We are always finding ways to incorporate good vibes through spirituality and wellness in all areas of our lives which makes meeting Ariana Ost so divinely led.
In 2006 Ariana’s world was shaken when her mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given 6 months to live. Her father researched endlessly and discovered the world of wellness and power of natural healing. Ariana’s mother became vegan, got rid of every toxic product, and began using filtered water and air. Her mother was able to extend her life by 3.5 years defying every odd and prognosis. The quality of life she experienced during her healing journey was incredible. After she passed away in 2009, Ariana was forever changed. She became committed to sharing her and her family’s story and the power of nature to restore us.
After becoming a mother herself, Ariana wanted to create a legacy for her children, honor her mother and spend as much time with her father as possible. She wanted to combine her love of design with her passion for yoga, spirituality and wellness. So she started the Ariana Ost lifestyle brand with the mission to elevate the everyday by creating decorative objects infused with soul, conviction and healing energy. The Ariana Ost brand fills a whitespace in the wellness market for decor with a contemporary aesthetic and resonance with mindfulness. Ariana’s father joined her in business and they became partners to help heal the world in a fashion forward aesthetic.
They are known for sourcing nature's jewelry healing crystals from all over the world to bring joy to people and their spaces. They’ve become experts on crystals, energy + sound healing – and have created beautiful and healing pieces to help you heal yourself from the inside out.
Ariana is so full of authenticity, wisdom, power and a desire to make a positive energetic impact in as many lives as possible. Listen to the whole conversation.
MORE FROM ARIANA OST
Visit theseekingcenter.com for more from Robyn + Karen, plus mega inspo -- and the best wellness + spiritual practitioners, products and experiences on the planet!
You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter
We are always finding ways to incorporate good vibes through spirituality and wellness in all areas of our lives which makes meeting Ariana Ost so divinely led.
In 2006 Ariana’s world was shaken when her mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given 6 months to live. Her father researched endlessly and discovered the world of wellness and power of natural healing. Ariana’s mother became vegan, got rid of every toxic product, and began using filtered water and air. Her mother was able to extend her life by 3.5 years defying every odd and prognosis. The quality of life she experienced during her healing journey was incredible. After she passed away in 2009, Ariana was forever changed. She became committed to sharing her and her family’s story and the power of nature to restore us.
After becoming a mother herself, Ariana wanted to create a legacy for her children, honor her mother and spend as much time with her father as possible. She wanted to combine her love of design with her passion for yoga, spirituality and wellness. So she started the Ariana Ost lifestyle brand with the mission to elevate the everyday by creating decorative objects infused with soul, conviction and healing energy. The Ariana Ost brand fills a whitespace in the wellness market for decor with a contemporary aesthetic and resonance with mindfulness. Ariana’s father joined her in business and they became partners to help heal the world in a fashion forward aesthetic.
They are known for sourcing nature's jewelry healing crystals from all over the world to bring joy to people and their spaces. They’ve become experts on crystals, energy + sound healing – and have created beautiful and healing pieces to help you heal yourself from the inside out.
Ariana is so full of authenticity, wisdom, power and a desire to make a positive energetic impact in as many lives as possible. Listen to the whole conversation.
MORE FROM ARIANA OST
Visit theseekingcenter.com for more from Robyn + Karen, plus mega inspo -- and the best wellness + spiritual practitioners, products and experiences on the planet!
You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter
Robyn: [00:00:00] I'm Robyn Miller Brecker and I'm Karen Loenser. Welcome to Seeking Center, the podcast. Join us each week as we have the conversations and we, through the spiritual and holistic clutter for you, we'll boil it down to what you need to know now, we're all about total wellness, which to us needs building a healthy life.
Karen: On a physical, mental, and spiritual level, we'll talk to the trailblazers who'll introduce you to the practices, products, and experiences that may be just what you need to hear about to transform your life. If you're listening to this, it's no accident. Think of this as your seeking center and your place to seek your center.
Robyn: And for the best wellness and spiritual practitioners, experts, products, experiences, and inspo, visit theseekingcenter. com. We are always finding ways to incorporate good vibes through spirituality and wellness in all areas of our lives, which makes meeting Ariana t so divinely led in 2006. Ariana's world was shaken when her mother was diagnosed with [00:01:00] terminal lung cancer and given six months to live.
Her father researched endlessly and discovered the world of wellness and the power of natural healing. mother became vegan, got rid of every toxic product, and began using and air. Her mother was able to extend her life by three and a half years, defying every odd and prognosis.
The quality of life she experienced during her healing journey was incredible. After she passed away in 2009, Ariana was forever changed. She became committed to sharing her and her family's story and the power of nature to restore us. After becoming a mother herself, Ariana wanted to create a legacy for her children.
Honor her mother and spend as much time with her father as possible. She wanted to combine her love of design with her passion for yoga, spirituality, and wellness. She started the Ariana Ost lifestyle brand, whose mission is to elevate the everyday by creating decorative objects infused with soul, conviction, and healing [00:02:00] energy.
The Ariana Ost brand fills a white space in the wellness market for decor with a contemporary aesthetic and resonance with mindfulness. Ost is her mother's maiden name. Ariana's father joined her in business, and they became partners to help heal the world in a fashion forward aesthetic. Their brand grew organically, and they are known for sourcing nature's jewelry healing crystals from all over the world to bring joy to people and their spaces. They've become experts on crystals, energy, and sound healing, and have created beautiful pieces , to help you heal yourself from the inside out.
Ariana is so full of authenticity, wisdom, power, and a desire to make a positive energetic impact in as many lives as possible. There is so much to discuss. Hi,
Ariana: Ariana. Hey, thanks for
Robyn: having me. Oh my goodness, your story and all that you're doing, it's really inspirational and I know everyone listening is going to learn so much today.
So let's talk a bit about your background and then what happened in [00:03:00] 2006 with your mom's diagnosis that changed everything.
Ariana: Yeah, so I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and my dad had a private label jewelry business. And since I was an only child, he took me on all of his business trips.
I used to go to Paris and London growing up. I learned about sourcing. I learned about trends. And I was very into fashion. And I went to Parsons School of Design studied design marketing. I studied abroad in Paris. I loved couture, languages, architecture, interior design, like all things design and fashion.
