Skip to main content
Kelsey Hayden had an on-again, off-again relationship with Portland. Upon graduating from the University of Oregon in 2013, Hayden was faced with the inevitable post-grad question for Ducks: move to Portland, or try someplace different?
Since then, Hayden, now 31, has moved to and from the Rose City several times. But six years ago, she decided to settle down and chill out.
By which she meant: start a business with candlelit yoga, cello sound healing, pop-up tarot card readings, plant meditation, queer yoga, breathwork for mothers, forest bathing, tea ceremonies, and self-love sound baths.
Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking, “This all sounds a little too ‘woo-woo’ for me.” Well, first of all, just take a beat and let people vibe with plants. Second, Hayden already beat you to the punch. Her business is named woo-woo.
The “entirely ironically named” woo-woo is a community space for well-being that offers daily meditation, yoga, breathwork, and sound-healing classes. The space on Southeast Grand Avenue in the Central Eastside looks like a typical yoga studio—minimalist décor, lots of plants, and largely empty apart from mats, props and a cute little tea station. If you were to drop in for a more “traditional” class, like yoga or meditation, Hayden, woo-woo’s founder and owner, would most likely be your instructor.
But there are more distinctive classes—like cello healing, where guests basically just lie down while a talented cellist, Harlan Silverman (who’s originally from L.A.’s pop music world but blew up for making meditation music on Spotify), plays the cello for an hour. Or plant meditation, where guests taste various plant-based treats (this month, it’s roses) and meditate on how they show up for you in the body.
Most of the instructors came to Hayden with their concepts after she opened woo-woo last January.
“Once I started teaching [yoga], I very quickly became sort of disillusioned with the wellness industry,” Hayden says. “There’s just a lot of very harmful narratives, I think. The wellness industry can be so exclusive—financially and socially. There’s just a lot of barriers.” So she wondered: “What would it be like to create something that feels more inclusive?”
For Hayden, a big part of that mission is ensuring that woo-woo remains accessible: All of the weekly drop-in classes that woo-woo offers, for instance—like yoga, meditation, sound healing, and breathwork—are donation-based and pay what you can. And some of the most important moments are free, like drinking an ice-cold matcha on a Portland rooftop post-yoga sesh with a community of woo-wooers who are just there to practice wellness in a way that works for them.
“I don’t know that anyone necessarily finds these practices by, like, having a chill time,” Hayden laughs. “But I’ve definitely found a lot of solace, wisdom and also community through wellness and spirituality.”