Ellister’s Elixers
Ellister’s Elixers: Holistic Medicine In The Heart of Lancaster
Christi Albert grew up with a deep knowing that she wanted to work with medicine. Her path began at Pennsylvania State University, where she studied Pre-Med in pursuit of becoming the doctor who finds a cure for cancer. However, something felt like it was missing from the Western traditional medicine she was studying. After speaking with her advisor, she was pointed towards the Biobehavioral Health major where she would study the sociological and psychological components of health — the ways that human behavior and lifestyle influence wellness and disease.
After graduation, she longed for something more. With a backpack and an insatiable desire to discover, she hopped a plane. Throughout Europe, Central/South America, and Southeast Asia, Christi studied Amazonian Plant Medicine, yoga, and meditation. Only one thing was consistent: “Once I started to see the world,” she said, “I realized I knew nothing.” Yet as the years passed, what she continuously uncovered was herself, and a deeper clarity around what truly mattered.
About five years into her travels, Christi landed in India, and it was there that she studied Ayurveda, a traditional Hindu medicine connecting mind, body, and spirit. It immediately brought her back to passion for medicine all over again. Combining her new knowledge of Eastern Medicine with her Western Science background, as well as her intuition and spirituality, she began to make her own products, everything from skincare to tinctures and salves, and sell them online.
Her business grew, solidifying her vision to create her own medicines. However, something was still missing. “I realized that people needed connection and community and to learn ways to relax beyond taking and consuming herb,” said Christi. “The type of healing we need really involves reconnection.”
What followed was Ellister’s Elixers in Lancaster. The shop is a collection of small-batch, organic, and plant-based skincare and holistic wellness products in a shop on the corner of E. New St. Aside from the variety of products throughout the bright, comforting space, Ellister’s offers monthly workshops to the community around meditation, circle work, ritual, music, and lecture to foster the connection she so deeply believes in. Though her customers initially wander in searching her shelves for plant medicine, she’ll often see them again in the evening for a workshop or Kirtan.
“The real beauty of the shop is that I never know who’s going to come in and I meet so many people who teach me so much. That’s been the cherry-on-top of this whole experience that I wasn’t quite expecting — how much I would learn from my customers and my community,” Christi said.
Christi also includes CBD on her shelves and in her products, and she’s grateful for the recent trendiness of the medicine. She’s found that hemp has truly created a gateway to holistic wellness and healing; it gets people in her door sooner. However, many people recognize quickly that it’s not the most cost-effective treatment. “The beauty of having a shop that has a broad spectrum of products from CBD to Ayurvedic and even North American herbal products is that other herbal products are a lot cheaper and often just as effective. So people come into the shop for CBD, and I can introduce them to other herbs, oils, crystals, or even a meditation night,” she says. “If we teach a man to fish, we feed him for a lifetime. We’ve just been feeding people; we haven’t been teaching them.” She’s working to change that.
In fact, Christi has had opportunities to go wholesale with her homemade products and instead chose to stay local in the community that she grew up with, grateful for the immense support she receives here and the trust between her and customers. In fact, she believes it’s that trust that built Ellister’s Elixers into what it’s become throughout its first year. The magic of her community, as well as access to local farms all throughout Lancaster, are cornerstones to her business.
Though Christi’s urge to run out of town has settled down, at least for now, she still has the voracious yearning to keep learning and growing. Her plans are to continue to invest in her education so that she can offer more potent medicine to her community. Eventually, she has dreams to create a farm retreat center in the area, offering healing services as well as a full-service farm, to help people discover for themselves the immensity of the natural healing properties of nature. Until then, she believes that her purpose is at Ellister’s, deeply rooted in the heart of her hometown, knowing it’s that grounding that will give her the grace to grow.
By: Lizz Dawson
