all her heart.

Tamare thanks those that have stood by her over the years. For just loving her and trusting in her ways of being!

During the next five years, we overcame many challenges. We experienced a road closure that almost caused Earth & Sky Connection to fail. Just after we moved, the city decided to upgrade the sewer and water pipes under Bayfield Street at the intersection where we were located. The construction lasted six months. Right after that, we experienced a flood at the front of the shoppe where we had our “Herbal Hut,” where we sold healthy smoothies. It caused another three months of construction!

We were tested; however, spirit kept injecting lifelines for us. Tamare received an unexpected payment and invested it in the company so it could survive until everything went back to normal.

In May 2006, Tamare had a stove fire at her home on Rose Street. She and her son lived in their converted 1957 Bluebird Bus for the four months it took to renovate the house, smoke-damaged.

She had wanted to upgrade her first home on Rose Street with a new paint job, some new ceramics, flooring, light fixtures and some cupboards. When she checked into it, she realized she just couldn’t afford it at that time, which was January 2006. The fire allowed all this to be possible. Sometimes spirit gives you gifts in difficult ways.

She decided to secure some funding to put new shingles on the roof, install new windows, paint the exterior, and build a deck and fence. She put the money she had saved into the exterior, while the repairs from the fire were able to fulfill her dreams for the inside of her home. All this work increased the value of her home, and she was able to secure a new mortgage to access the equity.

At the time, she was considering moving to BC because she kept dreaming about this amazing place. She felt herself living there. She decided to sell her shoppe and home get the extra money in order to do so. However, when she tried to sell the house and the shoppe spirit just wouldn’t allow it!

The time was not right for Tamare to move to where her heart was drawing her.

Again, dreams came to Tamare like real life. Some crazy synchronicities lead her to purchase a property on Penetanguishene Road on the outskirts of Barrie. She had known of the property, and every time she drove by it, she felt connected to it somehow.

October (2006) was an interesting month, as the vivid dreams and visions directed Tamare to drive up and down Penetanguishene Road to look for a property. There was no sign on the property even though it was for sale. She learned that Rose Street and Penetanguishene Road property were historically connected by the same builders. She found this out at the lawyer’s office when she picked up the coffee table book. She is sure she was guided by spirit to buy the Penetanguishene property. By the powers that be, she was in a position to be able to purchase it. She got the keys October 31st 2006. (let’s not forget it was Samhain when the ancestors and spirits have much more influence than usual!)

The Penetanguishene property has three residential buildings that needed a lot of work. Tamare hired some great friends to renovate the two houses and the 6-room motel in apartments. Tamare and Sky didn’t move there until the renovations were almost completed in April 2007.

This amazing property allowed Tamare to open the Witchy Garden Shoppe & Shamanic Healing Retreat and Learning Centre!

When we first opened the location, Tamare and Sky lived in the 2-bedroom cabin while the Big, Blue house was renovated so that Earth & Sky Connection could have everything together under one roof: a small store, a classroom, a meeting room, and a room for healings and psychic readings.

We intended to keep a small downtown location. To be perfectly honest, Tamare had a few readings with some friends. These readings warned that Tamare would endure another devastating challenge with fire soon in her life and that the best thing she could do was limit the damage. The readings guided her to move and downsize the 5-points locations and bring most of the products to the new location.

A few things prompted the move from 5-points. The lease was up in June 2007, and the landlord at the time tried to increase the rent by 300%, we had already purchased the Penetanguishene property, and with the threat of a fire seen in the cards, it was time to move!

It wasn’t until we were in this new location, 67 Dunlop St W., did she realize the threat may not have been avoided! The tenants above the store were difficult at this location, but it was a beautiful building decorated with Egyptian designs as it was the original location of Pharoah’s Pita. We did warn the landlord of the tenant’s conduct, as we felt unsteady and that they could cause a fire. The landlord did not take any action to address it, and on July 8th, 2007, we endured one of downtown Barrie’s largest electrical fires in many years.

The fire started in one of the upper floor apartments. Interestingly, our shoppe did not experience any flames inside our unit. The upstairs apartments, the three storefronts at the back of the building and the one store beside us were ravaged by fire.

Our shoppe was destroyed due to the many tons of water used to put out the flames. By the time we were allowed to get into the unit, it was covered in mould. It was a sad sight and a very humbling day for those that were helping us. Our insurance would not cover a salvation company to assist. It was a colossal mess of issues for many years to come with them. We even had to clean everything ourselves, and again we were helped by many volunteers for the next few months. It took many years to recover from the fire’s costs and settle a battle with our insurance company. We won the battle.

Tamare learned a lot about insurance during that time, too. Eventually, she put it to work!

The city decided the building was too structurally unsafe for us to continue, and we were removed from the building. It was condemned and torn down. Having only two days to recover items from the ruins, we sadly left much behind in the rubble!

It was a difficult time, as we counted on the funds that the downtown business provided to complete some of our plans at the Shamanic Retreat Centre. We opened the Penetanguishene Road shoppe on June 21st, 2007, and only 17 days later, we endured the fire at 67 Dunlop St W Barrie.