And then my world was shaken as I came out, of graduating and starting my career. I was designing I worked in my dad's business designing costume jewelry and buyers were buying my stuff and I was in this momentum and then all of a sudden the world just stopped when You know, my mom got this fatal diagnosis she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and given 6 months to live and you're just whoa, and I'm an only child, very close [00:04:00] with my mom, very close with my dad, and we had to figure like, this can't be it, this can't be happening, there has to be a way, and dug deep into the resourcefulness of research, of, not following what the doctors say, not taking anything at face value, looking into alternative methods, and that Was happening before the whole healing world existed, like whole foods wasn't as prevalent and all of the natural stuff was not as prevalent.
It was like that underground granola restaurants. There were the macrobiotic restaurants and vegan restaurants that existed, but it wasn't as prevalent. We started doing a deep dive into research on, what causes cancer? How does your body work? And, you basically start to research all this medical information and start to understand the body and understand the correlations and just started unpacking all of the toxins that are at home and it's in your beauty products.
It's in your water. We have a lot more awareness of this now, but at that time it was like, Oh my God, this too, I have to get rid of this too. It was one thing at a time. [00:05:00] And she learned about the beauty products. We started filtering the water, filtering the air but it was a very physical form of healing and it was like about removing things.
It was a lot about taking out instead of, just putting in and she went vegan. She went all natural, no heated oil that was carcinogenic, no, sugar that feeds cancer cells and really went into it. And, it was a really bonding experience that we had and a really special time and a lot of hope, a lot of fear, a lot of.
Real deep connection. But every time she was going for a test, it was stable. Something was working and she was going to do chemotherapy. She went to 17 doctors The radiation and chemo won't help. If she had an answer that was medical, she would have gone with it.
But she was just going and the doctors recommended, going with chemotherapy anyway, because it has this low percentage chance of working and that's just the protocol. This is what we do when you have cancer. We'd give this to you and you're looking and you're like, wait, my immune [00:06:00] system's the only thing I have going for me and I'm going to basically Deplete and kill the entire immune system.
Why would I do that? This doesn't make sense. So we're not like sheep following the herd. If something made sense, but we used our rationale and intuition was like, this doesn't feel right. And she didn't go with that treatment. And that was a very brave and defying moment when she had that appointment booked to go for the treatment.
very strong decision saying I am not going to do that and we coined this little motto for her when she was going through this of you can survive spelled cancer c a n c e r vive you can survive and she just believed it. and started writing down her process. And she started just, having great results.
And she extended her life by three and a half years, but she was never sick. And in the hospital, she didn't suffer at the end. She started getting some shortness of breath and there was fluid. And we didn't realize that once the body starts producing fluid, that's signs of the end, like the organs are not.
Functioning and we [00:07:00] didn't know that. We were just like, okay, let's remove the fluid. Like this doesn't make sense, then she went into just have the fluid removed and came home and we thought she was going to be fine. And, she wasn't and she was doing all of these Reiki treatments and she went into acupuncture and natural healing and the Reiki Practitioner came into the hospital and she was there to remove the fluid and she told me something that I didn't understand at that time, but I understood after.
And she said something like her energy is not there, which is meaning the light force is leaving. And didn't put that together. It was just like, okay, she's in the hospital, and then was just so sudden and the shock and grief because even though we knew she had this and she had six months, it wasn't like someone was telling you this is what's happening to her now.
This is the end. You better prepare yourself because her doctors from day one told her, get your affairs in order. So we didn't know how to distinguish that. I have the
Robyn: chills actually, because it makes me also think about how you all, including her, of [00:08:00] course, focused on living rather than Focused on her dying,
Ariana: right?
Robyn: What I also want to ask you.
Ariana: . Is what
Robyn: were her symptoms? Had she felt sick for a while?
Ariana: What? No, she was like, at that time, she wasn't in the best shape. She was a bit overweight and she was going on certain walks or exercise and she noticed shortness of breath.
And the initial doctor Who was just seeing her as a regular well check was very condescending and making it that you're just out of shape or you need to lose some weight. And she was like no, I understand that. But something doesn't feel right. I feel different. And they were like, okay, we'll take a chest x ray.
They were like, maybe in the winter you had like pneumonia or something that you didn't know about. . And they were just, again, very dismissive. And they were like, let's do a stress test.
And they put her on a treadmill and she was like, I feel shortness of breath. And they were like, you really need to exercise. How long did that go on for? That was like one or two appointments, and then they did an x ray, and then they saw. But the problem is [00:09:00] that with lung, there are certain cancers, and don't know about each and every one, but like some have a lot of awareness for detection.
People schedule mammograms every year, and PAPs so you can detect those early, but there's no screening for lung cancer. You do not get x rays. There's no markers it's very difficult to detect, so once you diagnose it, you're ready in stage 3, stage 4. Unless, someone knows, so was very difficult you're finding out something once it's, there's so much damage, it's hard to reverse it, whereas if there was like, she knew, this was probably brewing for years.
Robyn: Wow. Exactly. That's such a good point, and I never thought about that with lung cancer. Which, you're right, it's actually really strange. We don't do any sort of screening
Ariana: even. Like you get a colonoscopy at a certain age, you get there's other things that there's like just awareness, and I'm not sure why. And that's why I always promote being your own advocate if you know something's not right, you have to keep pushing for yourself.
Robyn: And I think things will continue as [00:10:00] different technologies become available, so will have the opportunity to see things earlier than we have before, there's going to have to be some.
leading doctors who are willing to do something different, which
Ariana: There are integrative is a wonderful movement and integrative and functional doctors are medical doctors who believe that, each person has an individual footprint and has different markers and it's not all the same and functional medicine's great.
Ariana: And to bring it full circle so during that process, I felt that a lot of the stuff that we were doing was very physical.
And then I felt like once my mother passed, and I went through the emotional grief, I had time to feel and that's when I started to tune in and get much more spiritual and meaning and soulful because before it was just like, okay, sugar feeds cancer cells. Let's avoid everything with sugar. Like it was a lot of what to avoid instead of, and of course, she took supplements and spoke to healers and all kinds of stuff, but it was like, she didn't get to that frontier.
