Carol Harris received this award for the website I created for her.  
www.whisperingheart.biz

Your web site has been chosen by our editors at All pets Directory for
our Great Pet Site Web Award.

CMH also donates services to the Runs with Wolves Sanctuary
website (www.rwws.org).

"Congratulations. Your web site has been chosen by our editors at All
Pets Directory for our Great Pet Site Web Award. All Pets Directory
Website Awards was made to serve as a source of inspiration to
those looking to see some of the best web sites from around the
world. The best pet web sites can showcase their work and receive
the recognition they deserve and feel a sense of accomplishment for
their breed.

Your Web Site Was Chosen because of:

Excellent content
Design and presentation
Attention to Details
Prestige and visibility
Encouraging compassion and caring for animals.
 
~ Newspaper Articles, Books & More ~
March 23, 2010:  
Women's History Month
"The Haunted Dream
House (Lebanon)"
Read about our home
on Page 37.  
"When the Faire
Came to Town"
Read Mary's story
on Page 209.  

Article date:  May 17, 2007
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."
Use this convenient tool bar to assist you with your online purchases.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE:  This website and its content is the copyright of Crescent Moon Herbals LLC of Lebanon,
Maine.  Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:

- You may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only.
- You may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the
source of the material.

You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or
store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

© Crescent Moon Herbals LLC, 2004-2011.  All rights reserved.
Solution Graphics