Starseed Curiosities and Gifts to Close its Doors Sept 23rd
Amanda Polehn inviting the community to come enjoy 40% off everything in store at Starseed Curiosities & Gifts, located at 404 Washington St in downtown The Dalles, OR. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
By Cole Goodwin
The Dalles, OR September 13, 2023– Starseed Curiosities and Gifts, will close it’s doors for good next weekend. The store which won last year’s Best New Business of the Year Award, will have its final farewell celebration on September 23rd.
As a thank you to the community for their support, everything in store will be 40% off from now until the final ceremonial closing of the doors. Store hours have been reduced to Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. so that small business owner, Amanda Polehn, can dedicate her weekdays to her part time job staging houses.
Amanda expressed both grief and pride about the closure of the business which has been a place of healing, community, and access to spiritual and healing tools such as incense, tarot, candles, books and crystals. Since it’s opening the business has also supported over thirty-five gorge owned businesses and over a hundred small U.S. based makers.
The store has also achieved it’s mission of providing a gathering space and hub for spiritual people to gather.
“I’m so grateful and so happy that I opened Starseed,” said Amanda, “We’ve had a really great community of people that have shown up consistently for the last two years. I know that this space is really needed and wanted by the community, so, it’s very heartbreaking to me that I just couldn’t ride the wave any longer.”
However, when it comes down to it, the business just hasn’t been economically viable for her.
Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“We just did not see the same spring and summer that we did last year,” said Amanda.
“Especially in The Dalles community, when the economy starts to shift downward, we don’t really have a lot of disposable income and a lot of tourism, and this summer we’ve seen multiple businesses close and unfortunately I don’t think I’m going to be the last one to close. We’re going to continue to see this be an issue,” said Polehn.
“I would just encourage everyone to support small businesses while they can. Small businesses in our community are doing everything in their power to stay open…It really only takes a few bad months for a small business.”
When asked what her favorite thing to come out of the Starseed experience was, Amanda’s answer might surprise you: providing grief support to her customers.
“My favorite thing, that I wasn’t expecting, was that a lot of people would come in for items related to grief,” said Amanda, “because there’s not a lot of spaces for people to go in this community to engage in that specific process of grief and it’s such a communal process.”
Amanda holds a handful of black tourmaline, rainbow moonstone, obsidian, desert rose. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
In that same vein, Amanda wanted to invite the community to stop into the shop, and celebrate and grieve the life and death of the store with her, and embrace new beginnings.
So what’s next for Amanda?
Embracing the excitement and pain of the unknown.
“There’s always rebirth with death,” said Amanda. “But I don’t know yet. It’s still unfolding. I am taking a few months off to sit and be still and process and integrate all the things I’ve learned and go from there. I’m working part time as a home stager and I’m really loving that creative fun thing. But after that I’m not really quite sure.”
One thing she’s looking forward to is having more energy to give her kids and her community now that she is exiting from the survival mode that her business has been in these past months.
“Sometimes when you get too stressed out and you’re living in survival mode you can’t really give extra. So I’m excited to have more availability to serve my community in different ways. I’m going to volunteer at the school and spend more time with my kiddos in their school and help there because I have extra energy to do that now,” said Amanda.
Despite the closing of her second business this year, Amanda has no regrets and encouraged other entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.
Sale clothes from Rebel Wear can still be purchased as Starseed! Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“I think there is risk in everything. I would do it again. I would maybe do it differently…I would encourage people to have a long term plan for stability. I don’t like the word failure anymore. That’s something I’ve learned from being an entrepreneur. There isn’t really failure. You’re just gaining life experience. And people that are very successful, and make it really have lots of quote unquote “failures” in their life, so it’s part of the process,” said Amanda.
Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
She also wanted to share some of her favorite local businesses for getting crystals and curiosities so that her customers will know where to go in the future.
“For crystals there’s Field of Stars in Goldendale, Moon Mountain Highway in Bingen, and Carnelian Moon at The Dalles Farmers Market, and Sixth Street Station Market. For sage there’s Herbal Revival Apothecary in The Dalles, and then of course Klindt’s always has a spiritual section for books,” said Amanda.