I [00:11:00] think maybe if she had more time that would have been part of her journey, but it was just such a I guess it's like the house is on fire. What are we going to do You
Robyn: were all in survival mode. Yeah, so it was like more tangible
Ariana: in that sense.
Yes.
Robyn: And also, this discussion around energy healing and so forth. Was not as prevalent. It just wasn't like now we have podcasts like this. We have many books around it. We have events and workshops, but that wasn't, you could find them if you really look, but you didn't even know to look
Ariana: right.
Exactly. Yeah. So
Robyn: You said you were shocked because she had been doing so well. How did you end up healing
Ariana: through the grief? It was very challenging because you have to accept a reality that you don't want to accept as a reality, so you're living in this resistance and that's how grief is hard.
Grief is like , not accepting what happened or not being able to process it and you have to digest this grief okay, this is my new reality. we had a lot of people that loved my mom, but the primary loss was for me and my dad, [00:12:00] because, and it was a different loss.
We lost the same person, but he lost his wife and partner. And I lost my mother, who was my biggest cheerleader, my advocate, my, Closest friend. And you start to think that when she was doing all this, it was empowering and you felt a sense of almost like she's invincible and it was hard to make it not feel like a loss because we felt like what we were doing, we were onto something and we discovered something.
And, I guess it's like that imposter syndrome feeling of Oh, wow. It didn't ultimately end, but if you try to look at the positive, it was a success story because six months turned into three and a half years and the three and a half years, gave me more. And what I said even, at her funeral was she passed away when I was 25, but she gave me more in 25 years than people get from a mother daughter relationship in their whole lifetime.
If their mother lives till a hundred. It was very short and sweet and intense. And, I was left to my devices to grow and become a person and me and my dad didn't realize we used to have Friday night dinners with her, like Jewish about dinner and all this stuff.
[00:13:00] So me and my dad are foodies, really passionate foodies. And my mom just cooked to bring us all together. It wasn't her passion. So we started taking all kinds of cooking classes and going to France and buying pots and we used it. Almost like a bit of a therapeutic outlet to shop, but shop in a way that was like buying stuff to make your house a home.
We were literally buying so many pots to fill our kitchen because it was such a loss. Yes. What can I make with this? What can I nurture? What can I have? We started taking cooking classes and went really deep into that nurturing.
And also the nurturing was, she healed by eating well. So I'm like, okay, I want to have these things so that we can continue this and really Learn and teach,
Robyn: and to me when you look at it from an outside perspective, she was your greatest teacher, or is one of them, and even in those three and a half years, she showed you what is possible and she changed your life on so many
Ariana: levels.
Yeah. She showed me strength. She showed me how to fight. She told me not to take answers at face value. And those are things that. Every challenge and, sign of adversity and [00:14:00] struggle that I faced since her loss, I will never let authority or intimidation or just because you should or supposed to that will never be in my There's always a solution. There's always an answer. I have a very strong constitution , it's definitely
Robyn: a result of that experience. Yeah. And then I would assume because of all the changes you had to make during that time in order for her to feel better.
You've now integrated that into your family and into your life Yes. And so , what did the healing through grief teach you about living? Every
Ariana: day. A lot of people say, Oh, I want to wait till this happens to go on this trip, or I want to wait for this for that.
Like I need to hit these markers before it feels right to do something. And I'm always like, you never know what's going to happen to you. And you never know when you can, you need to do it. You need to seize opportunities. When you see something you can't wait because you don't know . And then if everything's fine, you get to do it again, [00:15:00] or you get to go again.
Yeah. Like it could just be, positive. And I felt I had to learn how to self mother and self nurture and nourish myself and that comfort of what would my mom want for me? Or now as a mother, like how you treat your children. And I always want to make everything special.
And it doesn't mean that it has to be. The craziest, most outlandish thing, even just a drive home could be special. Like the little micro moments of eye contact or smiling. it's a gift and a lot of times we get sucked into our own narrative and I'm guilty of that as well. And I try to shift myself, but I try to remember in the end, like what would my mother wanted? She didn't get to be a grandmother. She would have wanted to be with them.
Robyn: Totally. And it really resonates with me because my dad died suddenly when I was 12. And I really have lived with that philosophy of no day is promised. And so to your point of even going through what you were going through when you knew your mom was trying to get better, it was still shocking.
It's this major void.
And even [00:16:00] with the philosophy that I have that we never really die, which I do very much believe there is still a void of their physical presence. There just is.
Ariana: Of course. Yeah. And I thought all of a sudden when I would be having a hard moment or a thought, I started seeing pennies.
And it was so weird because, and I've heard people say that and because I hadn't gotten a sign, I hadn't had like direct, contact. I started seeing pennies in different times. And my mom she was a redhead. She had beautiful red hair and the way that the penny shined, like that copper red, reminded me of that, like shine that she had.
And just started seeing, and I was like, okay, that's your
Robyn: sign. Yes. Definitely. And pennies from heaven, all that, like the
Ariana: other thing that happened was, a big moment was getting married and getting married without my mother. So my dad was amazing and he tried to overcompensate and be my mother and my father and do everything with me and plan it with me.
And that was right before we started this business, but we realized how we think out of the box [00:17:00] and how we took all of those approaches and made. Everything special and it was about the relationships every vendor that we planned with we got so deeply connected and they were rooting for us or this is a special moment and we want it to be like this and with the wedding we planned every moment
we wanted it to have meaning and make it special. So no matter what, we never lost our hope of this. And it's always living like dreamers and always creating something because in the end, I'm a designer, my dad's produces and execute. So we want to create these moments and one of the great stories of my wedding was my wedding dress.
Usually you go with your mom. So my dad was going to go shopping with me . And We were on a business trip to Paris and London and I studied abroad in Paris. France has always been my biggest inspiration.
I always thought I was French in a past life and I love it. And I'm like, I'm definitely going to find my wedding dress in Paris. This is going to be how it goes. Go to Paris, start looking at wedding dresses and it's a different culture there. The wedding culture is a different, which I didn't realize.
