Yuko went to Raph’s lecture on minerals and crystals the next afternoon. She did her level best to follow along as they discussed molecular structures and electrons and vibrations and the way each mineral was naturally created and the areas on the planet where each could be found and how all of this contributed to the function of the mineral in affecting a person’s “energy”. She enjoyed watching them, vastly, she enjoyed listening to the sound of their voice. She found portions of the science quite interesting. The rest of it struck her as utter bullshit. 

It was just a leap her mind could not make to believe that a rock, other than a gemstone in the right stylish setting, could affect a mood. Looking around the room, however, she saw she was the only one not buying in. When the questions started, it was clear these people were not stupid or overly credulous, but they did believe. Interesting. All you really needed for a mood to change was the belief that it could, so there was no question crystals worked for some people. Raph could clearly justify that belief in the minds of these people, and Raph clearly believed it themself— this was no Harold Hill routine. 

Raph should expand their inventory. They could sell a lot of rocks if they tried to. They could sell rocks to the Grand freaking Canyon and to Grand freaking Teton, too. She was more willing to believe in the healing benefits of acupuncture, and she’d bet they’d sent a lot of people home feeling much better after one of those sessions as well. Especially people who had two functional eyes, because when Raph was teaching and being all authoritative and knowledgeable, they were an outright smokeshow. She wondered what would happen if she raised her hand and said that crystals were bullshit. Would she have to stay after class? Would she get detention? She decided against it, but she did pack up her things very slowly at the end of the session, hoping. She looked at her watch, because Nachelle had confiscated her phone after breakfast. Phones weren’t allowed outside of the yurts and they were frowned on in the yurt, too. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon. Nachelle would be in her meditation class for another hour at least. 

The slow packing worked. Raph finished cleaning up their various mineral samples and came over to stand next to her.

“Well, I can see that I made absolutely no headway with you,” they said, grinning, hands in pocket, rocking back onto their heels. “But you were very polite about it. I thought you might heckle me.”

“No, having different ideas than me is not a heckl-able offense if no one is getting hurt or robbed. Quite the opposite, some people are clearly being helped, and if I heckle you and somehow manage to convince them they aren’t being helped and they don’t feel better, then who’s the jerk? Me.”

“I wish more people felt that way.”

“Besides, you did make some headway— I learned a lot about geochemistry that I didn’t know before, and that part was genuinely interesting and I was impressed with how much you knew.”

“If you’re impressed, then I made some important headway. This was my last class for the day. After I put this stuff up in the main office, I was going to go grab a cup of coffee in the community room and then go for a walk around the grounds. I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to see the full extent of them yet, but they’re gorgeous. I love doing workshops here. The facility is great, the setting is great, and the energy is great. Would you like to meet in the community room and then you could join me for an unofficial tour?”

Yuko paused. She looked at Raph. She felt a little blurry and hot all over. Suddenly she realized why. This was a crossroads moment. Every once in a while you hit one and actually knew it while it was happening. If Yuko said yes, life was going to go one way. If Yuko said no, it was going to go another. She had no idea which way was better, but she could tell the two paths would be very different. 

“Yes.” You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, Yuko. “I would like that. I haven’t seen the grounds yet. I’m actually here on behalf of an investor who’s interested in buying the property. Don’t worry, it’s no secret, the owners invited me to come and try out the resources they have. I brought Nachelle as sort of a Woo ambassador since I am not, you know, One with all of this. Plus she’s my best friend.”

“That explains it. I thought maybe she’d forced you to come to unblock your Qi or something. Well, I’d heard that Mike and Rainbow were thinking about selling. I hope the new owners won’t turn it into some corporate retreat with pickle ball courts and a business center. That would suck. With a few updates and some savvier management, this place would easily support itself and then some, though.” Raph poured some oat milk in their coffee and popped the top back onto the reusable tumbler. They handed her the coffee pot. Yuko poured herself some in her omnipresent reusable cup, a requirement of the facility, and added creamer to hers as well. 

“Do you think so? I want to hear why you think so. What would you do differently?” said Yuko. Maybe this was the crossroads moment. Nothing turned her on more than someone with a little business acumen. She kind of doubted Raph was a shark but she was curious to hear their thoughts. That done, she was going to pursue that comment about her blocked up Qi at the first opportunity.

“Well, take the overall business model in play here. There are a few groups that rent the place annually at roughly the same time every year, but in between those events, there’s no consistent year-round, recurring internal programming guaranteed to keep people in those yurts at all times. They receive groups who bring their own agendas, but Mike and Rainbow do not create and organize many of their own events or programs. So there’s no brand or particular thing they’re known for beyond their physical facilities. The big gaps between events means they can’t keep many people on staff year-round, so they’re always scrambling to find people to fill in, and a lot of those people are new to hospitality and not especially skilled, and that leads to slips that drive down their online ratings. That’s probably the biggest issue I see.

“There are lots of other small missed opportunities, too, for example, they require the use of reusable cups and straws but don’t sell their own branded ones to guests. They have no logo or other branding in fact, other than the logo on the woodburned plaque on the office wall. In this day and age, that strikes me as business suicide for a retreat center. Or the fact that they aren’t quite organized enough to book groups or events farther out than six months, and so they miss out on a lot of the best practitioners who are filling up their calendars a year or more in advance. Hell, their website looks like it was created circa 2002 and they still have a Yahoo! email address. I always leave my May fairly open because I know they’ll eventually announce the retreat dates and get around to asking me to come, and I love Mike and Rainbow and I love this place and this event, it’s like a vacation to me. It costs me, however, to keep my schedule open like that, and not everyone is willing to do it. And I guess I slipped from little things back into big things there at the end, sorry. These are things that have bugged me for years,” said Raph with a small shrug, as if they’d made peace with the whole thing.

“I hear you,” said Yuko, brain whirring. Okay, so Raph hadn’t been planning to install crystals around the property to stimulate financial energy, they’d noticed actual weaknesses in the way the place was operating and had thought about how to shore them up. That was sexy. The Snack had a head for business. “You ready to head out for our tour?”

“Definitely.”