Herbs & Oddities: Tiny Shop, Big Energy

From the outside, Herbs & Oddities appears somewhat humble. Tiny, even. But a step inside reveals that even small spaces can have big, sweet energy. Perhaps it’s not a surprise, then, to learn that the shop is a direct reflection of its owner, Fawn Gregg, who has a deeply-rooted belief in the power of positive energy.

Gregg said that even as a child, she felt drawn to botany. “I was the weird kid who hung out with all my plant friends,” she said. “As an adult, I learned that all my favorite plants were the medicinal ones.” She first came to San Marcos 11 years ago to attend Texas State University, but the sudden death of her brother drastically altered Gregg’s life plans. 

“The accident was pretty traumatic,” Gregg said. “I had PTSD where anything could trigger it. I had to drop out of school after my second semester because anything would set me off.”

To help Gregg cope with this trauma, psychiatrists prescribed multiple antidepressants, but she relayed that these medicines only made her situation worse. 

“They put me on Xanax,” she said. “I started seeing things. I’ve always been a person who had weird experiences, but my brother’s death reopened a lot of things I’d forgotten about. I started seeing a neurologist because I thought I was going crazy.” 

Then, after a particularly difficult panic attack, Gregg had an epiphany.  “I picked up my bottle of pills. I was shaking so hard they spilled all over the floor. It was like a voice on the loudspeaker went, ‘stop poisoning your body’. That was the catalyst.” 

At that point in Gregg’s life, she says that she began to dream about medicinal herbs and plants that would help her recover from her trauma. “I was like, ‘What on earth is that?’ Whatever I was going through at the time, I started seeing the herb in dream form. I started researching traditional medicine. I started learning meditation, attending conferences, learning traditional healing methods and about spirituality. (It was) a whole spiral integrating into what is now my life.”

As Gregg began to incorporate these self-healing, intentional practices into her life, her friends began to notice a change. She said, “People around me were like, ‘how are you so calm? What is your secret?’” So Gregg began to host a series of events in order to share her knowledge and experience as an herbalist with others.

Though it was never something Gregg planned to do as a career, it began to develop into a business as more and more people sought out her herbalism expertise.

“It blossomed,” Gregg said. “People wanted to buy my products. I started selling them the tools to help themselves. I started vending events, I made an etsy site, did pop-up markets. It naturally started to grow organically.”

In these early days, Gregg fulfilled her business orders out of her house. However, when the landlord decided to sell the property, Gregg found herself at a kind of crossroads. 

“Every time I looked for a new place to live, it didn’t feel right,” Gregg said. “I knew I wasn’t supposed to move into a new home. So I thought, ‘I’ll just go on a 6-month road trip,’ but I couldn’t leave my business.”

That was when, while on a drive through town one day, she saw a commercial property for lease sign in a driveway and something inside her clicked. Gregg met with Scott Gregson, and the first place he showed her would soon become Herbs & Oddities.

“There’s a beautiful tree, and natural stone out front, and the river is right across the street,” Gregg said. “It’s just a sweet little space.”

Very quickly, Herbs & Oddities grew into a shop rather than an office and consultation space. “I haven’t been able to put down roots in my entire adult life,” Gregg said. “And here, it’s been this spiral dance, a beautiful unfolding.”

Within a short amount of time, Herbs & Oddities has become a thriving heart at the center of the herbalism and wellness community, even securing the Best of Hays award for Best New Business in 2019. Gregg hosts community metaphysical events such as the monthly Tea Tent and Women’s New Moon Gathering events. Though the shop shut down for two months during lockdown, Gregg has been mindfully exploring ways for people to come together while still maintaining safe and healthy social distancing. 

“I don’t want anyone to feel like they’re alone,” Gregg explained. “I want families to be able to come to an event to meet a rune reader, or get a massage, or see art and meet the artist who made it. In this time of isolation and the ‘social media world,’ we put on our horse blinders, and we forget that our neighbors are probably pretty cool.” 

As Gregg grows in her own knowledge base as an herbalist and healer, the community she’s helped to foster grows as well. “People know that they’re safe in our little shop,” she said. “We have regulars who come more than once a week to come and soak up the energy.” 

However, as far as expanding the tiny shop into a larger location goes, Gregg says that it’s not on the table just yet. “I love having it tiny,” she said. “We get asked all the time when we’re moving to a larger space. I know it’s coming, but it has to be the right time. I’m a big believer in divine timing.”

Gregg is also a big believer in supporting the community by keeping everything sourced as locally as possible.

“That’s my DREAM dream,” Gregg said. “To know who grew everything that we use in the shop. I want to know as much good is being done with the shop’s energy as possible.”

Another of Gregg’s aspirations is to one day have a series of tiny shops like Herbs & Oddities, where people can meet and learn about self-healing, spirituality and earth medicine, all of which feeds into Gregg’s larger philosophy about connectedness and sustainability.

“I want us to be stewards of the earth again, Gregg explained. “I believe we’re stepping in that direction again. If one person changes one thing for the positive, think of the ripple effect it will have on our earth. That’s where the profound changes come.”

With this in her mind, Gregg is able to look toward the future while honoring her past at the same time. “I can introduce people to the things that worked for me,” Gregg said. “Energy is never lost nor created, so my brother is okay. He’s still part of everything, just not in the way I was used to. This whole practice of emotional wellness has been to remember to plant flowers around that hole, to honor my brother’s memory. I can be that person who stands there with open arms to say, ‘It does get better.’”

Herbs & Oddities is located at 300 S CM Allen Pkwy, Ste. 212A. For store hours and special events, check their website at herbsandoddities.com or call 512-392-0129.