And I was like, Oh, [00:18:00] okay. This is like not. What I'm envisioning. So it's okay, and we went on an overnight trip to London for a work meeting and I asked the concierge at the hotel. is there a really good bridal shop? And they told me about saying they're like, but, people book appointments months in advance.
, and they were like, let me see what we could do. I said, I'm only here today. So they said, okay. Let's go. So now they said, okay, they have an opening. You can go at this time. And my dad and I, rushed to the place and we go and I start looking at a dress.
I was like, I like this. And it was in different spots in the store. And they're like, do you know that every single dress you picked was by the same designer? And I was like, I guess I'm feeling that vibe. And I found a dress and they put it on.
They're like, this dress you picked, the designer was here for a trunk show. And he was showing us next season's sample that he didn't even finish. And we wouldn't let him go back with it. He wanted to finish it and bring it. We were like, we need to have this here. And that was the one I gravitated towards.
So we put it on. They were like, oh my God, this is amazing. And it was great. And we started connecting with them. And, the British accent makes it a whole other experience. It does. This designer is from [00:19:00] Italy. He's actually originally German, and he worked for all the French couture companies.
So I was like, okay, now they really me and my dad connected with them very deeply, and they were like, you know what, the designer was here, and I think he's still in town, and he's doing an event. Is there any way that you could stay?
I would love for him to see this on you. So I was like, oh my god, okay, so now we're let's stay and meet him. And I feel like this was basically like sent, because most people that have a lot of means, resources, will pay to go meet a designer, and this experience just serendipitously unfolded.
And , the designer, I talked to him, I went to Parsons, I studied this, I designed jewelry, and we hit it Such an inspiration. This guy, Peter Langner is his name. He's the best. And we connected and then he's wait, you live in New York.
This shop is in London and my studio is in Italy. where are you going to do your fitting? And I was like, I don't know.
Robyn: Maybe I'll come to Italy. No, I'm just
Ariana: kidding. He was like, you need to come to Rome. No, really? Yeah. So I look at my dad and I'm like, we need to go to Rome. So now the wedding [00:20:00] planning, it became this fun trip that we had to do And the store that we bought it from in England is coordinating and they're calling
We're trying to find dates for the fitting they call me up. I get a voicemail and they're like, Hello, Ariana. We'd like to let you know that the fitting for your dress is on the 10th of February.
my mother's birthday. I
Robyn: have the chills. That makes me want to cry. That's amazing.
Ariana: And her birthdays had been hard since we lost her. And now it was like going to a fairy, to like to a designer studio, meeting, getting a dress, trying it on, and it was on her birthday. Thank you for sharing
Robyn: that.
That's really, that's so divi that is so her. That was just her being like a puppeteer, yeah, orchestrating all of it. Yeah. You can't make that stuff up. Those are the kinds of things you cannot make up.
Ariana: It could have been a day before, a day later. It was that day.
Robyn: Seriously, everybody listening, because that is magical.
It's magical and on purpose. Those are those little nuggets that you need to keep going so that you [00:21:00] know she was so a part of every moment of the planning and of the day. Yeah. And of your life, she is still around, it's those moments where you're like, thank you.
I needed that. Wow. And look at how that will inspire so many people who are grieving and can know that their loved ones are around them. And if they're open enough, they will be able to see
Ariana: it. Yes
Robyn: okay, so then let's talk about how you started to understand the power of crystals, energy healing, like your, our own energy system that lives within us, because as we know, energy is all around us.
We are energy. So can you talk a little bit about that and then how you incorporated that into your
Ariana: professional world? Sure. So fast forwarding, my dad worked with his brothers for 30 years. I grew up in that industry I worked there and they just had some family conflict that was just too tense and resolved.
And it was unfortunate. But it was like one of those moments. I just got married. What do I want my life to be? How do I want to envision my life? And I can't be around. negative [00:22:00] energy. And I was like, I have to make a decision.
. But I walked away and my dad was like, okay, I wish you luck. I'll help you do whatever you want. And I wanted to create a studio and design pieces and get a little bit more to what I studied with that old world atelier and reviving that.
Ariana: And. I had this deep meaning and emotional presence and spiritual feeling and energy, but then the fashion world was still this job that I had, that I knew how to be a psychologist and understand what people want and be a design service, so I was still a little bit disconnected to figure out how to make that work and took a chance.
I started the company. We were doing design services. And then my dad joined me. He took a risk and said, you know what, life is too short. Let's just do something fun. Let's work together. And we started this company and it was a great energy. We can create anything that's possible. You can come request stuff.
But then I said, it's still not deep enough. And I had my daughter and, becoming a mother myself was this full circle of losing my mother, becoming a mother, having [00:23:00] a daughter. And who do I want to be? How do I want her to think of me? How do I want her to remember me?
And Who am I? And it's this deep existential crisis of finding yourself. And I was interested in fashion, I was interested in wellness. I happened to grow up in the fashion jewelry industry. How do I put this all together? How do I. Infuse all of this and make it more.
So I decided to start the brand and Ost is my mother's maiden name and a tribute to the creativity she gave me. my mother was an excellent writer, excellent painter, very creative, very deep. my dad had the fashion flair and the culture and the sophistication. And.
It just suddenly I started being like now that I'm a mom and I have a home and I have stuff for my daughter, I want to create pieces for the home and make large scale jewelry for your home. And I always knew about crystals because I was a jewelry designer, but I used them as color as fashion, I didn't connect to the meaning.
And then as you start going deeper and deeper, I realized that crystals are from the earth. [00:24:00] So they have a pulse, they have a vibration, they have a frequency. And I started tuning into that. And a lot of people would say, Oh, rose quartz will make you fall in love and bring you love.
And people would just think if they go on Etsy and order a rose quartz stone. These things would start to happen, I love Joe Dispenza's content and manifesting and creating and I started to understand that everything is about the intention that you place into it. So a crystal on its own is just a crystal, but if you use it as a deeper tool to connect to and resonate with.
What even of everything that we're talking about, it's the meaning and the symbol and February 10th is just a day on the calendar, but what does February 10th mean to me, how did that communicate to me. So it was the intention that I went with, whereas like the crystal. If you have a certain intention and you marry that.