Two seemingly unattached events happened: just before the fire, at the beginning of March 2007, was when our grandfather Willow tree was struck by lightning. It was devastated and ultimately fell to the ground. By late May, we began the cleanup of it, and while cutting it up, we found a huge beehive was in one of the larger limbs. Thousands of bees almost immediately surrounded my brother-in-law! How he got out of that without even being stung once is still a mystery and a blessing. The next day we found a huge amount of them surrounding a log and realized they needed help after being displaced. We called a local bee master who took them to safety! In August, we went to an expo in Toronto and found we had booked our booth between the only two bee product booths in the whole 500 booths at the expo! It occurred to Tamare that she carried the medicine of the Bee. Learning about those teachings made perfect sense to her in the coming months!

We almost rented out a space for December 1st, 2007, on Bayfield Street. Something told Tamare not to rent it. It was the building where a fire happened on December 6th, 2007. The fire closed 14 shoppes and left many people without a home. To this day, that building stands unused due to the fire and mould damage. We even had the lease to sign, but Tamare’s Tarot told us to stay put and not move!

Over the next year, Dunlop Street had over 35 empty storefronts at one time, due to the many fire devastations it endured! Downtown Barrie became a ghost town almost. In hindsight, it occurred to Tamare that had we not moved to 67 Dunlop St W. We would not have been covered by insurance at 9 Dunlop St East. The fire did not damage that building on December 6th, 2007, but Insurance does not cover the indirect loss. Between the impact of the fires that year and the pending recession of 2008, we would have been faced with closing our doors permanently.

We were forced to expand the Penetanguishene Road shoppe to full size and put our workshop area upstairs for a few years. We stocked the shoppe to the best of our ability with the help of some wonderful supporters. Our suppliers and others provided us with loans to keep afloat. We paid them all back in monthly installments, over the following year. If it wasn’t for them, we would never have survived.

Just as we were settling into a groove, we experience another major setback: a flood on January 9th, 2009. It covered the entire property up to 5 feet deep underwater. We were struggling for money at this time as the recession started to kick in. We had damage to the floors and walls of many of the buildings. We were able to finalize the last of the fire claim at the Rose street property, which helped us complete repairs over the next year.

A lesson learned for all to consider: Always have the insurance you need and know that the insurance company is working for itself and not the insured. You must fight for what you are entitled to when things go wrong.

By 2010, Tamare knew Earth & Sky Connection had to get back downtown to reconnect with our community patrons as we were just a tad out of the way and a bit inconvenient for those who used public transit.

She finally found a location at 104 Dunlop St East. We moved in during June 2010 and had our Grand Opening again on Canada Day weekend. Again, many family and friends of Earth and Sky Connection came to help us pack, move, and set up shop. We were ready for promenade days!

It wasn’t the perfect fit; however, it was in a good area, and it was time to come back to downtown. Things were moving along reasonably well until we faced yet another setback.

In the summer of 2009, Tamare suspected there was another problem, which she monitored until she was certain! By the end of 2011, it was clear to her that she had hired someone who was stealing from all of us by selling product and pocketing the money!

Tamare loved, trusted and treated this woman as a sister for many years.

Earth & Sky Connection installed security cameras and began auditing and monitoring everyone, regardless of love. The best thing that came out of that situation was my son, Skylar, decided to come on board and work for us in the shoppes. By March 2013, he was fully integrated and began putting into practice the extensive knowledge he had developed living as a pagan! How grateful Tamare was for that painful experience of theft as it turned out to provide an opportunity for Skylar to grow

2012 was a much better year for Earth & Sky Connection. We redesigned the Penetanguishene Road shoppe, and Tamare moved into the back of it. By then, we had developed our Annual PaganFest Events, the first one being held at Beltaine, the end of April 2008. We originally had an event every three months as we tried to celebrate the Greater Sabbats during the mid-seasons: Beltaine (May 1st), Lughnasad (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st), and Imbolc (February 1st). After four years, Tamare decided she needed to focus my attention on other important business and personal things. The festivals continued but the number of them per year changed.

We continued with the one festival, Beltaine (first weekend in May), for another year, and it was a great success! We planned on doing it again in May 2014, but we had too much on our plate due to another downtown fire on March 9th, 2014. Downtown Barrie, like many historical downtown centres, are unfunded to ensure the protection and safety of historical buildings.

We postponed the festival until the 3rd weekend in July and held it for four days. It ended up one of our best festivals yet!

We learned from that experience and planned to hold this event ANNUALLY on the 3rd weekend of July from Thursday to Sunday. We held Beltaine/Spring as a one-day event the first Saturday in May that we called SEEDFest. We held a closing Samhain/Harvest Festival as a one-day event the first Saturday in October called Muse Fest. During this change, Tamare worked with J. Andrew Baker and the local pagan community to establish a non-profit called CANADIAN PAGAN SPIRITUALISTS. The goal was to legitimize our endeavours here of bringing back old traditions through educational gatherings such as those above.

Earth and Sky Connection was located at 104 Dunlop St East from July 2010 until March 9th, 2014, when we experienced a fire in our backroom.

We had been diligent with the landlord for several months previously because we heard buzzing in the walls and had some other electrical concerns. Unfortunately, again we endured a fire and were closed for four months for renovations.

Most of our product was not touched; however, there was still smoke and soot damage to many things. We did not feel it was a good decision to return as Earth and Sky Connection as we did not trust the electrical work in the building; however, we were bound by a lease and were forced to live it out.

We bought back the damaged stock. We cleaned and repaired it. Then, we reopened the store with a new name, “The Curio Shoppe” selling the items at amazing discounted prices of up to 75% off. We started buying out liquidation stock from other closed shoppes, passing on the deals to our patrons. We made the best of a challenging! The Curio Shoppe was closed by April 2015 at the end of the lease.