Now you've created something new. Now there's a synergy and I realized that. It finally clicked that stuff can be more because I used to look at it like, what is this branding? What is this thing? What is that? And now I'm like, [00:25:00] it's about how it makes you feel. It is a badge of courage. It is something that you can look at.
It is something that is a visual reminder. I created visual reminders for all of the healing journey that I've been on. And we started using crystals as a tool and we started creating for the home, came up with this idea of a crystal grid, because you start looking up when you learn about crystals, a lot of people make grids,
I said, I need to take my knowledge and curate it for people and make it in a way that it's digestible and understandable and fashion forward with an aesthetic. So we created these crystal grids and I had, this was the first one that we made. It's a large scale. So flower of life is sacred geometry.
It's overlapping circles. So it's circles overlapping and you place different crystals. . I said, I want to have it as a fixed piece that can. Hang on your wall, so we have overlapping circles, which is a very beautiful geometry that creates a flower.
So you take of something and it becomes more. Now you put crystals. So we put quartz [00:26:00] in the center. Quartz is a clear stone. That's a supercharging energy. It has a vibration. Quartz powers computers and watches, so it obviously has a frequency that can be used by machinery or by yourself. So the quartz is in the middle to give strength to the other.
And now what I'm doing by mixing crystals is I'm creating a community of crystals. I'm bringing together different colors, different strengths, different vibrations together to create its own symphony and harmony. Because you can't isolate one sound, it has to be a synergy. So citrine is for joy and abundance and it just is like your sunshine stone.
It remembers you, it reminds you to shine. I love pyrite because I'm a jewelry designer and it's so sparkly. It's like fool's gold and pyrite is a very earthy mineral rich stone. So it's very good for grounding, very good for success. Black tourmaline. I put on the edges because black tourmaline is a negative energy filter.
It protects. So this is protecting the whole thing, and it wards off [00:27:00] negativity. It also absorbs E. M. F. So we all have our phones and computers everywhere. So they're great for your space as a filter. And then we have, rainbow fluorite, which is really good for anxiety and green is for the heart chakra and calming purple is for the third eye and intuition.
So it's just this synergy that each one alone is great. But when you put them together, it's like this. It's rainbow
Robyn: by the way, you can actually feel it by just even looking at it like it's
Ariana: sending out the signals. Yeah. So we wanted to create communities of crystals and I wanted to use crystals as a tool as just more than just.
A stone you place somewhere so it started organically and I started learning and getting deeper into stuff and so
Robyn: how did you just start digging in you're so
Ariana: versed on the, yeah, internet books. meeting healers, meeting people, speaking to people, listening to people.
When you meet someone that knows, they just listen, yeah.
Robyn: And also, what about the sacred geometry?
Ariana: Sacred geometry just means that you look at it in the [00:28:00] analogy of a yoga pose, right?
So I'm very into yoga practicing. So the poses. Are a vessel. So it's like a state. You could say sacred geometry. You could be in a down dog. You could be in a triangle. You could be in whatever you are, but it's a vehicle for your body to breathe, circulate, have the energy meridians flow. it allows things.
And if you look under a microscope, cells when, you see your nervous system and you're, you mitochondria, everything has it. A sacred geometry to it based on what's happening and vibrating. So sacred geometry occurs naturally in nature with water molecules with snowflakes.
Look at the pattern of snowflakes, you can find patterns. It's everywhere. So we call it sacred because there's something special about it. It's mystical. It's something that you almost can't put your finger on. But when you repeat it, there's power in numbers and strength in numbers. So like you could take a circle and it's a circle, but now you overlap all these circles and suddenly they're a flower.
You just created something.
Robyn: Wow. And actually when you do take a look, as you [00:29:00] said, even though, let's say you take a snowflake. You look at the structure of within it is beautiful. Yes. And so if you can then what you're doing and mirroring some of that for others with the power of crystals.
there's so much beautiful energy that comes from that. And then can you talk about how you are then from your knowledge, how that can then be integrated into someone's. Own energy system.
Ariana: so we have like different collections. We have like jewelry, home decor, sound healing, which I'll talk about after.
Yes. I can't wait yoga collection, I have our, sun salutation pose and then yoga poses and there's different systems in the yoga postures like backbending, heart opening balancing, rooting, like there's so many things and I started to really understand the chakra systems and their energy centers.
You can call it whatever you want. You don't have to attribute it to a specific source or religion. It's just, yourself. there's a color association with which eat chakra. There's, Different thoughts and different emotions with each [00:30:00] chakra, which I can go into and elaborate on, but I realized how it's the whole system and how impacted we are, so the color is visual, so it gave a yay to my design world because when you use certain colors, you're bringing in certain energy, certain patterns when you're bringing in certain energy.
Other patterns, they're symbols. So it's about how to have yourself be completely centered. And if you're tuned in enough to resonate with it and connect with it, and even if you're not, you just think it's really pretty and something about it just makes you feel good and you don't know why.
Robyn: That's right. And I think it's so interesting that we learn about our human body yet. we don't learn about. energy centers, unless you look for it but it's such an integral part of who we are, yet it's not something that we grew up knowing
Ariana: about.
So yoga has always also been like a really big outlet for me throughout the years I've been practicing for I don't know, 25, however many years, like a long time. And first I used to do gymnastics when I was young and I loved acrobatics. So first it was like, Oh, it's like acrobatics.
That's [00:31:00] cool. And it was more about the physical postures. And then as you get deeper into your practice, you start to realize it's about holding, it's about the meditation. It's about patience. It's a sign of life. And I was literally upside down in a yoga class looking around and being like, the aesthetic feels really 1970s, like a basement hippie, macrobiotic vibe.
how do I freshen this up to make it reflective? Because people were like, designing into the apparel and wanted to look more fashion forward, but no one was thinking about the space in which they practice. So we wanted these pieces that are so easy to hang up and your yoga mats portable, but you could take, it's on like a chain, the yoga pose hanging, you could move it and hang it wherever you practice yoga.
And even the crystal grids, when you practice yoga and you want to have balance, what do you need to do? Focus your eyes, gaze You need something to gaze at, to be able to hold the poses. So if you have something beautiful, It makes you think and, your practice just flows a little bit better.
But as far as crystal grids, our other best seller are the sunbursts. It's about bringing light and [00:32:00] sunshine and we cast this center. So it's like a jewelry approach to design.
We sculpted this in wax. We took all of the brass bars on our metal bench, soldered them together, created a casting piece and hand wrap each crystal and each crystal has a different color and energy. We offer them in different color ways, but I wanted to bring it's called the rainbow sunburst grid because I'm bringing a rainbow of colors and the sun.
And when you reflect light, you see a lot of different colors and you want to bring in those properties and colors and visuals. So if something like this is on your wall. It's beautiful. You can focus. So the people that just like home decor looks great. It's pretty. It's chic. It's nice. It has colors.
It has stones. It's on trend for people that understand deeper. You're getting really high quality. My dad sources all the crystals from amazing dealers and we, bless them in our office and clean the energy. It's just a reminder to shine and, have light and one of, the things that makes me keep going and resonates. The deepest is the feedback that we get the emails, the DMS of [00:33:00] people saying. I was going through this challenging time and this piece was on my wall and I would just look at it and it gave me hope and it made me feel good, someone emailed saying that they were going through chemotherapy treatments and they put one of our crystal grids on their wall and would look at them during the whole recovery and I didn't realize how the people that needed to find it found it and it was like, The way that people didn't understand that, I had understood healing and loss, but then I'm still just designing something that's wellness and on trend.
But that deeper message somehow. Yeah.
Robyn: And I feel and just having talked to you before, you get these downloads of ideas. Just like any creator and any artist. You are so in tune, and are able to receive that and then actually execute on it. And so to me you're receiving these ideas and then you're able to execute on it and they have such meaning.
Ariana: And it's also what am I looking for in the world? What message do I need? What hope do I need? So sometimes you think it's an echo chamber and it's just you, and then you suddenly realize that [00:34:00] more people Yes. That's
Robyn: right. And I'm sure everybody can hear from everything that you're talking about and how you're talking about it, the passion and the intention that you have in creating all of these pieces.
And so that reverberates to every person that ends up having one. that energy in itself is something because that's carried in each piece.
Ariana: Yeah. And for me it's always about resilience because I've had other struggles and challenges, the loss of my mother was a huge grief, but I've been through a lot of other that have rattled me and rocked me and been hard.
And I try to say how can I center and if people want to understand a little bit more, I can go into the chakras. knowing when we're out of alignment, I'll do it quickly.
So there's basically for each chakra, there's a color and there's a vibration.
So you can, look up, or even on our site, when you buy our chakra things, we give the information, but there's a visual color and a vibration, the vibration. I'll show you all our tuning forks and sound. Yeah, I know we're going to get into that. We [00:35:00] have our energy centers and our nervous system.
And one of the things that can stimulate the vagus nerve to have resonance and, get into a different state is sound and vibration. So just like. The way that, a really loud car screeching or a break, gives you the jitters, but then a really nice sound can keep you calm.
So we're in tune with sounds. So when you make a certain sound and a vibration the way that yoga has studied it, it goes to the specific energy center. Lam, Vam, Ram, Yam, Ham, Om. , when you say the L, La, it goes all the way down. And it reaches your root chakra. And if you're in tune enough, you can feel it.
If you just say, Ham, it's in your throat. Ha, the H sound is in your throat. You can self heal with these vibrations that you make with your, you don't need anything. You just tune in and you send energy to the place that needs to balance. I won't go into each sound for the area, but that's the concept.
And then there's a color visualization, color also has deep meaning. [00:36:00] So if you look at the root chakra, it's red. The root chakra is associated on a positive level with feeling stable, with feeling grounded, with feeling rooted, with feeling. community with feeling connections with feeling very stable financially secure, but when it's out of balance, you feel scarcity, you feel unrooted, you feel out of alignment, you're lonely, any of those attributes there's a positive attribute and negative attribute to each chakra, and when it's balanced, it's in line.
So if you color visualize the color red, if you say the vibration and you also just have emotional awareness to understand yourself, like we even have a little chakra game that you can ask questions to yourself or to others to see what's going on with those energy centers. You can balance it.
The next one is our sacral, which is the color orange and the sacral chakra orange is a color of joy and creativity and dreaming. So it's. Attributes that are positive are creativity, digestion, passion [00:37:00] femininity is, that's the area of creation and fertility, but on the other hand, it could be overindulgence, you're not having that creativity in your life, you're not moving like orange is a very passionate, right?
And creative color. So that needs to be, in alignment. Then your solar plexus is yellow, which is your self will your self confidence, your sunshine. So our posture says a lot about that chakra. If you sit all the time hunched you're a cloud, you're a cloud over your sunshine spot, and you're not allowing that to emanate and your energy is not coming out the way it needs to.
So the color yellow, okay. It's like sunshine and you could visualize it, but if you feel like you don't have self will, you don't have self confidence, you don't have self motivation, you don't have self esteem, all of that is something to work on to get to that other balanced place. Then your heart chakra is the color green.
green is associated with nature. So green is in the middle. of the color spectrum. So if your eyes don't have to do [00:38:00] any adjusting to see green, which is why your brain intakes it the quickest. So green is like the quickest thing to calm you down, looking at trees, grass, whatever. And it's your heart chakra.
So the positives are love, peace, calm, the negative attributes are grief. Negativity, hatred, lack of love, lack of self love, and, all of that. Then you go to your throat chakra, which is blue, and it's an expressive color. Blue is like the sky and the water and flow, right? So you use your voice.
Your voice is your tool of expression. So whether it's creative expression, linguistic expression, speaking your truth, speaking your voice, speaking what you need to.
your third eye is purple and your third eye is your inner knowing your intuition, your connection to yourself. If you don't trust yourself and you can't listen to your instincts or see within yourself, it's not. And purple is the color of royalty, which is like a very high level color. And it's also the deepest color of the [00:39:00] night, the stars and that deep, beautiful purple.
So that's your own intuition and seeing within yourself and knowing and then the top your crown is white and it's an angelic halo. And that's where. You separate that there's something greater than you and some connection, whether it's to the universe, whether it's to a higher being, whether it's to a God or whether it's just to humanity, It's something that is outside of you, but if you shine that light, you'll be receptive. And if any of those are blocked, they all can't flow. So you need to have top down, clear, root up, clear, and you start to center within yourself. We focus different crystals. we'll always say what chakra it's good for.
If you get a clear quartz or white or selenite or all of that, it's good for your crown. It's good for something mystical. It's good to connect for your spirituality, and we even have a chakra crystal grid with all of those colors on a flower of life base.
So you can have that system be complete.
Robyn: Oh my goodness. You just gave everyone such an amazing overview of everything. Thank you. And [00:40:00] you alluded to this before, but you've also combined this with some beautiful tools for sound healing.
Ariana: Yes.
Robyn: how did you become versed in that too?
Ariana: So I had visited A very close cousin of mine and she is psychotherapist. She's very immersed in therapies and . She focuses on trauma and she does drama therapy and acting out role play. And she does all kinds of art therapy and very out of the box things.
And she showed me when I went to visit her the tuning forks. And I love them. And. there's different tuning forks for different purposes, and she would clear her home and her space before she would see patients or have visitors to clear the energy because.
If you look at history sound in sacred spaces, like the bell of a church of a mosque the sound of a shofar in a synagogue, it moves energy and it calls people in and sound is so powerful that, you want to clear your space.
Ariana: So she taught me about. clearing your space in your home. And some people do it with smudging or [00:41:00] that, but she does it with vibration and sound to move energy out and allow this openness. So I learned about it from her. I was so fascinated. I went on their website and again, I'm just this out of the box kind of person.
I decided to reach out to the company and just be like, I'm so interested in. What you're doing and it's the scientist and his wife and they are the most inspirational people. I've probably ever met me and my dad went there and our jaw was just dropped the entire time. They're in the it's John and they are incredible people. And they were like. Why don't we partner? Why don't we collaborate? Why don't we bring this all together? And he is so knowledgeable and he's written books and I've learned so much from him, we made different sets.
Crystals and sound go well together, and he would say that we're all like an instrument and we need to be tuned, so he studied sound in a silent chamber, and he would hear the hum of his own nervous system because he was in this silent room, and he noticed that after a negative interaction on the [00:42:00] train, he would hear it buzzing, and he would have a good experience, he would come in and feel calm, and he said, how can I have a tool that will balance it out.
And he was a pianist musician. So he used music and sound to have sounds that your nervous system absorb. So these tuning forks were created. And so let's say then you align with planets. So we have a beautiful box and we call it attune to attune yourself. And we have a crystal. on a dish and a tuning fork that comes together.
So this is a ritual that uses sound. So we have different tuning forks to the different planets. Every planet has a frequency and a vibration. And people that are into astrology, like the moon means this, and Jupiter means that, and the earth. Earth means that. So Earth is grounding, the moon is like a kind of calming, dreaming feeling, and Jupiter is for abundance and going big, like manifesting and opening and it's like a big energy.
So they each have a different sound. We have different dishes, different shapes, [00:43:00] different icons, you hold it,
and you let the sound go through you. So we have those, and those are great tools to reset your nervous system, to help with anxiety, to uplift you. And then we have longer tuning forks, we have a few different sets. We have C and G. Which are I think John's favorite and we put amethyst crystal caps on the bottom of those and those look really nice.
And then this is my personal favorite is the Om tuning fork. Is the pulsation of the earth and in yoga. You start every practice with and I didn't know why because is the ultimate grounding sound. So this one, what you do is you hit it on your palm and it vibrates.
And we put a Herkimer diamond crystal, which is very strong at the bottom. And you put that crystal on you. The frequency is now vibrating on me. And I feel this sense of calm and ease. I put it on my third eye point. You use it like acupressure points, and you put it in different spots to bring that vibration and sound and healing.
Oh my goodness.
Robyn: just the idea of combining the crystals With sound, and with these tuning [00:44:00] forks, and the
Ariana: planets, I mean It's everything. all of it,
Robyn: and really, for anybody who happens to be anxious what you just showed with that tuning fork.
What a natural way, I'm not saying that cures everything, but what a It's a tool. It's a tool. It's a tool. It's a tool. I can see how I know many people, and even for myself in certain situations, if I had that at
Ariana: the ready. Yeah, it's great. Like sometimes I feel myself stressed or you get a phone call, you just want something that
Robyn: and I feel like that in addition to, taking a deep breath and all those things, but it's another tangible way. Of helping
They are beautiful.
And they are so meaningful. I've never seen anything like that.
Ariana: And a lot of people have seen the sound bowls, but you have to go somewhere to hear them. And the sound bowls are so expensive, or you can get like a little metal one.
These are more accessible and they're portable and you can take it anywhere. You've made them accessible. ,
Robyn: Even the size of them is so accessible. You can travel with those. You can keep them on,
Ariana: literally. They come in a box, so you take it with you.
Robyn: And what is your go to crystal? What do you [00:45:00] think everybody
Ariana: should have? I think that, sometimes I've been invited to do events or crystal readings and I'm not, a psychic or someone that does readings, but I work with people just to understand themselves.
And what I say is. If you take a look at all of this, what resonates with you? What are you most drawn to? So I'll put a table with bowls of crystals and be like, what is speaking to you? What do you like? And it's your first instinct because a lot of people, it's the same way with dating.
When you're like, write on paper what you want, but it's not really what actually will work. So you have to follow your instincts versus what it should Oh no, I'm Looking for this. So I therefore this is the crystal that is aligned with this. That's what I need where that sometimes doesn't work because sometimes your issue could be from something else.
That's so true. It's just, is that the right way to approach it versus look at all of this and tell me, and then I could see what is your block and people would pick crystals.
And I would just tell them what the crystal [00:46:00] means and they would know how to relate that to themselves. And that would resonate. So For me, I tend to be drawn to citrine, which happens to be my birthstone, but I keep coming back to it because I'm a big dreamer and I'm always trying to be hopeful.
And I did a lot of work on myself I was painfully shy, I had to work on myself to come out of my shell with having a business was the biggest struggle because you suddenly have to advocate for yourself.
So that was, very humbling. And then, when your kids start school, you meet all kinds of new people and new parents. And you really need that confidence and abundance. ,
and you just want to smile and I think it's like the sunshine stone and I want to do more and I think for me it reminds me of that
Robyn: well, and I think to what you said at the very beginning of our conversation is that all of these stones have energy, So that energy is what is calling to you and to your point, when someone looks at this table of crystals, it's like there's an energy that's calling to them. it's the whole thing. It's the color, but [00:47:00] then it has that.
Ariana: Frequency. Some people, yeah, would pick I put out, we have beautiful selenite bowls and selenite is a stone from Morocco that my dad sources and it has a really nice energy that connects with Selene, the moon goddess.
And it, has this moonlight glow to it and it recharges crystals. So , we'll present if I've been invited to like corporate events or whatever. And we put out these bowls of crystals and let everyone pick one. It looks like a candy shop. It's like so. Visually, and , so just to name a few of the stones that we pick, which I described in the Crystal Grids some people would pick black tourmaline, and I'd be like, is there negativity around you?
Do you feel like you need protection? , what is going on? And then somebody would pick rose quartz and I'll be like, you need calm, peace, love, light, harmony and rose quartz for me is a very powerful stone because it's soft, but it has the strength of quartz.
And if you look at the chakra centers that we spoke about, how do you make pink? You mix red and white. Red is the bottom and it's the root and white is the crown. So that is the combination [00:48:00] and rose quartz is with the heart. It brings you right back to your center when you mix those two colors.
Robyn: I never thought of it that way.
I love that. Now I'm going to look at my rose quartz differently. And listen, I'm all about the center as seeking center.
Ariana: So I feel like that needs to be our crystal. Yeah.
Robyn: That's really cool.
I sleep with crystals under my pillow.
Is there a certain crystal that you would suggest? that will help for a better night's sleep,
Ariana: yeah, be something that calms you down. Water crystals come to mind, like the aquamarine and the amazonite and the soft flowy.
crystals and then like to tune into your dreams amethyst is a very good one for sleep because it removes anxiety and it promotes dreams amethyst is that inner seeing dreaming crystal so that's a nice one
Robyn: And what do you hope that those listening right now take away to better tune in to themselves on a daily
Ariana: basis?
I think that you need to be awake. A lot of people are sleeping through their [00:49:00] lives. And I don't mean actually sleeping. You go through the motions, you go through routine. But, sometimes you gotta break out of something. Sometimes you have to listen to the signs and notice things.
And be your best self. And a lot of people just want, comfort and routine. Sometimes you have to have that curiosity and that zest and for me a lot of that happened because of negative and very hard circumstances. I want people to have a wake up call when things are good for them.
I don't want somebody to wait for someone to get sick or to have a problem or to have whatever to really own up to your life like. This is your chance embrace it. That's
Robyn: so true.
Yeah you hope someone can start to wake up earlier i love what you said I think the reason we have these conversations is number one, to help people heal themselves and so that they can be fully aware of all that's available to them to help them feel more fulfilled and more joyful before you hit that tragedy or
Ariana: [00:50:00] that bottom moment.
Yeah.
Robyn: And I feel like what you're doing. On a daily basis is creating these tools and making them accessible. That's the thing. Everything that you talked about today is so accessible. Nothing is so out of reach for somebody. Which is why I know we carry them on theseekingcenter. com. I know they're
Ariana: available all over.
We handcraft each piece and it's sample makers that are sisters. It's a really family based company where we're making everything with love , we have beautiful packaging. We ship everything out and we send it with that positive intention that whoever receives it, like we try to imagine who's that person opening the box?
How are they going to feel when they open it? Let's give them more meaning cards or info cards. And I hope that whoever's listening knows that whatever we're doing we try to make the cost something attainable. We try to make it at an accessible price point, even though we're sourcing the best crystals and hand making everything.
Robyn: will say I am so impressed with that variety and that there [00:51:00] really are very accessible gifts, like the grids you talked about today, very
Ariana: accessible. . Yeah, and the good thing is also we are a design service company as well, even though we have our brand.
So if someone wants something custom or a project you can come to us and we'll work with you. If you're installing something in a hotel lobby, we can make a crystal piece or we can put our stuff together. So I like to think that anything is possible. So if someone listening is understanding the framework, something I wanted to get into is how to be more in hospitality, like maybe in hotel rooms or maybe in restaurants or maybe in places that it wouldn't be just at home,
and also the content, I'm still figuring out how to merge. All of the content with the products and maybe it's more events. Maybe it's more speaking. I don't know, but I think when you're out there, you see what resonates. Definitely.
Robyn: And I know that's why we've been connected. Yeah. We both have that intention of amplifying all of this information and these resources to as many people as possible because that is what is going to [00:52:00] help you. And I think it's important for us to be able to raise the vibration of this world. Of course, and help us all get more centered and really stay on our souls path.
Ariana: And whether we like it or not because we design when things are more beautiful, you just are more drawn to them. mean
Robyn: what you said I have so many lease crystals around my house. And I do have black tourmaline in every room. However, that idea of being able to look at all of them designed so beautifully on my
Ariana: walls.
That
Robyn: is just so smart. And It allows that energy from those crystals to be that visual reminder you talked about in an even more powerful and beautiful way. Yeah. So thank you for all that you're doing. I am looking forward to all that's to come and to working together more in the future.
Yes.
Ariana: Yes.
Robyn: you are such a creator and such a resource for all of us. and thank you for taking a tragedy and turning it into such a beautiful part of your life, and I know your mom is reflected in the name of your [00:53:00] brand. And you are absolutely honoring her legacy every single day.
So thank you. Thank you. And thanks to her too. Yes. we carry many of Ariana's products on the seeking center. com. And you can also visit Ariana Ost.
Ariana: A-R-I-A-N-A
Robyn: os t.com for their complete collection. You can also follow Ariana and Instagram at Ariana Ost and y thank you, Ariana. Thank you.